Last week Iran began enriching uranium in a second network of centrifuges. Just as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dropped nearly all pretenses about his intention to achieve nuclear weapons, so too he makes it clear daily that he intends to use such weapons to annihilate Israel.

The world's reaction to Iran's behavior is depressingly instructive. Russia tells us that we are being paranoid and continues to build the Bushehr nuclear plant. The Europeans cluck disapprovingly and threaten to pass a weak, "reversible" sanctions resolution in the UN Security Council whose main target is American security hawks. For his part, US President George W. Bush continues to adhere to the call for sanctions.

And so we have Israel. With Iran speeding up its program, Israel may have as little as six months to launch a strike on its nuclear facilities before they can start churning out atomic bombs.

Unfortunately, at this critical moment in Israel's history, we are led by Ehud Olmert, Amir Peretz and Tzipi Livni. Although Olmert claims that he is taking every step to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, through his government's actions in recent months, he has steadily undercut the IDF's ability to take decisive action against Iran.

Over the past two and a half months, the Olmert government has deliberately and willingly enabled Israel's encirclement by hostile forces.

Deployed along Israel's northern and southern borders, these forces constrict Israel's ability to maneuver, and prevent the IDF from taking preventative actions against Iran's proxies in Lebanon and Gaza thus increasing the risks that Israel will face in the event that action is taken against Iran's nuclear facilities and constraining Israel's ability to stealthily launch any attack.

Nearly 10,000 French-commanded UNIFIL troops today protect Hizbullah in south Lebanon. And increasingly, they do so while provoking Israel. Last week two incidents took place between German naval forces and the IAF. Last Tuesday and Thursday IAF jets were scrambled when a German naval helicopter entered Israeli airspace after taking off from a German naval ship off Rosh Hanikra without permission or prior coordination.

What is most remarkable about the story is its repetition. Last Tuesday the German helicopter elicited a strong Israeli response. Rather than desist from provoking the IAF, the Germans repeated their action on Thursday. So what could have been viewed as a regrettable incident was transformed into a provocation.

Germany's hostile behavior is par for the course with UNIFIL. Two weeks ago French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie called the IAF's overflights of Lebanese airspace "extremely dangerous," and threatened that France's forces in Lebanon were liable to fire on the IAF flights "because they may be felt as hostile by forces of the coalition."

By word and deed, UNIFIL forces are making clear that they view the IDF, not Hizbullah as their enemy. As they increase their provocations against Israel, UNIFIL forces turn a blind eye to weapons being smuggled daily to Hizbullah from Syria. Were Israel to attempt to take action against Hizbullah or Syria to prevent them from attacking in anticipation of an Israeli strike on Iran, there can be little doubt how UNIFIL would respond.

AND THERE is little that Israel today can do about UNIFIL. Olmert and Livni have been UNIFIL's most enthusiastic cheerleaders. They expended Israel's political capital convincing these hostile forces to perch themselves at our border. They then promised the Israeli public that the French would protect us. They are not in a position today to make demands.

And then there is Egypt.

Over the weekend, Egypt announced that it was deploying 5,000 troops (or "police" forces) along its border with the Gaza Strip in northern Sinai. The deployment was necessary, Egypt announced, to prevent Israel mounting a serious operation against the massive weapons smuggling that is quickly providing Palestinian terrorists with the means to transform Gaza into south Lebanon.

The fact that Egypt wishes to prevent Israel from stemming the flow of weapons to Gaza - which Egypt itself is supposed to be cutting off - should tell us all we need to know about Egypt's intentions. But apparently the government and Southern Command weren't listening. Sunday, Defense Minister Amir Peretz denied that Egyptian forces had been deployed along the border. An IDF commander in the Southern Command strangely expressed satisfaction at Egypt's move arguing that with the larger force Egypt would finally take action to prevent the arms transfers. The Foreign Ministry assured the public that the peace treaty with Egypt allows Cairo to deploy an unlimited number of "policemen" in the Sinai.

It is hard to decide which is more frightening, Egypt's move or Israel's response to it.

As MK Yuval Steinitz, former chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee explains, Egypt's sudden decision to deploy a massive force along the border is a strategic threat of the first order to Israel. "Egypt," he explains, "is taking advantage of the weakness and incompetence of the government."

Over the past decade, Egypt has been assiduously preparing its military for war against Israel. From the ideological indoctrination of its forces, to its massive armament programs, to the relocation of its military installations, units and logistical bases to both sides of the Suez Canal, to the training of its troops to fight "an unnamed country on Egypt's northern border," Steinitz warns that Egypt has done more than Iran to ready its forces for war against Israel.

Rather than protest Egypt's actions, successive Israeli governments have swallowed whole Egypt's strategic deception. Egypt protests friendship and pretends to combat terrorism and prevent weapons smuggling into the Sinai. Yet under this friendly guise, Egypt has legitimized Palestinian terrorists and stood behind the massive weapons smuggling operations. As Steinitz puts it, "Egypt is to Palestinian terrorism what Syria is to Hizbullah.

"The weapons to the Palestinians are brought in through Egyptian ports and El-Arish and are imported by land from Sudan. Those latter imports have to traverse Egypt on their way to Gaza. There is no way that the Egyptian government is not colluding with the weapons shippers."

AS STEINITZ notes, over the past eight months the weapons being shipped to Gaza have been sharply upgraded. Egypt today is overseeing the import of sophisticated anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, as well as upgraded Katyusha rockets to Palestinian terror groups.

And now Mubarak is sending 5,000 "policemen" to the border. As Steinitz notes, Israel has no way of knowing who these forces are, whether they are police or commandos or infantry or anti-aircraft units. He warns, that "If Israel does nothing to prevent their deployment today, there is no reason to doubt that in a year or two there will be tens of thousands of Egyptian troops along the border with Israel."

As Steinitz notes, not only does every single Egyptian soldier deployed along the border have a job to do in time of war, today they are perched along the border with the Negev, where, as the government turns its back on them and the IDF applauds their deployment, they are within striking distance of some of the IDF's most important military bases and strategic installations.

Since 1993, Israel's leftist governments have consistently followed a strategy of transferring responsibility for our national security to our enemies. First it was Yasser Arafat who was supposed to fight Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Now it is his deputy Mahmoud Abbas, UNIFIL and Mubarak who are all supposed to fight Israel's enemies. Far from learning from our bloody experience that our enemies have no interest in protecting us, in recent months, the Olmert government has expanded tenfold our reliance on our enemies.

As if having hostile Europeans guarding genocidal Iranian proxies in the north, and hostile Egyptians guarding and arming genocidal Palestinians in the south weren't enough, Sunday it was reported that the Olmert government is considering allowing thousands of armed PLO terrorists from the Badr Brigade in Jordan to relocate to Gaza.

It doesn't have to be this way. Although barring a major Hizbullah provocation, it isn't clear what Israel can do against the UNIFIL forces now enabling Hizbullah to rearm, Israel can still prevent the Egyptian deployment. If the government loudly protested the move and publicly requested the Bush administration order Egypt to remove its forces, Mubarak would do so. But in light of the Olmert government's mishandling of every military challenge Israel has faced since it came to power just six month ago, it is hard to imagine it will act responsibly.

But really, we don't have to worry. Olmert won't let Iran get nuclear weapons.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Apropos of nothing, Wednesday night Channel 2 news broadcast a jihadi snuff film. The video, produced by an Iraqi group called the Islamic Army of Allah, shows a jihadi sniper knocking off American soldiers one by one.

Being a propaganda flick whose goal is to demoralize Americans and their allies and recruit new soldiers to the army of jihad, not surprisingly the video doesn't show how the US forces reacted to the sniper fire. The American forces in the film are powerless victims. If they are smart, they will cut and run before it is too late.

The video is effective because it effectively tells a complete lie. US forces in Iraq are far from helpless. They have won nearly every engagement they have fought with insurgent forces in Iraq. And their capabilities get better all the time.

Today, the public debate in the US revolves around one question: When are we leaving Iraq? The conventional wisdom has become that US operations in Iraq are futile. Due in large part to politically driven press coverage, Americans have received the impression that the US cannot succeed in Iraq and that consequently, their leaders ought to be concentrating their efforts on building an exit strategy. Comparisons between the war in Iraq and the Vietnam War are legion.

Last Wednesday, President George W. Bush was asked whether it is possible to make a comparison between the recent sharp rise in violence in Iraq and the Tet offensive in Vietnam in January 1968. Bush responded by noting that then as now, "There's certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we're heading into an election."

During the Tet offensive, the North Vietnamese attacked 40 South Vietnamese villages simultaneously with a massive force of 84,000 troops. The offensive failed utterly. 45,000 North Vietnamese soldiers were killed, no ground was taken. Yet, when then US president Lyndon Johnson declared victory, the American people didn't believe him.

