This past week Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Kadima electoral list suffered two major setbacks. Taken together, the blows present the Likud with its first realistic chance to make a significant dent in public support for Kadima and to move much of that support to the Likud.

The first blow came with MK Binyamin Netanyahu's election as Likud leader on Monday. Netanyahu's victory cleared the way for the Likud to finally enter the general elections race. Before his election, Kadima had the political field to itself. If the Likud is able to unify behind Netanyahu, and if Netanyahu runs a strong and competent campaign, we are in for an extremely competitive electoral season.

The second hit was, of course, the mild stroke that Sharon suffered, which landed him in the hospital on Sunday evening. Sharon's health problems, which his stroke and subsequent hospitalization brought dramatically to the public's attention, dealt a serious blow to Kadima because now the issue of Sharon's medical condition will likely become a central issue in the campaign.

While a political leader's health is always an issue for his party, for Sharon and Kadima the matter is of crucial importance. This is so because in point of fact, Kadima is not a political party at all. It is merely a list of unpopular politicians who stand behind the enormously popular Ariel Sharon.

The results of the Likud primaries pit the two titans of Israeli politics against one another for the third time in five years. Indeed, it can be said that the competition between Netanyahu and Sharon has been the only real political contest in Israel since the downfall of Ehud Barak's government with the start of the Palestinian terror war in September 2000. Sharon won the first two rounds in 2000 and 2002.

By conspiring with Shimon Peres in 2000 to prevent the holding of general elections, Sharon effectively barred Netanyahu from running for office - thus paving his own path to succeed Barak while preventing the collapse of the political Left at the polls.

In November 2002, by padding the Likud's voter rolls with kibbutz members and refugees from the South Lebanon Army, and with the support of the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, Sharon defeated Netanyahu in the Likud primaries. Although he had the advantage of incumbency, Sharon's victory was still remarkable in light of the fact that the party's rank and file supported him even though he had already abandoned the party platform by publicly supporting Palestinian statehood.

According to the polls, the Likud has absolutely no chance of winning the elections. And yet, to discern the Likud's real position as it enters the general elections race, we must ask a pivotal question: What is the basis for the wide public support for Kadima - a party that places among its leaders such despised political figures as Shimon Peres, Ehud Olmert, Haim Ramon and Dalia Itzik?

Kadima has two main sources of public support. First, with his strongman image, Sharon has convinced wide swathes of the public that he and he alone can ensure the security of Israel's citizenry. In so convincing the populace, Sharon has divested the Likud of its greatest asset: its reputation for being the political party best equipped to secure Israel's national security.

The second reason that Kadima is polling so well is Sharon himself. Sharon's many supporters, who are currently giving Kadima between 32-42 Knesset seats in opinion polls, are undaunted by the criminal investigations surrounding Sharon and his sons. They couldn't care less that his strong-armed political tactics make a mockery of Israel's democratic processes.

Sharon's supporters are moved by the sense that Sharon can get things done.

Sharon said that by the end of 2005 there wouldn't be one Jew left in Gaza and by golly, there isn't one Jew in Gaza today. Obviously Sharon's supporters do not care about the Israelis living in Judea and Samaria - tens of thousands of whom will likely be expelled if Sharon is reelected.

His supporters are non-ideological voters who simply trust Sharon's image as an accomplished leader who grabs the reins of power and rides on. For these voters, the status of Sharon's health is likely to be of critical importance.

During his hospitalization, Sharon's aides fed the public a steady diet of announcements of phone calls to his room at Hadassah Medical Center from US President George W. Bush and other world leaders, all wishing Sharon well.

To a degree, this spin, which emphasized Sharon's international popularity while making light of his serious medical problem, is very much in line with Sharon's governing philosophy as it relates to Israel's international and strategic position.

Since he took office, Sharon and his advisers have portrayed the status of Israel's relations with the US as one of unprecedented harmony. On a superficial level, this is in fact the case. But this surface tranquility masks its problematic cause. The appearance of smooth sailing in Israel's relations with Washington is the result of the unprecedented weakness of Israel's position in Washington.

This week Ma'ariv reported that IDF commanders are becoming increasingly disturbed by the Bush administration's meddling in the minutiae of the operation of Israel's passages with Gaza. The State Department consistently brushes off Israel's growing security concerns and intervenes on the Palestinians' behalf. This American interference not only constitutes a political blow to Israel's sovereignty, it also manifests a military blow to Israel's national security.
 

