We Are All Victims Of Our Leaders

We Are All Victims Of Our Leaders

By

Leonard Zwelling

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/opinion/israel-gaza-netanyahu.html

As usual, Tom Friedman and I are thinking alike as the attached shows.

His most recent column is about how, both in Israel and In the United States, autocratic leaders are taking their countries in disastrous directions for the purpose of self-preservation and self-enrichment. He also notes that the same thing is true of the Palestinians in Gaza and I am going to add that the same thing is true of the leadership of MD Anderson in Houston. Misguided and self-serving leadership is taking those they lead off a cliff.

Let’s start close to home.

In previous blogs, I have severely criticized the Trump Administration’s policies related to the actions of DOGE, especially the foolish dismissal of many federal employees including those at the NIH trying to advance medical science. I have also criticized the on-again, off-again tariff announcements as making it impossible for American businesses, big and small, to plan for the future. The courts seem to agree.  Trump has over-stepped again.

The push-back I usually get from Trump supporters is that I haven’t given Trump enough time to make life better for Americans. I do not need to wait to see a megalomaniac in action making crypto-deals to get rich while making the plight of most Americans worse with higher prices at the grocery store and little in tax relief for the middle class. If we see any more of Trump’s “improvements,” we will have no country left. Furthermore, the attack on Harvard, where the punishment (no grant money, no foreign students) doesn’t fit the crime (poor control of antisemitism), has blossomed into an attack on free speech, free universities, and American leadership in academics. Trump is bad for America and for American leadership in the world.

And let us not forget Trump’s immigration policies that are making it harder for people who want to come here legally. Many of those people are like your grandparents and mine. If Trump thinks he can beat China which has four times the number of people we have by keeping those who want to contribute out, he is sadly mistaken. In fact, his immigration policies are working against his goal of making America great again. How foolish is that!

Across the water in Israel, as Friedman notes, the Israeli population grows more and more unhappy with the control of Prime Minister Netanyahu by the religious zealots and settlers of the extreme right wing. Most Israelis want peace and the remaining hostages back. Bibi wants war so he can stay in his job and out of jail. Fortunately, there must be new elections in 2026, but that is no guarantee that the very active right wing will lose control of the Knesset. Israel, once a bastion of liberal socialism, has become the seat of Biblical lunatics who, in fact, want the land “from the river to the sea” for themselves and the Arabs expelled. This is not good for Israel, but then we come to the Arab leadership.

Much is being made of the “innocent victims” of Israeli bombing in Gaza, but those innocents elected Hamas to be their leaders and have never protested the control Hamas had over life in Gaza. But Hamas is equally to blame. The best they are going to get out of their murderous incursion into Israel on October 7, 2023 is what they had that day, control of Gaza and a cease fire. Only now, Gaza is in ruins. Hamas also fits the bill as having poor leadership that has severely penalized the Palestinian people of Gaza to the point of starvation. They are the victims of the leadership they chose, just as are the Israelis and the Americans.

Finally, at MD Anderson, those being led by Peter Pisters had no say in his appointment, but when he was chosen by the Board of Regents, there was little protest. The fact that he had little meaningful academic leadership credentials, nor any conventional research experience didn’t seem to bother anyone back then. In essence, he was the Anti-Ron and that was enough to get him the job.

Well, that turned out to be wrong. As a former faculty leader, I have a great deal of interest in the progress MD Anderson is making. I don’t see it. I have no idea what the leadership’s vision is which was clear for the prior four presidents. Dr. Pisters seems to pursue accolades from non-knowledgeable sources like magazines and growth for the sake of growing. There is no world in which MD Anderson needs 26,000 employees, many of whom don’t come to work anymore. Talk about a huge fixed cost! And what about air-conditioning the almost empty central campus “Boat” building.

If MD Anderson is behind in its margin, look no further than the rampant growth of administration paralleled by the exponential growth in leadership salaries.

These are just four examples of poor leadership harming the people being led. One can hope that in the United States and Israel, the persistence of democracy and freedom (so far) despite the leadership’s attempts to eradicate it, will eventually change that leadership.

Among the Palestinians, I see little hope for new leadership in Gaza or the West Bank and thus see little hope for the Arabs of the region. And it was just announced that Israel is expanding the West Bank settlements again.

At MD Anderson, the only vestige of hope I see is the news recently reported in this space that Dr. Pisters is seeking employment elsewhere. Let’s hope his search is fruitful.