Walter Cronkite, the all-powerful anchorman of the CBS Evening News had told them that the US had lost the offensive. Who was the president to argue with Cronkite? In March 1968 Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection.

So when the media wonder if one can compare the battles in Iraq today to the Tet offensive, what they really want to know is if they have successfully convinced the American public that its military has lost the war in Iraq.

Over the past several weeks, Bush has been waging a political offensive to convince the public that their military is winning the war in Iraq. On Wednesday, the president gave a press conference on Iraq and later reinforced his message in a meeting with conservative columnists.

Bush made four major points in those appearances. First, he explained that the US is at war and described the nature of the war. Iran, he said stands at the helm of enemy forces. Iran's senior role was made clear he said, through its sponsorship of this summer's Hizbullah and Palestinian war against Israel. One of Iran's central goals - shared with Syria and its terrorist proxies - is to destroy the forces of moderation and democracy in the Middle East.

Secondly, Bush asserted that Iraq is a vital front in this war. In his view, the only way the US can lose that war is if it leaves, "letting things fall into chaos and letting al-Qaida have a safe haven." Bush argued that if the US leaves Iraq, Iraq will come to the US, to Iraq's neighbors and indeed to the entire world.

Thirdly, Bush argued that the US can only win the war if the American public supports it. The only way to ensure the public's support is by showing that America is winning. Bush said that showing success is difficult because while its benchmarks for victory - political freedom, economic development and social progress - are amorphous, "the enemy gets to define victory by killing people."

Finally, Bush argued that to defeat Iran, Syria and North Korea, the US must have international support for its efforts. Countries like Russia, China and France must understand the dangers and agree to isolate these regimes with effective international sanctions.

WHILE BUSH clearly knows what he wants to do, he is hard-pressed to succeed. Not only are the Democrats and the media trying to undercut him, members of his own administration - and particularly Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her colleagues at the State Department - are subverting the president's agenda.

For example, there is Alberto Fernandez, the Director of Public Diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. Fernandez's job is to defend the US in the Arabic media. Yet, in an interview with Al Jazeera last week, Fernandez said that the US had been "arrogant" and "stupid" in Iraq. In September he reportedly said that Americans and others "are trying intentionally to encourage hell in the Arab world."

Then there is Rice herself. Rather than promoting US victories in Iraq, Rice is turning the Iraqi government into a scapegoat for the ongoing jihad. If the government doesn't get its act together, she intimates, the US will feel free to wash its hands of the matter. It won't be a US defeat, but an Iraqi failure. That is, far from extolling American success, she is paving the way to justify an American defeat.

At the same time, rather than explain Iran's central role in the war, Rice courts the mullahs. Ignoring Iran's sponsorship of the Palestinians, Rice waxes poetic comparing the Palestinians - who chose Hamas to lead them - to the American founding fathers and to the civil rights movement.

On Wednesday Bush explained that the relative level of violence is not a determinate of victory or defeat because the enemy can use cease-fires to rearm. In his words, "If the absence of violence is victory, no one will ever win, because all that means is you've empowered a bunch of suiciders and thugs to kill."

Yet contrary to Bush's clear view on the matter, State Department officials work around the clock negotiating cease-fires. Indeed, one of the capstones of Rice's diplomatic efforts is the August cease-fire in Lebanon under which Israel is prevented from defending itself and Hizbullah is moving swiftly to rebuild its forces.

In Iraq, this dangerous penchant for negotiations is what enabled Muqtada al-Sadr's pro-Iranian, pro-Hizbullah Mahdi Army to emerge from its April 2004 offensive against Coalition forces intact and free to become the power broker in Shii'te politics that it is today. The fact that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki felt it necessary to condemn the joint US-Iraqi attack against al-Sadr's forces in Baghdad Tuesday is a testament to al-Sadr's power.

Today the only high-level US diplomat who believes that the purpose of diplomacy is to advance US national interests and not to achieve agreements for their own sake is US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton. Just this week Bolton effectively prevented Venezuela from being elected to the Security Council.

Rice does not support Bolton. According to Senate sources, Rice played a major role in preventing Bolton from receiving Senate confirmation for his appointment. As a result, he will likely be forced to leave the UN next month.

Rice's machinations have made her popular with the media. But her popularity comes at the expense of public and international support for the US's war goals. Her actions and those of her State Department colleagues have contributed to the anomalous situation where while US forces improved their capabilities in Iraq, the American public became convinced that the war is going badly.

Rather than fearing the US, Iran, Syria and North Korea behave as though the US is a paper tiger. Rather than support America, European "allies" increasingly see their national interests best served by distancing themselves from the US as much as possible.

THE SITUATION can be reversed. The media are no longer the power they were in Cronkite's day. Were the administration to challenge the networks, the networks would be forced to adjust their coverage to reality.

Last week CNN broadcast the Iraqi sniper video. The Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Congressman Duncan Hunter reacted by blasting the broadcast and calling for the military to bar CNN reporters from embedding with US forces in Iraq. Hunter said that by showing the film CNN was collaborating with America's enemies and consequently, CNN reporters should enjoy no support from US forces in Iraq. His attacks were widely reported and there can be little doubt that CNN will think long and hard before broadcasting another enemy propaganda movie.

For Israel, the results of the American debate over the future of the war in Iraq are of critical importance. A US retreat will place Israel in grave danger. The eastern front, whose demise the military "experts" were quick to announce in 2003 to justify slashing the defense budget, will make a comeback - replete with massive quantities of arms and tens of thousands of trained jihadi soldiers who will believe that they just won their jihad against the US. Moreover, if the US retreats, the IDF will find itself facing a US-armed and trained Shi'ite army. That is, if the US withdraws, Israel could potentially find itself facing an enemy force better trained and equipped than the IDF.

The leaders of the Democratic Party today compete amongst themselves to see who can be more defeatist. If in the November 7 elections the Democrats take control of both houses of Congress, or even just one of them, the push for a US retreat will grow stronger.

Whatever the results of the elections, Israel must hope that for his last two years in office, President Bush will take firm control of his administration - first and foremost by curbing Rice and her State Department associates - and lead a concerted, unabashed diplomatic and public opinion offensive.

If Bush does this, he will gain wide public support and sufficient support from the international community to move ahead in the war.

If Bush does not take control of his administration, the Vietnam War analogy will become an accurate one for Iraq, and Israel will find itself playing the role of Cambodia. 

Postcards from Saigon.

Last Thursday a French court found Philippe Karsenty guilty of libeling France 2 television network and its Jerusalem bureau chief Charles Enderlin. Karsenty, who runs a media watchdog Web site called Media Matters, called for Enderlin and his boss Arlette Chabot to be sacked for their September 30, 2000 televised report alleging that IDF forces had killed 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura at Netzarim junction in Gaza that day.

Their lawsuit against Karsenty was the first of three lawsuits that Enderlin and France 2 filed against French Jews who accused them in various ways of manufacturing a blood libel against Israel by purposely distorting the events at Netzarim junction that day. The second trial, against Pierre Lurcat, is set to begin this week. Lurcat organized a mass demonstration against France 2 on October 2, 2002 after the broadcast of a German television documentary film by Esther Schapira called Three Bullets and a Dead Child: Who Shot Muhammad al-Dura? Schapira's film concludes that IDF bullets could not have killed Dura.

September 30, 2000 was the third day of the Palestinian jihad. That day an IDF position at Netzarim junction was attacked by Palestinian Authority security forces. A prolonged exchange of fire ensued. That afternoon, France 2's Palestinian cameraman Talal Abu Rahma submitted footage of a man and a boy at the junction cowering behind a barrel. The two were later identified as Jamal al-Dura and his 12-year-old son Muhammad. Enderlin, who had not been present at the scene, took Rahma's 27 minutes of raw footage and narrated a 50-second film in which he accused the IDF of having shot and killed the boy. Enderlin's film itself does not show the boy dying. There are no blood stains where the boy and his father were crouched. No ambulance came to evacuate them. No autopsy was performed on Muhammad's body.

FRANCE 2 distributed its film free of charge to anyone who wanted it - although not the full 27 minutes that Rahma filmed. The film was shown repeatedly worldwide and particularly on Arab television networks. The results of the footage were murderous. On October 12, two IDF reservists, Yosef Avrahami and Vadim Novesche, were lynched by a mob at a PA police station in Ramallah. The mob invoked Dura's death as a justification for its barbarism.

The Orr Commission which investigated the violent rioting by Israeli Arabs in October 2000 stated in its final report that "Muhammad al-Dura's picture, which was distributed by the media, was one of the causes that led people in the Arab sector to take to the streets on October 1, 2000."

Countless suicide bombers and other Palestinian terrorists have cited Dura as a justification of their crimes. For the past six years PA television has continuously aired a film showing Dura in heaven beckoning other Palestinian children to "martyr" themselves by becoming terrorists and join him there.