But there is nothing new here. Since taking office five years ago, Sharon has received Washington's support - such as it is - by abandoning Israel's national interests every time that they are challenged by the institutionally anti-Israel State Department. In every single dispute that has arisen over the past five years - from the Mitchell Report in 2001 to the road map in 2003 to the passages agreement Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice rammed down our throats last month - Sharon has abandoned Israel's national security interests at every turn in exchange for public declarations of support for him personally by central Bush administration figures.

Sharon has succeeded in the domestic political arena by presenting the support he has received on a personal level to the public as if it were a national achievement. Israelis have been duped into believing that the trust Sharon demands of them has actually conferred some advantage on the nation when in fact, Israel has never been weaker than it has become under his leadership.

And as with the Americans, so too with the Palestinians. Sharon's success in basing his political fortunes on consolidating his image as a strongman has made it impossible for anyone to impugn his withdrawal from Gaza in spite of the fact that it has been a colossal disaster for Israel's national security. The Kassam missiles that now fall on Ashkelon meet with what can effectively be considered no Israeli response. The seeding of al-Qaida cells in Gaza has been strenuously ignored. And the Hamas takeover of key Palestinian institutions has been greeted by yawns all around.

Public sentiment, which Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been instrumental in directing, is marked by defeatism. As recently noted by Daniel Pipes, in a speech before the leftist Israel Policy Forum in New York last June, Olmert described the sentiment of the Israeli public thus: "We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies."

The thinking behind this stunning statement and the public malaise it describes apparently is based on the view that since Sharon is a strongman and he's preaching surrender, it goes without saying that the public ought to behave in a cowardly and defeatist manner. This psychology goes a long way towards explaining the results of a Truman Institute poll published this week which found that half of Israelis support negotiating with Hamas.

Again, it should be emphasized that defeatism as a national strategy has worked for Sharon to date because the public trusts him.

In its election campaign, the Likud must focus its attacks on exposing the image of strength that Sharon and his political advisers have sold the public for the lie it is. For the sad truth is that during Sharon's tenure Israel's international standing has sunk to previously unknown depths. From a tactical threat at the beginning of Sharon's premiership, in the aftermath of the withdrawal from Gaza, Palestinian terror has morphed into an existential challenge for Israel.

AS WELL, the Likud must make Sharon's health a central issue in these elections. From the contradictory reports on the cause and consequences of his mild stroke this week, it is impossible to know what his health status actually is. But it is obviously far from satisfactory. The doctors at Hadassah claimed that his stroke did not increase the likelihood that Sharon will suffer from future strokes. But according to New York-based neurosurgeon Dr. David Poulad, "this is simply untrue."

The fact of the matter is that Sharon's stroke indicates that there is a problem with his blood flow and such a problem constitutes a serious medical condition.

According to a number of reports, Sharon's stroke was caused by a blood clot in his heart. If this is correct it indicates that Sharon suffers from an irregular heartbeat. Again, according to Poulad, "Sharon's apparent heart condition increases the risk of future strokes as well as a host of other problems. If his heartbeat is irregular then he can suffer from blood clots anywhere in his body. The anti-coagulant medications that he was placed on during his hospitalization can themselves cause a whole host of additional problems, such as hemorrhaging."

People who have suffered mild strokes and are medicated with anti-coagulants do not generally have long or healthy life expectancies, Poulad concludes. Given that Poulad himself can only draw his conclusions from the fragmentary information made available to the public this week, he cautions that his views may very well be alarmist.

And yet, given that Sharon is basing his entire campaign - as he has his entire tenure in office - on the public's faith in him personally, the public must be provided with a clear understanding of how long he can be expected to continue functioning at his current level. The Likud must demand that Sharon's medical records be made public immediately.

In recasting the political map around his own personality, Sharon has demonstrated a level of political artistry the likes of which Israel has never seen before. There can be no doubt that he is a most formidable political foe. But he is not invincible.

If the Likud builds its political campaign on a two-pronged strategy of demonstrating the emptiness and failure of Sharon's strategic moves and underscoring Sharon's health problems - while positioning itself just to the right of the center of Israel's political spectrum - the Likud will succeed in hitting Sharon at his weak points while building on its own strengths.

