Matt Pfeffer

Lawyer, finance dork, music snob, raconteur.

[Dan McLaughlin @baseballcrank]

An extremely reliable test of whether you're an honest, sane, & decent human being is whether you agree with this. If you don't, you're not.

[John Cochrane @JohnHCochrane]

Growth is not a strategy. Growth is what happens when free people are left alone to pursue their desires, constrained by respect for others property and liberty. I don’t live to fulfill some dreamers coercive “strategy”

[Mor Edge Insight @MorEdge_Insight]

Even Arab leaders admit it.

Everyone is sharing the Bill Clinton clip where he describes how Yasser Arafat rejected a generous peace offer at Camp David that would have given the Palestinians a state on 96 percent of the West Bank, land swaps, and a capital in East Jerusalem. Clinton says Arafat lied to him and that the Palestinian leadership never actually wanted a two-state solution. They wanted to destroy Israel. It’s a video often shared by people like @VividProwess, and it’s an important one for people to see.

Of course, critics immediately dismiss it. They claim Clinton is biased or he’s pro-Israel. They’ll tell you that you cannot trust the American perspective.

Ok, so let us set that aside.

Now watch this.

In this powerful interview, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a major Arab leader who was directly involved in negotiations, says exactly the same thing from the Arab side. He talks about the Mena House Conference in Cairo as well as the Camp David negotiations of 1978. All failed because of the Palestinians repeatedly rejecting any offer. The Oslo accords were signed but because Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad were not involved, they derailed the accords and any chance for peace by initiating 4 years of terrorist suicide attacks in Israel. Then came the second Camp David negotiations in 2000 which Arafat agreed to, then rejected and instead initiated the Second Intifada.

Mubarak explains how the Palestinians refused to even participate in the Mena House conference of 1977. He describes repeated opportunities they were given, including a detailed document that called for Israeli withdrawal from the Samaria, Judea and Gaza, security arrangements during a transitional period, and other major concessions. The Israelis were willing to negotiate on difficult issues like who would control security. The Palestinians, according to Mubarak, kept saying no and wasting chance after chance.

He speaks with clear frustration about how for decades the Palestinian side has rejected peace initiatives and realistic compromises.

The video further shows footage from the PLO representative in 1977, as well as old footage of Egyptian president Sadat who was involved in the Mena House and first Camp David negotiations of 1978.

This perhaps is far more impactful than Clinton’s account because it is not a Western or Israeli voice. It is prominent Arab leaders who lived the negotiations, who represented the broader Arab world, and who had zero incentive to defend Israel.

When leaders from both sides of the table describe the same pattern of Palestinian rejectionism and violence, it becomes much harder to dismiss as bias.

The pattern is clear across decades and across different voices… generous offers, repeated refusals, and continued demands for everything while giving nothing in return.

This is not ancient history. It is the core reason the conflict continues today.

If you value the truth, please share.

[Billy Binion @billybinion]

Six years ago. This is when the public health apparatus lost its credibility. We were told it was too dangerous for kids to go to school, but not too dangerous for thousands of people to gather for the “right” cause. Feels like a fever dream.

[Matt Pfeffer @matjen1]

@ptuomov @CliffordAsness Great thoughts per usual. Thank you. 👊

[Tom Holden @t_holden]

It's funny that the people saying European living standards have remained comparable to US ones are in the US (Krugman, Dube), while those saying the opposite are in Europe (Garicano, Aghion, Bergeaud).
European social democracy is a romantic ideal to the American left. They don't want to admit it's failing. Unfortunately, if you live here, you can't help but notice the cracks, even through rose tinted glasses.

[Hamas Atrocities @HamasAtrocities]

"Are there any Palestinian Muslims inside Palestine advocating for peace?"

An ex-quaker searched far and wide for Palestinians who want and believe in coexistence with Israel.
Here's what he found!

[Saul Sadka @Saul_Sadka]

This was Hamas’s own PR: an 8-year-old hostage begging for her life. But they still won the PR battle, with the full support of Western media. If you are wondering why that is, you don’t know much about Jew-hate.

[Matt Pfeffer @matjen1]

@alexolegimas @ptuomov Absolutely. I've had a trainer 1-3x/wk for 15 years. It's not because I don't know my way around a gym. It's because I now have $$ skin in the game and a relationship that gets me to the gym and guarantees a good workout.

[Matt Pfeffer @matjen1]

@AndySwan Definitely more of a John Maynard Keynes concept.

[Matt Pfeffer @matjen1]

@CliffordAsness Amen. I have 12 years worth of scars defending $QSPIX and $QLEIX on Bogleheads to prove it!!!

[Matt Pfeffer @matjen1]

@CptAllenHistory @PhilaEnergyGal It feels to me like everyone just agreed to pin literally everything on the Nazis as a way to move forward. Nazi's are Evil and everyone else a different level of victim.

[Peter Hull @instrumenthull]

you idiot. You fucking moron. i=e^(i*pi/2) so i^i = e^((i^2)pi/2)=exp(-pi/2). Two steps. Easy.

[Matt Pfeffer @matjen1]

@SowingAlphaSeed Lovely work. 👍

[Matt Pfeffer @matjen1]

This is so revealing. Antizionism = Antisemitism and is a hate movement funded by Qatar and led by the "intelligentsia" the arts and the cretins.

[Strxwmxn @strxwmxn]

WTF Matt she didn’t even mention Israel

[Patrick OShaughnessy @patrick_oshag]

Darren on the 20-year plan he argues foreign actors used to co-opt American universities and shift Western opinion on Israel:

"The design to co-opt American universities can be traced to a single hotel room in Philadelphia by the FBI.

Where, after the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority with Arafat is brought in, and Hamas is considered left out in the cold.

They laid out in this single conversation, that the FBI has transcripts of, their plan to co-opt universities and university teaching, for the express purposes of changing Western opinion over the course of 20 years.

They had a 20-year plan, and it totally worked.

To make it seem like it was this natural formation out of the ether, through moral will, is to dumb down the sophistication of what the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas set out to do.

It was done with intent. It was by design."

[Matt Pfeffer @matjen1]

@ptuomov Just reviewed my portfolio and what do you know. Vanguard Extended Duration Treasury Index Fund (EDV) comprises 14.325% of my admittedly smallish (for typical person my age) fixed income.

[Logan Dobson @LoganDobson]

It’s true; in order to keep weight off with GLP-1s you have to keep taking them, as opposed to diet and exercise, which you only have to do once

[Jacob Ben-David Linker 🇺🇸🕎🇺🇸✡️🇺🇸🕎🇺🇸 @JacobALinker]

J Street are idiots who cheered on Obama throwing out the Bush-Sharon framework on restricting settlement growth - paving the way for more rapid settlement growth.

They’re dumb, sanctimonious, counterproductive, and tone deaf.

[Matt Pfeffer @matjen1]

@SeanTrende A wonderful piece and obviously a special family.