The Palestinians are not the only ones who have used Dura as a terrorist recruitment tool. He is prominently featured in al-Qaida recruitment videos and on Hizbullah banners. Daniel Pearl's murderers interspersed their video of his beheading with the France 2 film. Throughout Europe, and particularly in France, Muslims have used Dura as a rallying cry in their attacks against Jews - attacks which broke out shortly after the Dura film was broadcast.

AT FIRST, Israel accepted responsibility for Dura's death without conducting an investigation. Yet, in the weeks that followed the event, engineers Nahum Shachaf and Yosef Doriel conducted investigations on behalf of the IDF's Southern Command.

Both men separately proved mathematically and physically that the IDF forces on the ground could not see the Duras from their position and that it was physically impossible for their bullets to have killed Muhammad. Then OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen.Yom Tov Samia held a news conference in late November based on their findings at which he said that the probability that the IDF had killed Dura was low.

Yet Samia was the only senior Israeli official to question the veracity of the film. Then chief of General Staff Shaul Mofaz disavowed Samia's investigation. Prime minister Ehud Barak never questioned the veracity of Enderlin's murderous accusation against the IDF.

In the intervening years, private researchers and media organizations have taken it upon themselves to investigate what happened that day. Their findings have shown that at a minimum, the probability that the IDF killed Dura is minuscule and more likely, the event was either staged or edited to engender the conclusion that Dura had been killed by Israel. The few people who have been allowed to watch Rahma's entire film have stated that it is impossible to conclude that Muhammad was killed because he raises his head and props himself up on his elbow after he was supposedly shot.

Respected media organizations like The Wall Street Journal, CBS News, Atlantic Monthly and Commentary magazine have published detailed investigations that all conclude that the footage was either staged or simply edited to show something that didn't happen.

Yet, even as private individuals were dedicating their time and passion to proving that France 2 had purposely broadcast a blood libel against Israel that caused the death and injury of Israelis and Jews throughout the world and marred the honor of the IDF, official Israel remained silent.

The Foreign Ministry never asked France 2 to show its officials the full 27-minute film. Neither the IDF nor the Foreign or Justice Ministries defended the IDF or called into question the veracity of Enderlin's film. As late as this past June 23, IDF spokeswoman Brig.-Gen. Miri Regev told Haaretz, "I cannot determine whether the IDF is or is not responsible for the killing of al-Dura."

IN THE French judicial system, the people's interest is represented by a special court reporter who recommends verdicts to the judges. It is rare for judges to disregard the reporter's recommendations. During his trial, Karsenty and his witnesses produced piece after piece of evidence that called into question the credibility of the France 2 film.

For its part, France 2 sent no representatives to the trial. Its attorney did not question any of the evidence submitted by Karsenty nor did she cross-examine any of his witnesses. She brought no witnesses of her own. She simply produced a letter of support for France 2 from President Jacques Chirac. The court reporter recommended dismissing the case.

In their judgment last week, the judges argued that Karsenty's allegations against Enderlin and France 2 could not be credible since "no Israeli authority, neither the army which is nonetheless most affected, nor the Justice [Ministry] have ever accorded the slightest credit to these allegations" regarding the mendacity of the Dura film.

Over the years Israeli officials have justified their silence by saying that it was a losing proposition to reopen the Dura case. We'll be accused of blaming the victim, they said.

This statement is both cowardly and irresponsible. As the French verdict shows, without an Israeli protest, the protests of private individuals, however substantial, ring hollow. When Israel refuses to defend itself from blood libels, it gives silent license to attacks against Israel and world Jewry in the name of those libels.

In 2000, Barak was desperately trying to close a peace deal with Yasser Arafat. The last thing he wanted was to admit that Arafat was promulgating blood libels against Israel. So he was silent. This is unforgivable, but understandable.

Israel's continued silence is a sign that Israeli officialdom has still not understood what the war of images demands of it. The Dura film, like the fictional massacre of Lebanese children at Kafr Kana in Lebanon this summer, shows that victory or defeat in wars is today largely determined on television. To win, Israel must go on the offensive and attack untruthful, distorted images that are used to justify the killing of Israelis and Jews throughout the world.

When Karsenty heard the court's verdict last week, he said, "If this judgment is upheld, Jews should ask themselves questions about their future in France. Justice covers the anti-Semitic lies of a public channel. It's a strong signal, it is very severe."

To this it should be added that if the Israeli government continues to be silent as the good name of the IDF, of Israel and of the Jewish people is dragged through the mud by distorted television images broadcast by foreign news outlets; if the Israeli government does nothing to defend those who are persecuted for fighting against these distortions, then Jews will have to ask themselves some questions about how on earth we are supposed to defend ourselves, let alone win this war against those who seek our destruction. 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Last week Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told his countrymen they needn't worry about Iran's escalating confrontation with the US because he has a direct line to Allah. Allah, he said, has assured him that everything will be just fine. Ahmadinejad also promised that Iran would not cease its enrichment of uranium "even for one day." Iran's nuclear triumph is imminent, Allah's messenger promised. "We have one more step," he enthused, "if we pass that, this [matter] will be attained."

In Lebanon, Italy and France plan to sell the Lebanese military their Aster-15 advanced anti-aircraft system. This deal along with France's announcement that its forces in UNIFIL will shoot down IAF aircraft flying over Lebanese airspace, shows clearly that UNIFIL forces are shielding Hizbullah from Israel rather than working to dismantle Iran's illegal terror army.

With Egypt's blessing, in Gaza today, Hamas and Fatah are rapidly building up their military capabilities. Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the Bush administration's golden boy, is so weak that even his own Fatah terror group won't follow him. In its meeting this week in Amman, Fatah's central committee rejected Abbas's plans to overthrow the Hamas regime. Increasingly, Fatah is joining Hamas in becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Two weeks before the US Congressional elections, the Bush administration is losing its will. Last week R. Nicholas Burns, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs who holds responsibility for the US's Iran policy, extolled the continuation of negotiations with Iran. While he admitted that the US never rules out any option for dealing with Iran's nuclear weapons program, Burns said, "We are absolutely dedicated to diplomacy." More than anything else, he said, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wants to "sit down herself with the Iranians on the nuclear issue."

On Iraq as well, the Bush administration is wobbling. President George W. Bush appointed his father's secretary of state James Baker III to cobble together a new American strategy for Iraq that will reportedly preclude victory as a strategic aim.

All these developments bode ill for Israel. But Israelis could be forgiven for not knowing about any of them. Rather than report the news, our media feed us a diet of snuff: President Moshe Katsav's legal and moral woes; the prospect of a new violent clash between the IDF and religious Israelis; polymorphous prospects for peace with Syria, Lebanon and Abbas; and canned inquiries into the IDF's failures in Lebanon.

Above and beyond all else, we haven't the time to think about the growing threats to our country because we are wholly engaged in a vacuous debate about electoral reform. Indeed, from our political leadership's perspective, Iranian nuclear bombs are nothing compared to the "chronic instability" of Israeli governments.

The man responsible for making us talk about governmental reform is Israel Beiteinu Party leader MK Avigdor Lieberman. Lieberman, the uber-hawk of "expel the Arabs" fame, now wishes to join Olmert's dovish government. Lieberman claims that in exchange for his support, Olmert must embrace his proposal for a constitutional reform that would turn Israel from a parliamentary democracy into a presidential system of government.

Lieberman's public persona is in many ways an encapsulation of all that is wrong with Israel's leaders today. Like his colleagues on the Left, Lieberman touts an attractive sounding policy for dealing with the Arabs which only suffers from the marginal defect of being completely irrational.

The Left demands that we give our enemies Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights in exchange for a piece of paper. Lieberman intends to keep the Golan Heights, forgo the paper and throw in the Galilee to advance what he sees as ethnic partitioning.

When you get right down to it, the greatest difference between Lieberman and the Left is rhetorical. Lieberman is willing to give our land to our enemies because he hates the Arabs. The Left is willing to give our land to our enemies because they hate the Jews.

If the Left truly wanted peace with the Arabs, rather than signing deals with our enemies, its leaders would help to strengthen those lone voices in Palestinian society and in the wider Arab world that express a substantive, meaningful desire to live at peace with Israel.

If Lieberman were serious about solving the problem of growing irredentism among Israeli Arabs, he wouldn't be talking about partitioning the land between Israel and its enemies. He would be talking about partitioning Israel into electoral districts for direct elections of Knesset members. A review of Israel's demographic situation clearly indicates that by moving from a proportional to district electoral system, it would be possible to largely neutralize the threat to national security posed by anti-Israel forces among Israeli Arabs. But judging from Lieberman's past, it is far from clear that solving Israel's problems is his primary interest.