John Bolton, America's ambassador to the United Nations, may very well be Israel's greatest friend in the US government. Last Sunday, in a glittering ballroom at a New York hotel, Bolton gave the keynote speech at the Zionist Organization of America's annual dinner.

Bolton's address was refreshingly blunt. He pulled no punches in his criticism of the UN and its endemic anti-Semitism. Bolton allowed that the election of Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Gillerman, to the post of one of 15 vice presidents of the General Assembly and the passage of Israel's resolution to establish an official UN Holocaust Memorial Day are "positive steps." But at the same time, he stipulated that "to say that Israel can be said to be treated as a normal nation at the UN would be a statement of fantasy."

Bolton noted with evident disgust the fact that remarks by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling for Israel to be wiped off the map have drawn "almost no attention at the UN." They have been met with inaction in spite of the fact that "this is a president of a government that has for nearly 20 years been pursuing a strategic policy of trying to acquire nuclear weapons." Bolton emphasized that the Iranian nuclear program threatens not only Israel, but all the nations of the region and may eventually threaten the US itself.

The American ambassador discussed at length an anti-Israel event that took place at UN Headquarters on November 29 which did not receive coverage by the Hebrew media and was ignored by the Foreign Ministry. On that day, as on every anniversary of the 1947 UN vote recommending the partition of the British Mandate in the Land of Israel, the UN sponsored an official Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

This year, law professor Anne Bayevsky, who in recent years has heroically taken it upon herself to expose the UN's institutional anti-Semitism, managed to photograph the event in which UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the presidents of the General Assembly and the Security Council participated. The three UN leaders sat on a stage against the backdrop of a map of the Middle East in which Israel was mysteriously replaced by a country called "Palestine."

Not one of the UN leaders, or any of the other participants in the event, saw fit to protest the fact that Israel had been literally "wiped off" this official UN map.

According to Bolton, "I think we need to use this example, this piece of evidence about a fundamental flaw within the UN itself. This is not simply a mistake that the three men made not speaking about the map. They didn't speak about the map because they didn't see anything unusual. And in fact there isn't anything unusual about it in the context of the UN. We need to take this instance and go beyond what our normal reaction might be - to slam the people involved for not criticizing the map, for not walking out. We need to say this is a pivot point to change the culture at the UN."

As an Israeli, listening to Bolton I could not help feeling a deep sense of shame. True, it is exhilarating to know that there is an American ambassador at Turtle Bay who is going out of his way to defend Israel's rights. But I couldn't help wondering where Israel's UN ambassador and Foreign Ministry fit into this story.

It seems that since he was elected vice president of the General Assembly, Ambassador Gillerman has spent an inordinate amount of his time praising Kofi Annan for the crumbs he throws in Israel's direction whenever he comes under pressure from the US Congress to reform the endemically corrupt UN.

And truly, one has to wonder, what purpose other than irony is served by having an official UN Holocaust Memorial Day? Every day the UN busies itself facilitating a second Holocaust by advancing its agenda of delegitimizing Israel's right to exist in every UN body except the Security Council where Israel is protected by the US veto.

It is a source of embarrassment that the only reason the public became aware of the UN's literal erasure of Israel from its official map is because of the subterfuge of Bayevsky - a private citizen and human rights activist who managed to smuggle a digital camera into the hall where the event took place.

Where was Israel's delegation when the UN officials were organizing this event and printing up this map? Where was Israel's delegation when the map was displayed? Where was Israel's delegation when Bayevsky was working alone to show the world what the UN budget is being used to finance? And why is the fact that the UN used a map with Israel wiped away not being staunchly and resolutely condemned on the Foreign Ministry's Web site or even mentioned there? Why are the ZOA's Web site and Bayevsky's UN Watch Web site the only sites that posted word of the outrage?

WHAT IS prominently displayed on the Foreign Ministry's Web site is a report on last week's vote by the Diplomatic Conference of all state parties to the Geneva Conventions that will pave the way for Magen David Adom to finally become a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Society. According to a statement by Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom posted on the Web site, the vote "reflects Israel's improved international standing in recent years…. This is yet another achievement for Israel's diplomacy, joining a long list of other successes in recent months."

Sadly, as in the case of Israel's treatment at the UN, what we see here is yet another example of Israeli diplomats mistaking spit for raindrops.

