Paging Dr. Peanut Butter
With transatlantic practice sidelined by COVID-19, MD from Modi’in reinvents himself
Life threw Jason Cohen lemons, so he decided to make… peanut butter.
Four months ago, the 45-year-old US-born anesthesiologist and pain-management specialist was riding high with a transatlantic medical consultancy company based in his home in Modi’in and with his offices in New York and New Jersey.
A graduate of Tel Aviv University’s School of Medicine, Cohen spent the first four years after making aliyah in 2011 traveling every other week to the US. But by 2015, wanting to complete the transition to being a full-time Israeli, Cohen launched his business that provides medical-record reviews for American insurance companies and law firms.
The practice thrived... until March and the onset of coronavirus, drastically choking off business and leaving Cohen, a married father of four, time on his hands and a family to provide for.
At the beginning of the home sequester, one of things he began pondering was the lack in Israel of quality, healthy peanut butter, one of his favorite snacks.
“Through both my training as a physician and my own health-conscious interests, I know that peanuts are an extremely healthy source of good nutrition, good carbohydrates and good fat,” Cohen said, adding that “nutrition begins with nuts.”
Doing some online research, he discovered that 99% of the peanuts imported to Israel and sold in local nut shops were from China.
“The health standards there are horrible, and the soil is full of numerous toxins, including nicotine,” Cohen said, adding that what he learned about locally produced peanut butter was even more alarming.
“I contacted and met with one of the largest nut importers in the country,” he said. “He asked, ‘Why do you want to make peanut butter? We make peanut butter.’ He pulled out five or six different jars, with this reconstituted product with two inches of oil on top and chalky butter at the bottom – the terrible stuff you
“Joe Biden believes strongly in keeping your differences as far as possible between friends, behind doors, maintaining as little distance in public as possible,” he said in a webinar organized by a pro-Israel Democratic Party group, Democratic Majority for Israel.
Blinken reiterated Biden’s commitment to resuming assistance to the Palestinians, adding that he would abide by congressional restrictions conditioning much of the aid on the Palestinian Authority ending payments to Palestinians who have killed or wounded Americans and Israelis. He repeated Biden’s position that he would not condition aid to Israel.
“He is resolutely opposed to it,” Blinken said. “He would not tie military assistance to Israel to any political decisions it makes, full stop.”
Last month, he said Biden “would not tie military assistance to Israel to things like annexation or other decisions by the Israeli government with which we might disagree.”
Another long-time Biden associate is Jake Sullivan. He was instrumental in shaping the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. In an op-ed for NowThis News in January, Sullivan defended the agreement.
“Under the deal, Iran’s nuclear program was in a box, it was frozen,” he wrote. “Under the deal, there were no rocket attacks killing Americans in Iraq… Today, Iran is attacking shipping in the Gulf and threatening the rest of the region.”
Sullivan has gone a long way with Biden and Hillary Clinton. He advised Clinton during her 2008 primary bid and later Obama in his general-election bid. When Clinton was appointed secretary of state, Sullivan served as her deputy chief of staff and director of policy planning. When Clinton left the administration during Obama’s second term, he served as Biden’s top security aide. In 2016, he again advised Clinton during her presidential campaign.
Sullivan and two other former officials, ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro and under secretary of state Wendy Sherman, are playing a role in shaping the Democratic Party’s foreign policy platform. They were appointed in January
by Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez.
Last week, the committee advanced a draft of the foreign policy chapter, which expresses “ironclad” commitment to maintain military assistance to Israel while opposing the annexation of parts of the West Bank. It was approved by unanimous consent. A final vote on the entire platform is expected on July 27.
The draft reiterates the US commitment to maintaining a “qualitative military edge” as a part of the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Additionally, it supports a negotiated two-state solution “that ensures Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state with recognized borders and upholds the right of Palestinians to live in freedom and security in a viable state of their own.”
The document also notes the party’s opposition to “any unilateral steps by either side – including annexation – that undermine prospects for two states.”
“We believe that while Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations, it should remain the capital of Israel, an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths,” it reads. “Democrats will restore US-Palestinian diplomatic ties and critical assistance to the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza, consistent with US law.”
Additionally, it states that the party opposes any effort “to unfairly single out and delegitimize Israel, including at the United Nations or through the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement [BDS], while protecting the Constitutional right of our citizens to free speech.”
Michele Flournoy, who served as under secretary of defense for policy in the Obama administration, is also close with Biden circles, and Washington think-tankers mention her name as a possible secretary of defense if Biden gets elected.
“The next five years will be pivotal for US national security,” Flournoy wrote in an op-ed that she co-authored last month for the Defense One website.
“The coronavirus pandemic lays bare the fragility of our health security,” she wrote. “Climate change threatens generations of Americans. We must build a new American foreign policy fitted to the global challenges we face.”
Jonathan Schanzer is a senior vice president at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank in Washington. If Biden is elected, he would focus on domestic affairs, with American politics likely still contentious and in disarray, along with a pandemic that may still linger, he told The Jerusalem Post.
“Biden would thus resemble Obama or [former president] George W. Bush, who were intent upon addressing challenges at home,” he said. “But with Obama and Bush, challenges abroad soon took precedence. It was the contours of those challenges – 9/11, the Arab Spring, the Iran nuclear program – that ultimately drove their policy responses. Biden should brace for a similar disruption.”
China and Iran will lead the schedule on foreign policy, Schanzer said.
“Recently, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has dominated headlines, suggesting that it could be a major issue in a future Biden presidency,” he said. “But this issue is far less compelling when compared to the aggressive rise of China and the specter of a nuclear Iran. From the perspective of national security, it simply does not have the same urgency.”
Currently, there are debates within the Biden camp between centrist and progressive advisers, Schanzer said.
“The end result of these debates could ultimately determine Biden’s Iran policy, particularly whether to reenter the deeply flawed 2015 nuclear deal or find another path,” he said. “Another debate between isolationists and globalists is also taking place. It is probably too soon to know the outcome of these debates.”
FDD scholars have had the opportunity to engage with advisers within the Biden camp on a range of national security issues, Schanzer said, adding: “Thus far, those discussions have been heartening.” •