Lieberman first rose to prominence as the director-general of the Prime Minister's Bureau under Binyamin Netanyahu. When Lieberman resigned in 1998, he went into private business. Lieberman always claims that his business dealings are no one else's business. But ongoing criminal probes into his business dealings raise suspicions that they are intimately connected to his political activities.

Lieberman has been the subject of bribery and fraud investigations since 1998. According to press accounts, in August 1998 Lieberman was briefly hired as a consultant for Bank Austria Creditanstalt. At that time, the Russian ruble had just lost some 80 percent of its value. Bank Austria Creditanstalt, which had invested in ruble futures, stood to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. The bank paid Lieberman $3 million in the hope that he would be able to intervene somehow to raise the value of the ruble.

As one bank official told The Jerusalem Post in 2004, "We were in a difficult situation. We were told that Lieberman had contacts in Russia and that he could help with the Russian crisis."
Coincidentally or not, after Lieberman was hired, the ruble's value rose. The police reportedly suspect that Lieberman worked with members of the Russian mafia to raise the value of the ruble.

In 2000 the criminal probe of Lieberman was widened following the publication of the State Comptroller's Report regarding the financing of the 1999 Knesset elections. The report claimed that Lieberman financed his party's 1999 campaign with a million dollar line of credit from an Austrian bank. The investigators suspect that Austrian billionaire Martin Schlaff, the part owner of the casino in Jericho, was the source of the line of credit. In 2000 it was reported that Lieberman the super hawk met with Yasser Arafat's close advisor Muhammad Rashid. Rashid was a partner in the Jericho casino's revenues.

In February 2004 Lieberman's name came up in connection with the African diamond trade. Yossi Kamisa, a retired officer who served in the Israel Police's counter-terrorism unit, filed a lawsuit against the diamond merchant Dan Gertler. Gertler had asked Kamisa to partner with him on a deal for a diamond mining franchise with the Democratic Republic of Congo that entailed the raising and training of the Congolese army in exchange for the diamond franchise. Kamisa claimed that Gertler and others breached their contract with him and he sued for NIS 2.5 million. The case was dismissed after Gertler agreed to pay Kamisa NIS1.4m.

In his court filings, Kamisa claimed that he was initially introduced to Gertler in 2000 by Lieberman who claimed to be Gertler's silent partner. Kamisa alleged that at the time his deal with Gertler went sour, he was fired from his position as adviser to the Director-General of the National Infrastructures Ministry. The director-general at the time, Yair Maayan, was appointed by Lieberman, who served as national infrastructures minister in 2001-2002.

Today, Lieberman's proposal for governmental reform is cut to fit his own proportions. The proposal ignores the structural sources of the malfunction of the electoral system: the severe weakness of the Knesset and the disproportionate strength of the Supreme Court. His proposed reform relates almost exclusively to the executive branch of government. In calling for a presidential system of government, Lieberman notably limits his discussion to the job that he wishes to hold one day.

Lieberman argues that his plan must go through, and that getting it through justifies joining the Olmert government because today Israel's greatest problem is its governmental instability. This assertion is wrong for two reasons. First, the greatest deficit of Israel's governing system is not its instability, but its uneven checks and balances between the three arms of government. Second, Israel's most urgent problem today is not its malfunctioning political system, but its incompetent political leadership.

Lieberman further justifies his rush to join Olmert's government in spite of Olmert's refusal to give him a senior security portfolio, by claiming that his concern national security outweighs all other considerations. Yet his protestations are hardly convincing.

From Olmert's, Livni's, Peretz's and Halutz's refusal to take any responsibility for Israel's defeat in Lebanon this summer, and from their refusal to prepare Israel for the war that awaits it, they have proven themselves to be incompetent to fulfill their duties. As long as they remain in power, it doesn't matter who joins their coalition. Israel will not have leaders capable of defending it. Even if all the allegations against Lieberman prove groundless, even if his protestations of national responsibility are all true, his best intentions will be insufficient to turn the situation around.

While Lieberman's actions today will not help Israel, they will most certainly help Lieberman. Lieberman has made no attempt to hide his desire to see Israel Beiteinu replace the Likud as the leading right-wing party. But today he sees that opinion polls show the country wants for the Likud to form the next government.

Lieberman knows that if the Likud reconstitutes itself as the largest political party and leads the next governing coalition, his dream of transforming Israel Beiteinu into a major party and himself into the prime minister will be lost. Consequently, Lieberman is willing to join forces with Olmert to prolong the tenure of the current government in the hopes that by blocking new elections he will end the public's support for the Likud. According to this analysis, if Olmert remains prime minister for the next three years, the Likud will become irrelevant while Lieberman, a veteran government minister, would have a fair shot of becoming prime minister (or president).

Katsav's salacious legal troubles make great newspaper copy, it is true. It is also true that Israel is in dire need of a serious debate about our political system and constitutional order. But these issues cannot be the central issues on our nation's agenda today.

As our enemies prepare for a war which our leaders are incompetent to fight, rather than allow us to elect leaders capable of meeting the threats, Lieberman, Olmert, Livni, Peretz and Halutz are doing everything they can to convince us to ignore the dangers. Their efforts must not succeed. 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

In Acre this past weekend, what was supposed to be a joyous celebration of Simchat Torah degenerated into a near pogrom when for two nights an Arab mob physically attacked Jewish worshipers with crowbars, rocks and firecrackers, and verbally assaulted them with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic slurs. The worshipers were students from the hesder yeshiva Ruah Tzfonit (Northern Wind) located in the mixed Jewish-Arab Wolfson neighborhood.

According to Rabbi Yossi Stern, who leads the yeshiva, "Each year we dance in the city's neighborhoods. On Friday, as we walked to where we planned to celebrate, the Arabs attacked us with rocks and firecrackers. We ignored them and kept walking to our destination."

Saturday night the attacks spun out of control. "We danced in a different part of town on Saturday night. As we returned to the yeshiva, the attacks began."

A group of some 100 Arabs attacked 60 or so yeshiva students with crowbars, firecrackers, rocks and dry blows. One of the students, a soldier on leave from the IDF for the holiday, was carrying his M-16 rifle. "He was being hit and his friends were being hit, and the Arabs kept touching his rifle. He felt that his life was in danger," Stern explains, "and so he shot a warning shot in the air to get them away from him."

According to Rabbi Stern, in the weeks that preceded the holiday, there was a marked rise in Islamic incitement of the Arabs in the neighborhood. "It was clear that there was organized incitement going on." Islamic flags were unfurled on homes and businesses. Posters of the mosques on the Temple Mount were hung throughout the neighborhood. Then, for the first time in the neighborhood's history, an Arab resident placed an enormous loudspeaker on his roof and began blasting the muezzin's calls to prayer five times a day.

Concerned about the possibility that the increased Arab hostility could lead to violence, Rabbi Stern contacted the police before the holiday and requested a police escort for the students during the holiday. The escort never arrived.

Once the soldier fired his rifle the situation degenerated still further. As the students fought their way to their yeshiva and holed up in their study hall, the Arabs surrounded the building and refused to leave. At this point, a large police contingent arrived at the scene. But, according to Rabbi Stern, the main thing that interested them was the shooting incident. The police seized the soldier's rifle and interrogated him for several hours before releasing him - without his weapon - to military police for further investigation.

RATHER THAN arrest the Arabs outside the yeshiva who were threatening further violence, or force them to disperse, the police demanded that the students leave the building through a back exit with police escort. The students refused. The stand-off continued for another three hours. At the end, the police agreed to escort the students to the bus station through the front door of the yeshiva. No arrests were made.

Rabbi Stern sees the riots as a watershed event in the city. "Until now the police and the municipal leaders tried to sweep these sorts of assaults under the rug and treated them as isolated incidents." Now, he hopes that a more systematic approach will be taken to contending with the increased hostility of the city's Arabs towards the Jews.

No doubt, such a reassessment is necessary. One only needs to look at what is happening today in France to understand what can happen if the police and political authorities maintain their refusal to enforce the laws towards Israeli Arabs without prejudice.

In France, some 2,500 French policemen have been wounded by Muslim attackers since the beginning of 2006. According to French police statistics, over the past month, 10-12 attacks against Jews have taken place every day.

The French police increasingly refer to the mob violence against them as an intifada, or a civil war. This week, a French patrol in a Muslim suburb of Paris was ambushed by a mob of some 30 rioters who attacked the police officers with tear gas and rocks. One of the officers was hospitalized with a shattered jaw.

The current state of lawlessness in the Muslim neighborhoods of France has been developing for the past several years. The French authorities' fears of the growing electoral power of the French Muslim community, their aversion to allegations of racism, and their hope to appease the Muslim minority and so avert further violence, have caused both the politicians and the law enforcement officials to refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of the problem and contend with it.