The agreement that Israel reached with the International Red Cross is not an achievement but a travesty. Israel's dispute with the organization was a dispute over symbols. For 58 years Israel has justifiably demanded that the Red Cross recognize the red Star of David - long the national symbol of the Jewish people - as a symbol equal in legitimacy to the cross and the crescent. But the organization's vote did not recognize its equality. Rather, the symbol of the Jewish people was replaced with a bizarre diamond shape. MDA delegations abroad may be permitted to stick a red Star of David inside of the diamond, but then again, they may not be permitted to do so. That decision lies in the hands of the government that MDA is deployed to assist.

As The Wall Street Journal editorialized the day after the vote, "Israeli diplomats celebrate this deal as a great victory. We'd hate to see a defeat." The editorial continued, "If Israeli relief workers around the world or army medical corps must hide their identity and wear some 'New Age' symbol to be accorded the protection of international law, one might consider this as just another example of the gradual delegitimization of Israel as a Jewish state."

What the Journal's editorial, Bayevsky's activism and Bolton's actions at the UN have in common is that in all cases, foreigners, rather than the Government of Israel, are the ones protesting Israel's mistreatment by international bodies.

Indeed, since the outbreak of the Palestinian terror war, as Israel's international standing and the standing of Jews throughout the world have deteriorated to a level not seen since the Holocaust, the most effective actions taken in defense of Israel internationally have been conducted by private organizations and private individuals, mainly in the US. These actions run the gamut: from countering anti-Semitism on college campuses; lobbying the US Congress and the EU to cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Saudi Arabia; exposing the funding arms of terrorist organizations; to monitoring the US media for distortions in Middle East coverage. The Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors and translates the Arabic press, has done more to expose the anti-Westernism, misogyny, anti-Americanism and genocidal anti-Semitism that is rife in Arab culture than any government of Israel ever dreamed of doing.

In some cases, these organizations have been supported by the Foreign Ministry. In others, they have been undercut by the Foreign Ministry. But regardless, it is impossible to deny the fact that the incompetence of the Israeli government in defending Israel in the international arena, and particularly in the US, has been mitigated substantially by the valiant efforts of these organizations and individuals, many of whom work as volunteers.

RATHER THAN demand that the Foreign Ministry operate more effectively, the time has come for Israelis to simply acknowledge that, for whatever reason, the ministry is incapable of operating differently. The fact of the matter is that since the beginning of the Oslo process in 1993, the Foreign Ministry has preferred fancy, empty ceremonies to actual diplomatic achievements. Perhaps one day we'll get our own Bolton who will fix the situation. But regardless of whether one ever appears, the time has come for Israelis to start advancing private initiatives.

A reader from Florida sent me an idea this week that could potentially make an enormous contribution to Israel's strategic alliance with the US.

It has been widely reported that the greatest drag on the morale of US military personnel deployed in Iraq are their long separations from their families. Divorce rates among US servicemen and women are skyrocketing. My reader suggested that Israelis organize a program for housing US military families in Israel while their fathers and mothers are deployed in Iraq. If their families were comfortably ensconced in Israel, American soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen could see their families once a month rather than once a year.

It is true that the US Defense Department will not suggest that the families of US military personnel in Iraq should move to Israel for the duration of their family members' deployment. But no one could stop them from doing so. There can be no doubt that the project would strengthen US-Israel ties and there can also be no doubt that the initiative can be handled more efficiently and effectively by private citizens than by the government.

We Israelis spend an enormous amount of time and energy criticizing our government's incompetence. The time has come to stop complaining and start acting.

Bolton ended his address by discussing the uniqueness of American foreign policy. In his words, "Our foreign policy is not run by an elite group that sits in its foreign ministry and dictates policy without regard to what the voters and what our legislature thinks. The overwhelming characteristic of our foreign policy is that it is ultimately determined by our citizens."

Yet another example of the lessons we can learn from our American friends.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

On Wednesday, the flags flew at half mast throughout America to commemorate the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 which brought the US into World War II. Sadly, if one is to judge by the machinations of the American media and the Democratic Party, it would seem that today the lessons of that attack, like the lessons of the surprise attacks on the US 60 years later, have been lost on increasing portions of the American body politic.

Today, the top item on the public agenda in Washington is the war in Iraq. Prominent leaders of the Democratic Party in Congress like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Representative John Murtha, Senator John Kerry and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean are all calling for a unilateral pullout of American forces from Iraq of one sort or another.