The reaction of the Israeli authorities to the rioting in Acre, like their treatment of organized Arab violence and separatism in general, is disturbingly similar to the behavior of their French counterparts. If allowed to go on, there is little reason to doubt that we will face the same problems as the French.

ISRAEL'S GENERAL policy of appeasement towards its Arab minority is nowhere more apparent than on the Temple Mount.

This week, a Jordanian government official let it be known that without debating the issue in public, the Olmert government has approved the construction of a fifth minaret on the Temple Mount. On the face of it, this is not something the general public should care about. What does it matter to Jews if the Muslims build a fifth minaret?

The problem is that the Islamic Wakf, which effectively acts as the sovereign on Judaism's holiest site, has for years been systematically destroying the remains of Jewish temples on the Temple Mount and intimidating the police and political authorities not to apply Israel's law - which mandates free access and religious worship by all religions to sacred sites - on the site. The construction of a fifth minaret is a clear attempt on the part of the Wakf to fill the Temple Mount with mosques and so prevent all Jewish worship and block any attempt to build a synagogue on the site.

Rather than deny the request, or condition its approval for the construction of a fifth minaret on the parallel construction of a synagogue or, at the very least, the permanent opening of the Temple Mount to all worshipers from all religions in accordance with Israeli law, the government has apparently agreed to the building request.

The authorities' actions in Acre and Jerusalem expose a dangerous reality: Without notifying the public, Israel's political and law enforcement leadership have enabled the establishment of two separate rules of law exist side by side in Israel today - one for Jews and one for Arabs. The police in Acre over the weekend, who enforced the law against the soldier who shot his rifle in the air, refused to enforce the law against the Arab rioters.

Rabbi Stern believes that the lesson from the attacks against his students this weekend is that the police must enforce the law fully and without prejudice to all Israelis. He is right. The application of two different laws to Jews and Arabs has not led to increased integration but to increased segregation.

Last month the Harry Truman Institute at Hebrew University conducted a poll of Israeli Arabs in the aftermath of the war in Lebanon. Sixty-eight percent said they care about Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah, and 70 percent said they think that Nasrallah cares about them.

The cowardly refusal of state authorities to apply the law in the same manner to both Arabs and Jews, has contributed greatly to the unraveling of our common Israeli identity.

While Israeli Arabs who wish to be fully integrated into Israeli society find themselves isolated and intimidated, irredentist forces within the Israeli Arab community such as the Islamic Movement and the Adallah organization which demand communal autonomy rather than individual rights for Israeli Arabs, have gained unprecedented power and influence.

Many who applaud the police's prejudicial enforcement of the law do so in the name of the liberal value of equality. But what we see as the consequence of this prejudicial behavior is not the enhancement of equality, but the empowerment of illiberal, violent forces in the Arab Israeli community who far from advancing coexistence, have effectively debased the concepts of both equality and the rule of law to the detriment of Arabs and Jews alike.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's speech at the American Task Force for Palestine's inaugural dinner in Washington on Wednesday evening was but the latest sign that America's alliance with Israel is weakening.

Rice's statement that "there could be no greater legacy for America than to help to bring into being a Palestinian state," just about says it all. The secretary of state of a president who was once friendlier to Israel than any of his predecessors now claims that the establishment of a state for a people who have distinguished themselves as the most overtly pro-jihad, terrorist society in the world, would be the greatest thing American could ever do.

Unfortunately, unless concerted steps are taken by the Israeli government, Israeli citizens and the American Jewish community, the downward trend in relations with the US will only get worse. Perhaps most upsetting is the central role that a tiny minority of American Jews has played in souring ties between Jerusalem and Washington. That minority has undermined support for Israel in the Democratic Party and now seeks to undermine Israel's position in the US in general.

The Democratic Party's sharp turn leftward in recent years has been a major factor in weakening the US-Israel alliance. The ideological transformation of the party is the fruit of a collaborative effort by leading financiers, radical-leftist ideologues and political activists. Together these forces built organizations that dictate the party's agenda; finance the campaigns of politicians who embrace this agenda; and work to defeat conservative Republicans and Democrats who disagree with their agenda.

MoveOn.org is the most influential organization of this type established in recent years. Its principal financiers are American Jewish billionaires George Soros and Peter Lewis.

MoveOn.org first gained national prominence during the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries. Howard Dean, a previously undistinguished governor of Vermont, was an eminently forgettable also-ran with a reputation among the few who knew of him as a political moderate who was hawkish on national security. Then he was discovered by MoveOn.org.

As the group began pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into his campaign, Dean veered to the left and began roundly condemning the war in Iraq. Caught off-balance by Dean's challenge, all but one of the other candidates shifted left as well and joined him in criticizing the war. For his principled refusal to disavow the war in Iraq, Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman earned the enduring enmity of MoveOn.org.

This summer, MoveOn.org played a central role in Lieberman's defeat in the Democratic primary for his Senate seat. It contributed funds to Lieberman's opponent, Ned Lamont, and its Web site served as a clearinghouse disseminating anti-Lieberman propaganda.

Propaganda posted on the Web site was laced with blatant anti-Semitic attacks. Postings repeatedly referred to Lieberman as "the Jew Lieberman," and "ZioNazi Lieberman." These attacks were by no means unusual. Indeed, anti-Semitic slurs against Israel and Jewish Americans, and belittlements of the Holocaust, appear regularly in MoveOn.org Web forums.

In a representative post, a MoveOn.org member compared President George W. Bush negatively to Adolf Hitler, writing, "Bush is no Hitler. Hitler was a socialist and believed in something beside money. He did not dodge real military service and he believed at least in Germany, which was a real nation and not a corporation like the US. Moreover, Hitler did not use depleted uranium and phosphorous to burn people alive. He did not condone the torture of prisoners 'for fun' or 'to relieve stress.'"

According to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report, Soros and his wealthy Jewish American friends have now decided to aim their fire directly at Israel. Soros has invited Lewis and other North American Jewish plutocrats like Charles and Edgar Bronfman to join forces with him and leftist Jewish American organizations including American Friends of Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, and the Reform movement's Religious Action Center to form a political lobby that will weaken the influence of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.

Many of the individuals and organizations associated with the initiative have actively worked to undermine Israel. Soros caused a storm in 2003 when, during a fund-raising conference for Israel he alleged that Israel was partially responsible for the rise in anti-Semitic violence in Europe because of its harsh response to Palestinian terrorism.

In November 2005, the leaders of the Israel Policy Forum met with Rice and pushed her to dismiss Israel's legitimate security concerns regarding the operation of the Gaza Strip's border crossing points at Rafah and Karni. Following their advice, Rice aggressively and publicly pressured Israel to make dangerous concessions to the Palestinians that involved Israel's relinquishment of effective control over its own borders.

After Israel capitulated to Rice and an agreement was reached, Semour Reich, one of the founders of the Israel Policy Forum, crowed, "I have no doubt that we bolstered the secretary of state's instincts and strengthened her opinion that aggressive American involvement was needed to achieve practical results."

Ahead of then-prime minister Ariel Sharon's scheduled visit with Bush in the summer of 2003, Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress, wrote a letter to Bush along with former secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger expressing opposition to the security barrier and asking the president to treat Sharon in the same manner he had treated PA leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Weeks later, Bronfman criticized the Palestinians for not limiting their terrorist assaults to Israeli residents of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. In a media interview he said, "If the Palestinian suicide bombers only went to the settlements and told the whole world they were wrong, then the whole world would have had a case against Israel and there would be a two-state solution by now. Instead, they sent them into Israel proper, which is ghastly."

After Hamas's electoral victory in January, American Friends of Peace Now, Israel Policy Forum and Brit Tzedek v'Shalom came together in an ad-hoc coalition to shield the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority from Congressional sanctions. Together they worked to sink the Palestinian Anti-Terror Act, which enjoyed overwhelming support in the Congress and the Senate and was backed by AIPAC. The legislation was designed to update US policy toward the PA in the wake of Hamas's ascendance to power.

The bill called for the immediate cessation not only of direct US aid to the PA but also for the cut-off of US assistance to nongovernmental and UN organizations operating in the PA that had connections to terrorist organizations. The bill defined the PA as a terrorist sanctuary and consequently would have barred the entry of PA officials to and the operation of PA offices in the US, and placed travel restrictions on PA and PLO representatives to the UN. The bill also would have prohibited US officials from having any contacts with officials from Hamas, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The bill was approved by an enormous majority in the House of Representatives. Yet, due to the lobbying efforts of this group of Jewish leftists, the Senate version was greatly watered down, and included a presidential waiver that rendered the bill more or less declaratory. Since there was little common ground between the two versions of the bill, the Palestinian Anti-Terror Act was scuttled.

According to the JTA account, Soros would like to institutionalize the ad-hoc coalition's success in undermining the Palestinian Anti-Terror Act in a new lobby. Its founders all insist that theirs is a pro-Israel group. Yet scrutiny of the groups' organizational and individual members' actions leads to the inevitable conclusion that far from acting to promote Israel, this new lobby will work to weaken Israel, to weaken the Israel-American alliance and to strengthen Israel's enemies. While its Jewish founders insist that they are pro-Israel, the fact of the matter is that they are about to establish an American Jewish anti-Israel lobby.

To its discredit, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government took no steps to stymie the coalition's machinations against the Palestinian Anti-Terror Act. Indeed, since 2003, Israel's governments have gone out of their way to applaud these groups. Olmert's now infamous speech in June 2005 where he said, "We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies," was made at the Israel Policy Forum's annual dinner.

BUT FOR all that, it is not too late to change course. The Jewish American anti-Israel lobby is scheduled to be launched on October 26. Now is the time for the Olmert government to forthrightly announce that the new lobby is not pro-Israel, but rather anti-Israel.

Even if the government does no such thing, Israel's citizens have a responsibility to explain to the organized American Jewish community and to its umbrella organization, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, that we, the citizens of the largest Jewish community in the world, view these groups as anti-Zionist. Israeli citizens should request an explanation for the inclusion of some of these groups in pro-Israel umbrella organizations like the Conference of Presidents when their goal is to weaken Israel, to weaken Israel's alliance with the US and to strengthen Israel's enemies. Israeli citizens can and should send letters and e-mails to this effect to the Conference at its New York offices.

One of the great strengths of the American Jewish community is its pluralism. On a religious level, all communities - from the ultra-Orthodox to the ultra-Reform - are recognized as Jewish communities. But there is a line that everyone knows may not be crossed. Jews for Jesus have removed themselves from the Jewish people and everyone knows this. There is not one Jewish organization that accepts them as Jews.

By the same token, the vast majority of American Jews support Israel. As is the case with religious observance, this support runs the gamut from disciples of Meir Kahane to followers of Yossi Sarid. But everyone knows that organizations like Not in My Name, which acts as the Jewish American branch of the International Solidarity Movement, seeks to undermine IDF operations and makes common cause with Israel's enemies, are not Zionist organizations.

Like Jews for Jesus, Jews who work to weaken Israel's security, undermine Israel's relations with the US and strengthen Israel's enemies take themselves beyond the broad tent of the American Jewish pro-Israel community.

Israel's alliance with the US is based on the fact that most Americans support Israel. American support for Israel finds its roots in foundations as diverse as religion, politics, morality, security, culture and economics. While the alliance is visibly weakened, its foundations remain solid. To rebuild American political support for Israel and to enhance the US-Israel alliance, it is imperative that Israel be capable of understanding the nature of this support. This understanding begins by making distinctions between our many friends and our foes and acting on these distinctions.

Not all of our friends are Jews and not all Jews are our friends. 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

It would seem that Karl Marx got things backwards. History does not repeat itself first as tragedy and then as farce. Rather, it repeats itself first as farce and second as tragedy. This, perhaps more than anything else is the conclusion one should reach from North Korea's nuclear test on Columbus Day.

It was the Clinton administration, which back in the Roaring '90s began the policy of appeasing North Korea. Throughout the decade the US wined and dined the North Korean Stalinists who always responded by pocketing US concessions and escalating their nuclear and ballistic missile activities and threats against the US and its Asian allies.

The farce was then US secretary of state Madeleine Albright's visit to Pyongyang in late October 2000, two weeks before the US presidential elections. There, after the North Koreans tested the Taepo-Dong 1 ballistic missile off the coast of Japan in 1998 and refused to end either their missile programs or missile exports to Iran, Albright tripped the night fantastic with Kim Jong-Il. Her buffoonery was a perfect capstone to eight years of the Clinton administration's addiction to ceremony over substance.

While America's tone towards North Korea chilled under the Bush administration, there was little substantive change in its policies.

Secretary of state Colin Powell met with his North Korean counterpart Pak Nam Sun and to this day US attempts to strike a deal with Pyongyang have not ended. And now, Pyongyang, with its medium- and long-range ballistic missiles, has tested a nuclear bomb.

THERE IS of course also North Korea's ally Iran. Toward Iran, too, the substance of the Bush administration policies is little different from that of his predecessor. Like North Korea, the Iranians respond to US attempts at appeasement by escalating their rhetoric and redoubling their offensive military build-ups of missiles and nuclear capabilities.

The great shift, then which occurred under the Bush administration, a shift for which President George W. Bush has been pilloried by his political rivals, has been rhetorical.

While hypocritical, the division between rhetoric and substance has something to recommend it. The benefit of the current US position toward North Korea and Iran is that the rhetoric has left open the possibility that the policy itself will finally be suited to reality. Today, unlike the situation in the 1990s, the American public is at least aware that these states are a threat to US national security interests.

In the aftermath of North Korea's nuclear bomb test, the US can support military actions by Japan and South Korea against North Korea; build up its missile shield; and perhaps end its 14 year self-imposed moratorium on nuclear testing and so revamp its nuclear arsenal.

Were the Bush administration to change its policy tomorrow regarding Iran - begin shaming Europe into ending its appeasement, and threatening Russia with trade sanctions if Moscow continues supporting Iran, Syria and Hizbullah, while building up its military options to strike at Iran's nuclear installations - the American public would understand why the policy change was necessary. Indeed, such a move could even help the Republican Party in the upcoming elections.

DISTURBINGLY, WHILE Bush has paved the way rhetorically for a shift in policy toward North Korea and Iran, he has done no such thing in the US's relations with the terror-ruled Palestinian Authority. And as is the case with Iran and North Korea, the stubborn and ill-considered continuation of the Clinton administration's appeasement policy toward the PA during the Bush years has only exacerbated and escalated the threat posed by the PA to US national security interests and to the national security of US allies - first and foremost, of Israel.

In the 1990s, the father of modern terrorism, Yasser Arafat, was the most frequent foreign visitor at the White House. The head of the PLO was the object of adoration by the Clintonites. It didn't matter to them that Arafat never revoked the PLO Charter calling for Israel's destruction. It didn't matter that he indoctrinated a generation of Palestinian children to become suicide bombers in jihad against the Jews. It didn't matter that he used billions of dollars of American and European taxpayer money to build the largest terror army in the world. Arafat showed up at signing ceremonies. He was the poster child of appeasement.

The Clinton administration tied itself to a policy toward the Palestinians which, like its policies toward North Korea and Iran, opened it to ever escalating blackmail. As the terror threat emanating from the PA-ruled areas rose, empowering Arafat became the obsession of the Clinton White House. He was showered with money, guns and love. No Israeli security consideration could hold a candle to the need to strengthen Arafat.

From bombing to bombing, Arafat was enriched and empowered. Israel's security became the main obstacle to the signing ceremonies.

After seven years, the myth of Arafat the peacemaker exploded in the faces of more than a thousand Israelis who would be killed over the next six years of the Palestinian jihad. But the myth of the PA endured.

For the past six years, each bombing, every clear indication that the PA itself is a terrorist entity is met by more breathless US protestations of support for Palestinian empowerment and statehood. The fact that the last six years have left the State Department unfazed was made absolutely clear during Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit last week.

Since Arafat appointed Mahmoud Abbas, his deputy of 40 years, PA prime minister in 2003, the US has upheld Abbas as a man of peace, a moderate and a respectable leader that the Bush administration wishes to strengthen. To this end, the Bush administration has overlooked Abbas's clear support for terrorism. It has excused his constant appeals to merge his Fatah terror group with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It has ignored the fact that his Fatah terror group has committed more acts of terror than Hamas and that Fatah's involvement in terror and the sophistication of its attacks has only increased since Abbas replaced Arafat after the latter's death in November 2004.

During her visit last week, at Abbas's request, Rice was scheduled to meet with Fatah commander Hussein a-Sheikh in the American Consulate-General in Jerusalem. The meeting was cancelled at the last minute when Israeli activists demanded that Sheikh, who was directly responsible for the murder of dozens of Israelis and several American nationals, be arrested by Israel police upon arrival at the consulate. Yet, Rice still met with other Fatah leaders, like Muhammad Dahlan who has been directly implicated in the murder of Israelis in terror attacks perpetrated by men under his command.

EVEN MORE disturbingly, Rice has officially sanctioned a policy put together by US Army Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton to expand by up to 70 percent Abbas's presidential guard and personal army, Force 17. The administration wishes to raise some $20 million to fund the training and arming and expansion of Abbas's army from 3,500 to 6,000 soldiers. This move comes after the US transferred 3,000 rifles and 1 million bullets to Force 17 in June. Yet Force 17 is a terrorist army led by terrorists.