For these leaders of America's political opposition, it would seem that President George W. Bush, rather than the terrorists attacking American forces and their Iraqi allies, is the enemy of the good who must be defeated. These politicians are hard at work sowing the seeds of demoralization among the American public.

This week Dean said outright that the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong." Murtha claimed this week that the US Army "is broken."

For its part, the US media are going out of their way to paint a hopeless picture of the reality on the ground in Iraq. According to a study by the Media Research Center, since August the US media has reported 10 times more negative than positive stories about events in Iraq. This at a time when Iraqi polls show that 82% of Iraqis are optimistic about the future of their country.

After absorbing the Democrats' attacks in silence for the better part of the past year, over the past two weeks the Bush Administration has finally begun defending its policies in Iraq. President Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney have given several speeches each in which both have vowed to continue the fight in Iraq until victory has been achieved. Victory, as they define it, is a capitulation of the terror forces and the establishment of a stable democratic regime in the country.

US generals in Iraq are not standing by silently as the war they are leading is denounced back home. Maj.-Gen. William Webster, who commands the US Army's Third Infantry Division which is deployed in Iraq, said three weeks ago, "Setting a date [to withdraw US forces from Iraq] would mean that the 221 soldiers I've lost this year, that their lives will have been lost in vain."

It is hard to imagine a scenario where Bush would withdraw US forces from Iraq before victory in the war has been achieved. Quite simply the president has staked his presidency on the war in Iraq and he cannot afford to accept defeat on that battlefield. At the same time, the political weakening of the administration as a result of the unrelenting attacks on its handling of the war makes it unlikely that Bush will widen the war to include Iran and Syria (or Saudi Arabia) which serve as the principal bases for the terrorists fighting in Iraq. In the absence of a military option against any of these countries, it is difficult to believe that the Americans will be able to win the war in Iraq before the end of Bush's second term.
 

Bush's successor, regardless of his party affiliation, will not be personally invested in Iraq as Bush is. As a result the next American president will not be able to be counted on to see the war through to victory. In light of this, it cannot be ruled out that the US will depart from Iraq without victory.

FROM THE indifferent coverage the war in Iraq has received from the Israeli media, one could get the impression that Iraq was located somewhere in the South Pacific. Partially as a result of American unwillingness to link their war against Arab terrorists in Iraq to Israel's war against Arab terrorists in Israel, partially due to Israel's penchant for self-obsession, Israelis generally, and Israeli politicians and media elites in particular, tend to operate under the assumption that events in Iraq have no influence on Israel's strategic position. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

If the Americans curtail their involvement in Iraq in a significant manner without achieving victory, there can be no doubt that Israel's security will be seriously compromised. This new vulnerability would be all the more dramatic if an American disengagement in Iraq were to occur as Iran achieved nuclear capabilities. In such an event, a likely scenario would involve the empowerment of a pro-Iranian Shi'ite regime in Baghdad. The implications of such a development for Israel, as well as for Jordan (which supports both the Americans and the Ba'athists), would be calamitous.

As many former and current Bush administration officials have acknowledged behind closed doors, the IDF withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, like the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria this summer, strongly influenced the terrorists battling the Americans and their Iraqi and international coalition partners in Iraq. For the terrorists, Israel and America are two sides of the same coin.

Abu Musab Zarkawi and his ilk in Iraq see that their Palestinian and Lebanese partners managed to demoralize the Israeli public to the point where it allowed its government to curb the IDF and hand victory after victory to the terrorists. By the same token, an American rout in Iraq would inspire terrorists fighting Israel to believe that through attrition they can destroy the Jewish state.

Additionally, were the US to withdraw its forces from Iraq prematurely, the move would have disastrous consequences for Israel's conventional warfare position. The near consensus view that rooted itself in Israel's public discourse in the wake of the US-led overthrow of Saddam's regime, that Israel's eastern front had ceased to pose a threat, would be thrown on its head.

The uncertainly regarding America's long-term commitment to the war in Iraq specifically and the war against Islamic terror generally coincides with the uncertainty regarding the future course of Palestinian society.