Right after he received the weapons shipment, Abbas appointed Mahmoud Damra commander of the force. Damra, who like many of the Force 17 officers and soldiers, doubles as a Fatah terrorist, is wanted by Israel due to his direct involvement in the terrorist murder of at least 15 Israelis. One of his deputies claimed that the US rifles were immediately used to attack a bus carrying Israeli school girls in Judea.

Israel arrested Damra at a checkpoint shortly after he received Abbas's appointment. The US immediately began pressuring Israel to release him.

In addition to Damra's direct involvement in Fatah terror, he also has close ties with Iran and Hizbullah. In 2002, Arafat reportedly appointed him Force 17's liaison officer to Iran and Hizbullah forces. The fact that Abbas appointed Damra Force 17's overall commander just weeks before Fatah and Hamas began Iran's proxy war against Israel by attacking the IDF position at Kerem Shalom and kidnapping Cpl. Gilad Shalit, should say something about Abbas's intentions. Yet, last week, Rice couldn't praise Abbas enough.

North Korea's nuclear test and Iran's nuclear intimidation show us what happens when failed policies are not abandoned. Due in part to its continued US-backed legitimacy, the PA is used by Pakistan as an excuse for terror sponsorship and nuclear proliferation and by jihadists throughout the world as justification for attacks on Western and Jewish targets.

No doubt the North Korean nuclear test is a turning point in this world war.

The question is whether it will force the US to finally part with appeasement, or whether Rice will convince President Bush to take his chances by repeating history a third and fourth time.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

The clouds of the coming war are converging upon Israel. But our political and military leaders refuse to look up at the darkening sky.

The Russian bear has awakened after 15 years of hibernation. Under the leadership of former KGB commander President Vladimir Putin, Russia is reasserting its traditional hostility towards Israel.

On Tuesday, Russian military engineers landed in Beirut. Their arrival signaled the first time that Russian forces have openly deployed in the Middle East. In the past Soviet forces in Syria and Egypt operated under the official cover of "military advisers." Today those "advisers" are "engineers." The Russian forces, which will officially number some 550 troops, are "officially" tasked with rebuilding a number of bridges that the IDF destroyed during the recent war. They will operate outside the command of UNIFIL.

Mosnews news service reported on Wednesday that the engineers will be protected by commando platoons from Russia's 42nd motorized rifle division permanently deployed in Chechnya. According to the report, these commando platoons are part of the Vostok and Zapad Battalions, both of which are commanded by Muslim officers who report directly to the main intelligence department of the Russian Army's General Staff in Moscow. The Vostok Battalion is commanded by Maj. Sulim Yamadayev, who Mosnews refers to as a "former rebel commander."

With the deployment of former Chechen rebels as Russian military commandos in Lebanon, the report this week exposing Russia's intelligence support for Hizbullah during the recent war takes on disturbing strategic significance. According to Jane's Defense Weekly, the Russian listening post on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights provided Hizbullah with a continuous supply of intelligence throughout the conflict.

Much still remains to be reported about the impressive intelligence capabilities that Hizbullah demonstrated this summer. But from what has already been made public, we know that Hizbullah's high degree of competence in electronic intelligence caused significant damage to IDF operations.
Now we learn that Moscow stood behind at least one layer of Hizbullah's intelligence prowess.

Moscow's assistance to Hizbullah was not limited to intelligence sharing. The majority of IDF casualties in the fighting were caused by Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles that made their way to Hizbullah fighters through Syria. Indeed, as we learn more about Russia's role, it appears that Russia's support for Hizbullah may well have been as significant as Syria's support for the terror organization. And now we have Chechens in Lebanon.

Russian backing of Hizbullah, like its support for Syria and Iran, has been matched by its extreme, Cold War-esque hostility towards Israel. On Tuesday, Channel 2 reported that for the past few months Putin has been obsessively demanding that the government transfer proprietary rights and control to the Russian government over the Russian Compound, which has served as a police station since the British Mandate, and other Russian historical buildings in central Jerusalem.

Putin's demand, which has no legal foundation or diplomatic precedent, exposes startling disrespect for Israeli sovereignty. According to Channel 2, Russian diplomats have been raising this obnoxious demand at the start of every meeting they have had with Israeli officials for the past several months. This most recently reported slap in the face joins a long list of diplomatic crises that Russia has fomented in the past few months.

In just one example, last month the Russians cancelled the Russia-Israel trade fair in Tel Aviv on the eve of its opening. Russian businessmen who had already arrived in Israel and were unable to get flights home the day of the announcement were ordered by the Russian embassy to remain in their hotel rooms until they returned to the airport for the first available flight to Russia.

Then there is Russia's unstinting support for Iran's nuclear weapons program. During the latest of his frequent visits to Teheran Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced, yet again, that Russia opposes all international sanctions against Iran. Indeed, since Iran's nuclear program was exposed three years ago, Russia has acted as Iran's defender against every US attempt to galvanize the international community to take action to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capabilities.

In 1967 Russia played a central role in fanning the flames of war in Syria. In the months that preceded the Six Day War, Moscow fed Damascus a steady diet of false intelligence indicating that Israel was planning to invade. In the summer of 1973, the Soviets also encouraged Syria to join Egypt in invading Israel.

Whether or not Russia is interested in fomenting the next war, its intentions are less relevant than how Russia's extreme positions are interpreted by the Arabs. Judging by Syrian President Bashar Assad's recent bellicose speeches, it appears that Damascus believes that Russia will support Syria if it goes to war against Israel. In his latest address regarding Syria's willingness to go to war if Israel doesn't fork over the Golan Heights forthwith in "peace negotiations," Assad made clear his belief that whatever its level of intensity, a Syrian war against Israel could well advance his interests.

Russian influence is also evident in Assad's "peace" rhetoric. His protestations of willingness to conduct negotiations with Israel are taken directly from the Soviet playbook. As the reactions the speech elicited from leaders of the pro-Syrian camp in the Israeli Left like Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Uri Saguy, Education Minister Yuli Tamir, Haaretz columnist Yoel Marcus, and MK Azmi Bishara made clear, all that is needed to manipulate Israeli public opinion regarding Syrian intentions is a hollow and disingenuous Syrian announcement: If we abide by all of Damascus's demands (something Damascus will never allow us to do), then Syria will give us "peace," and if we don't, then the responsibility for the war that will ensue will be our own.
 

WHAT IS Israel doing to meet these gathering threats?

First we have our elected leaders. They contend with the growing threats by denying them, giving in to them and attempting to change the subject. The Olmert-Livni-Peretz government had no public reaction to the Russian-Chechen deployment in Lebanon. As far as the Israeli government is concerned, this issue, like the fact that Hizbullah has returned to its pre-war positions and that UNIFIL forces are doing nothing to prevent its rapid rearmament, should be of no interest to the pubic.

According to Channel 2, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is now leaning towards capitulating to Russia's demands and transferring proprietorship over the Russian Compound to the Russian government during his upcoming visit to Moscow.

As to Syria, rather than crafting a Syria policy, the government argues about the desirability of giving Syria the Golan Heights now or later. Above and beyond all else, as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Amir Peretz proclaim, from the government's perspective, the best way to deal with the growing military threats is to ignore them and destroy Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.

Our political leaders are not the only ones involved here. It is the IDF's duty to sound the alarm bells and contend with these threats. But the IDF is doing no such thing. Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz claims that he is devoting all of his time to rebuilding the IDF after what he refers to as its "mediocre" performance in Lebanon. Practically speaking, however, Halutz is not contending with the threats. In an interview with Yediot Aharonot on Sunday, Halutz discounted the Syrian developments and maintained his position that we won the war in Lebanon and are feared by Hizbullah.

Far from contending with the IDF's "mediocrity," Halutz is prolonging it. The IDF's "mediocre" land campaign in Lebanon was led by Deputy COS Maj.-Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky, Operations Directorate Chief Maj.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot and Brig.-Gen. Tal Russo who oversaw the IDF's special operations. Rather than contend with these officers' demonstrated mediocrity, Halutz has promoted them.

Eisenkot was appointed the new commander of Northern Command, and Russo will be promoted to major general and replace Eisenkot as head of Operations. Furthermore, Maj. Gen. Iddo Nehushtan who commands the Planning Directorate supports opening negotiations with Syria. Halutz promoted Nehushtan to his position after he led the IDF's failed media campaign during the conflict.

Halutz has repeatedly stated that he will resign if he feels that his authority is no longer accepted by the army. Yet, the primary officers who have felt the brunt of his authority - Armored Brigade 7 commander Col. Amnon Eshel and Maj.-Gen. Yiftach Ron-Tal - are the most prominent officers who have forthrightly attempted to point out the reality of the IDF's defeat.

It is clear why Halutz behaves this way. If he were to sound the alarm bells about the rising dangers in the North, he would have to admit that he failed in his command of the war. Similarly, if he were to bring new blood into the ground forces' chain of command, he would be effectively admitting that Kaplinsky, Eisenkot, Russo, and he as their commander, led the war irresponsibly. Indeed, the only way that Halutz can keep his job is by not contending with the dangerous military realities that have arisen as a result of the IDF's defeat in the war against Hizbullah this summer.

It is this policy of denial that motivated Halutz to fire Maj.-Gen. Ron-Tal from the service on Wednesday night for Ron-Tal's statement of the obvious: The year the IDF devoted to training its forces to expel the 9,500 Israeli civilians from Gaza and northern Samaria last summer came at the expense of training for war against Israel's enemies. It was also this policy of denial that motivated Halutz to bar Eshel from promotion for two years after Eshel pointed out how incompetently Division 91 Commander Brig.-Gen. Gal Hirsh commanded his forces in Lebanon.

Halutz accused Ron-Tal, who has been on paid leave pending his retirement for the past seven months, of bringing politics into the IDF for his statement that the IDF's single-minded devotion to the government's controversial political program harmed its war-fighting capabilities, and for his call for Halutz and Olmert to resign. Yet, during his tenure as chief of staff, Halutz has been slavish in his public devotion to the government's political preference for using the IDF to fight the Israeli residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza over preparing for war against Israel's enemies.

ANY OBJECTIVE observer of the developments in our region understands that the storm of war is rapidly approaching us. With Moscow's blessing, the Palestinians, Hizbullah, Syria and Iran are steadfastly preparing for battle.

There is no doubt that Israel can weather the coming storm. But to do this, we must have political and military leaders who are willing to recognize its inexorable approach.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is an interesting case study in how a public image can trump professional competence in Israeli politics.

Livni was brought into politics by then prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu in 1999. The back-bencher became prominent in 2003 after undergoing two major transformations. First, she exchanged her frizzy light brown curls and dowdy dresses for straight blond hair and couture. Next she followed former premier Ariel Sharon from the nationalist camp to the post-Zionist camp.

In the aftermath of these stunning changes, the leftist media crowned this woman with pidgin English and no understanding of international diplomacy the queen of Israeli politics. While bereft of actual accomplishments, with the media's bottomless indulgence, Livni enjoys a reputation as a savvy, competent, and scrupulously clean politician.

All this no doubt explains a poll published Sunday by Ma'ariv which claims that if Livni were to replace Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as head of Kadima, she could lead the embattled candidates' list to victory in the next general elections.

One of Livni's chief advantages over Olmert is that she is less identified than her boss with Israel's defeat in Lebanon. There are two main reasons that this is the case. First, unlike Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, Livni maintained a low profile throughout the war. Second, Livni was kept out of the loop of the war's military management.

More than anything else, Ma'ariv's poll exposes the public's ignorance of Livni's positions on issues of national concern. This is so because in repeated polls since the war came to its sudden cessation, the public has expressed views diametrically opposed to those that Livni seeks to advance.

On Friday, Livni clarified her positions in an interview with Yediot Aharonot. Her views were also given expression in an article in Haaretz on Sunday regarding the government's diplomatic handling of the war. During the war, the principal difference between Livni and Olmert was that Livni gave up on the idea of Israel winning the war on July 12 - that is, on the day that Hizbullah attacked an IDF patrol along the northern border, kidnapped IDF reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser and began pummeling northern Israel with rockets and missiles. It took Olmert another 10 days to be convinced that Israel ought to lose the war.

Both in her interview with Yediot and in her statements to Haaretz, Livni makes clear that unlike the public, she doesn't see why the war in Lebanon proves that the policy of surrendering land to terrorists is misguided.

Ignoring the fact that Israel's withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza enabled the empowerment of jihadist terror groups and paved the way for the war that ensued, Livni sees the terror wars as an opportunity to bring foreign troops into Lebanon. Indeed, on the first day of the war, Livni instructed her advisers to begin drawing up plans for foreign forces to come to Lebanon to protect Israel.

Although UNIFIL commanders have made clear that they will not disarm Hizbullah, enforce an arms embargo, or remove Hizbullah forces from the border, Livni views the UNIFIL deployment in Lebanon as a model for both Gaza and Judea and Samaria.

Livni's aversion - already on the first day of the war - to any attempt on Israel's part to secure a military victory in Lebanon on the one hand, and her enthusiastic advocacy of the international force model in Lebanon and in Gaza and Judea and Samaria on the other stems from her basic misconception of both Israel's regional security environment and its international position. This misconception makes her behave more as the EU and UN's ambassador to Israel rather than as Israel's chief diplomat.

As she put it to Yediot, Israel has to stop seeing the US as its only ally, and reach out to the UN, the Europeans, the Sunni Arab states in the region - Jordan, Egypt, Mahmoud Abbas in the Palestinian Authority, the Persian Gulf emirates and Saudi Arabia - and to the Saniora government in Lebanon. Livni believes that all these players will cooperate with Israel because they share some of Israel's interests.

While it is true that these international players share interests with Israel, Livni ignores the fact that they have other interests diametrically opposed to Israel's national interests. Those divergent interests have always trumped the shared interests and nothing that Israel has done in the past or could do in the future will change this basic calculus.

Livni began her interview with Yediot by attacking the religious Zionist public. "In the Israeli political system there are no real gaps concerning the [vision of a] comprehensive settlement of the conflict with the Palestinians," she said. "The dispute is between the religious public and the rest of the Israelis."

She argues her case by asserting that aside from the religious Zionists, all Israelis agree that we have to expel the Israelis who live in communities in Judea and Samaria and transfer their land and communities to the Palestinians. Livni's assertion is extraordinary given that in a recent Maagar Mohot poll, 73 percent of Israeli Jews stated that they object to territorial withdrawals from Judea and Samaria.

Livni continued her analysis arguing that Israel must immediately move to destroy the so-called outpost communities in Judea and Samaria. She justified this view by claiming that these communities were built without government permission and that anyway, Israel intends to give the Palestinians the lands the communities are located on. There are three basic flaws in her reasoning.

First, her claim that the communities must be destroyed because they were built without government approval is ridiculous on its face.

The government decided in 2005 that it wanted to destroy them. Tomorrow it could just as easily decide that it wants to expand them. What Livni is effectively saying is, "I don't like them and therefore I want to destroy them."

Second, assuming that she is right that Israel would want to give the lands on which those communities have been built to the Palestinians in the framework of a peace agreement, it is far from clear what Israeli interest would be served by conceding them today, when the Palestinians are governed by their popularly elected jihadist government. Why would Israel want to give up its bargaining chips before it has a Palestinian government willing to accept its existence?

Finally, while Livni mindlessly insists that "everyone knows" the contours of the peace settlement, Israel's experience since the onset of the peace process with the PLO in 1993 has proven incontrovertibly that those contours are wrong.

The Palestinians have repeatedly rejected the vision of two states west of the Jordan River and have repeatedly made clear through their actions and words that they are not interested in having a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and portions of Jerusalem. As they have clarified repeatedly, they want to destroy the Jewish state. So claiming that the solution is known is to simply deny reality.

Livni forcefully argued that Israel cannot rest on its laurels but must move forward immediately to restart negotiations with the Palestinians. In this vein she supports a massive release of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli jails. In her words, "The world doesn't suffer a vacuum in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When we don't initiate solutions, the world comes with its own solutions."

What she fails to recognize is that the world did not rest on its laurels after Israel made massive concessions on its own initiative to the Palestinians in the past. Rather each Israeli concession was seen as but a starting point for further concessions. Indeed the statement makes one wonder where she has been for the past 13 years.

Livni's argumentation stems from her central misconception that Israel's national security is secured not by the IDF but by opinion polls in Paris and Brussels. She fails to understand not only that this is false, but that Israel's popularity ratings in Europe have little to nothing to do with Israel's actual policies or actions.

Finally, Livni told Yediot that her great plan now is to get the Arab states to work with Israel on solving the Palestinian refugee problem. Now that Israel supports Palestinian statehood, she said, the Arabs will want to help solve the problem by settling the refugees in the Palestinian state and by normalizing the status of the Palestinians who have been living in refugee camps in the Arab world since 1948.

Here too, Livni fails to understand reality. The Palestinian refugee problem is not a problem that the Arab world wishes to solve. The Arab world invented the problem because the Arab League wishes to destroy Israel. The refugee problem does not stand on its own. It is a consequence of the Arab world's continued refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Were this not the case, the refugees would have been resettled 50 years ago.

There is a question of how long the leftist media will be able to maintain Livni's image as a responsible, competent leader. They managed to prolong a similar fiction of Olmert as a national leader until he led us to disaster in Lebanon this summer. We must hope that Livni is exposed as an incompetent, opportunistic phony before she can do us similar, if not greater damage in the future. 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.