On the one hand, this week a small but significant event occurred. Palestinian Authority Finance Minister Salaam Fayad's decision to resign his position and form a new political party from which he will run a slate of candidates for the Palestinian legislative council could become a watershed event in Palestinian political development. It is not that Fayad is committed to peaceful coexistence with Israel - he is not so committed in any way that is meaningful to Israelis. It is not even that Fayad has distinguished himself as a voice against terrorism. He has not so distinguished himself. What is unique about Fayad's move is that his party is the only Palestinian political party that is not also a terrorist organization. His ability to attract votes in next month's Palestinian elections will be a bellwether for determining the direction that Palestinian society is moving.

On the other hand, we have the general anarchy into which Palestinian society has plunged since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria. The Fatah party and terror organization is at war against itself and this internecine battle is taking its toll on the PA. Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been vastly strengthened by the Israeli pullout as well as by the influx of terror personnel, money and arms from the Sinai since the IDF vacated the international border separating Gaza from the Sinai. In spite of their turf battles, all the terror groups remain wholly committed to continuing their war for the destruction of Israel.

Iran and Syria, like Egypt, have an abiding interest in both prolonging the anarchy in the Palestinian ranks and continuing and intensifying the terror war against Israel. And so, in spite of Fayad's notable initiative, in all likelihood the current state of anarchy and terrorist warfare among the Palestinians will continue and intensify in the coming years.

AGAINST THE backdrop of this chronic uncertainty relating to Iraq and the Palestinians stands Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his new political party Kadima and calls for a quick Israeli withdrawal to roughly the 1949 armistice lines.

The question that must be asked here is what is his rush?

In the current environment so marked by instability, there can be little doubt that Israel's national interest is best served by strengthening our hold on Judea and Samaria. Indeed, it is hard to see the strategic or international logic of a plan for Israeli retreats of any kind in Judea and Samaria given the vast changes currently under way throughout the region.

This view holds even if one believes that in the event that democratic, anti-terrorist, pro-Western regimes take hold in Baghdad and Gaza, Israel's national interest would be served by relinquishing lands in the areas to the Palestinians. In the present circumstances, such an Israeli retreat would only serve to strengthen the most extreme forces both among the Palestinians and the Iraqis as well as among their supporters in Iran, Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

The problem is that the more one analyzes Sharon's actions and behavior, the more one is led to the conclusion that the national interest is not what motivates the prime minister. Rather Sharon is motivated by his personal interests.

For Sharon, as for his comrade Shimon Peres, a principal motivator seems to be his biological clock. The urge to determine Israel's national borders cannot be the function of a rational analysis of regional realities at a time when all of our neighbors are in flux and none of their societies accepts Israel's right to exist within any borders. For a gerontocracy like the Sharon-Peres government, an overwhelming urge seems to be to clean the slate before the old men make their final exits.

Aside from that, Minister Tzahi Hanegbi's decision to bolt Likud and join Kadima just hours before the police announced their intention to recommend to the state attorney that he be indicted on corruption charges points to yet another factor motivating Sharon and his comrades in his new party. This motive was first openly exposed in July 2003 when then attorney-general Elyakim Rubinstein admitted that he was delaying the criminal probes relating to Sharon to enable Sharon to advance his peace initiatives. Today, when Sharon's son, MK Omri Sharon, a convicted felon, is running for Knesset and managing his father's campaign as he awaits sentencing for his crimes, it is hard to escape the impression that Kadima serves more as a refuge for fugitives from justice and restless old men than a political party whose purpose is to advance the national interests of a country at war.

In light of the uncertainty of Washington's long-term commitment to the war on Arab terror and given the instability of the Arab world in general and of Iraq and the Palestinians in particular, Israel is in dire need of a leadership with fortitude to weather long storms - a leadership unfettered by biological clocks and criminal entanglements.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a self-professed holy man. In a video released on an Iranian Web site linked to the Revolutionary Guards (and reported on by "Regime Change in Iran" Web site), Ahmadinejad related that during his speech in the fall to the UN General Assembly, he "felt a light" surrounding and protecting him.

In his words, after the light appeared, "the atmosphere changed and for 27-28 minutes the leaders could not blink…. All the leaders were puzzled, as if a hand held them and made them sit. They had their eyes and ears open for the message from the Islamic Republic."

Apparently Mr. "Wipe Israel off the map" feels comfortable enough in his own shoes these days to expose himself not merely as the most overtly radical Iranian leader since the 1980s, but also as a wacko mystical prophet of genocide. And why shouldn't he feel that way? His speech about liquidating Israel went off with scarcely a hitch.

It is true that all sorts of leaders of all sorts of reputable countries expressed their shock at Iran's plan to carry out an updated version of the Holocaust. Many even went so far as to say that his plan is unacceptable.

But then again, for the first time since the Islamic revolution in 1979, this week the US announced that it would directly engage the Iranian regime. In an interview with Newsweek early this week, US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said, "I've been authorized by the president to engage the Iranians. There will be meetings and that's also a departure and an adjustment," from America's policy for the past 26 years.

So much for shock.

The Americans, like the Europeans, seem to have lost all shame in their dealings with Iran. Since Iran announced six months ago that it was renouncing its deal with Britain, France and Germany and was renewing its uranium enrichment activities, the West's policy towards Iran has become characterized by obsequiousness in the face of Iranian insults and intimidation.

When in the wake of the London attacks in July it looked as though Britain was leaning towards supporting the referral of Iran's nuclear weapons program to the UN Security Council, the Iranians launched an offensive against British forces in Basra. Over the weekend, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that Britain, France and Germany are interested in renewing their talks with Iran even though the Iranians continue to enrich uranium.

Last week it was Russia's turn to act as the redeemer of the West. The Russians gave yet another excuse to the "international community" to deny the fact that the greatest threat to global security is developing nuclear weapons. Moscow, which built Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor and provided critical assistance to Iran's ballistic missile program, renewed an offer (which was previously rejected by the Europeans and the Americans) to enrich uranium for the Iranians in Russia. This offer enabled the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Americans and the Europeans to again delay referring Iran to the Security Council in spite of the fact that the Iranians rejected the offer out of hand.

And it isn't just that Teheran rejected the offer. According to the Daily Telegraph, the mullahs are training Chechen terrorists at a Revolutionary Guards training base in Teheran. As one senior Western intelligence official put it to the paper, "Just as they orchestrated attacks against British troops in Basra to pressure Britain to drop its opposition to Iran's nuclear program, so they are trying to put pressure on Moscow by backing Chechen fighters."

And if Russia's assistance with Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs weren't enough, we have Russia's assistance to Iran's space program. Last month Iran launched its first satellite, the Sina-1, on a Russian rocket. Last week Iran and Russia signed another deal for cooperation in space programs. For $132 million, Russia will launch yet more Iranian satellites into orbit over the next two years.

If its dealings with Iran aren't sufficient to prove the West's incompetence and spinelessness in contending with the rising Islamic menace, the EuroMed Partnership conference at Barcelona over the weekend showed conclusively who wears the pants in this pathological relationship. Almost all of the leaders of the 25 EU member nations came to discuss terrorism and immigration with the 10 Muslim members of the organization (and Israel). But the Muslim leaders didn't show up. Aside from Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Palestinian Authority chieftain Mahmoud Abbas, the EU heads of state found themselves sitting across the table from no-name bureaucrats. And despite their lowly ranks, they would not bow to European pressure to condemn terrorism. As to the massive illegal immigration from North Africa to Europe, the Muslim bureaucrats claimed that it's Europe's problem and, to solve it, Europe needs to flood their countries with cash assistance.

In point of fact, for Europe the issues of Islamic terror and immigration are the most pressing issues of the day. This point was brought home a few days ago in Switzerland with the arrest of Egyptian banker Youssef Nada on charges of terror financing. Nada, who has been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood for 50 years, is closely associated with Sheikh Youssef Qaradawi, one of the chief ideologues for al-Qaida and Hamas. According to "The Daily Ablution" Web site, Qaradawi was the fourth largest shareholder in Nada's bank.

In their search of Nada's home, Swiss authorities seized a document entitled, "The Project." According to the Swiss daily Le Temps the document lays out the Muslim Brotherhood's strategy for undermining the international system in order to enable the Islamic takeover of the world. The document calls for the use of terror, mass immigration to the West, propaganda and subversion in order "to establish the reign of Allah throughout the world."

Two articles in the document's preamble (translated by "The Daily Ablution"), relate to Israel's role within the overall strategy of jihad. Article 7 explains that Islamic forces must "accept the principle of temporary cooperation between Islamic movements and nationalist movements in the broad sphere and on common ground such as the struggle against colonialism, preaching and the Jewish state, without [forming] alliances."

Article 11 tells them "To adopt the Palestinian cause as part of a worldwide Islamic plan… and [to advance the cause] by means of jihad, since it acts as the keystone of the renaissance of the Arab world today."

From these two articles it is clear that for the ideologues of global jihad, Israel is a central component of their war strategy. Through the war against Israel the jihadis can build coalitions with non-Muslim forces who support Israel's destruction and mobilize the support of the Arab world for the larger jihad against the West.

Against the backdrop of the fecklessness of the West on the one hand and the emboldening of the forces of jihad throughout the world on the other, the question naturally arises, what is Israel doing to protect itself?

In his appearance before the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Wednesday, the IDF's intelligence chief, Maj.-Gen. Aharon Ze'evi Farkash discussed Iran's nuclear program. Ze'evi Farkash said, "The international diplomatic campaign against Iran's nuclear armament has weakened. The attempts by the international community are nearing completion. In this phase, the Iranians have the upper hand and the diplomatic containment [policy] is in danger."

Oddly, Ze'evi Farkash added, "If by the end of March the international community does not succeed in referring the issue to the Security Council, it will be possible to say that the international attempts have failed."

The interesting thing here is the timing. In choosing the end of March - which neatly coincides with Israel's general elections - as the target date on Iran, Ze'evi Farkash is insulating Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from criticism of the fact that for the past five years, he has done absolutely nothing, and developed no strategy to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. What Ze'evi Farkash is effectively saying is that until after the election, Israel can continue to parade about with no strategy regarding Iran, just as it lacks any coherent plan for contending with the Palestinian terror war and Hizbullah's increasing aggression.

Sharon's speech on Thursday before the Editors' Commission is a case in point. On the one hand, Sharon said that Israel will not abide by a nuclear-armed Iran. On the other hand he said that Israel is preparing for the day that Iran has nuclear weapons. And then, he stipulated that anyway, Israel is following America's lead in contending with the issue. In short, Sharon stated that Israel has no policy for preventing Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons just as it has no policy for dealing with the Palestinians.

This latter point was made clear on Tuesday as Sharon discussed the new terror axis that sprang up in the aftermath of the IDF's abandonment of the Gaza Strip. Sharon said, "the mission of the [security] forces is to stop the cross-border traffic" between Egypt and Israel. In Sharon's view, "there is no difference between criminal infiltrations and military infiltrations. Anyone who trespasses the border for criminal purposes will do so in the future for military purposes."

Very nicely put. But the new phenomenon of collaboration between Palestinian terrorists and other Arab terrorists in the Sinai from Hizbullah and al-Qaida, and the infiltration of both into Israel and Judea with the assistance of Beduin criminal rings in the Negev, would never have developed if Sharon had not forced a withdrawal of IDF forces from the international border between Gaza and the Sinai. And terrorist forces would never have felt so emboldened if Sharon hadn't expelled all the Jews in Gaza and northern Samaria.

Today, Sharon's plan to deal with this cross-border terror threat is to continue to capitulate to terrorists. His new "centrist" party's leftist platform will lead to massive IDF pullouts in Judea and Samaria and the expulsion of tens of thousands of Jews from their communities in the areas.

Ze'evi Farkash also discussed the situation in Lebanon. He explained that Hizbullah will continue to attack Israel with direct assistance from Iran and Syria in an attempt to divert international attention from the UN investigation of the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

As is the case with the Palestinians and Iran, Israel has no plan for dealing with Hizbullah other than to hunker down and hope for the best. The result of this Israeli fecklessness is the increasing emboldening of Hizbullah. At the funerals in southern Beirut for its terrorists killed during their offensive against northern Israel last week, official representatives of the Lebanese government were on hand to hear Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah speak of the group's "inherent right" to kidnap Israeli soldiers.

The West's incompetence in contending with the forces of jihad from Iran to Switzerland to Lebanon and Ramallah shows clearly that the European and increasingly the American strategy for dealing with the rising forces of global jihad is to bury their heads in the sand. Apparently the hope is that the jihad will end with Israel. The problem is that the Sharon government is acting in exactly the same manner.

If the West doesn't wise up, it will pay a price in economic dislocation, a loss of liberty and the death of many of its citizens. If Israel doesn't shape up, the price we will pay will be of another order altogether.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.