Yaacov Yaacobov was hard at work at the poultry processing plant in Sderot on Tuesday morning when Palestinian terrorists murdered him with a Kassam rocket.

Wednesday an Arutz 7 reporter spoke to his young son, Hanan. The reporter asked the boy whether he wanted to move away from his hometown to get away from the rocket bombardment. Hanan said no, he wanted to stay.

When the reporter asked him why he wanted to stay, the orphaned child with moonbeam eyes replied, "I love Sderot very much, and I won't leave it because I love the State of Israel. If I leave Sderot, if all of Sderot were evacuated, then the country would fall apart. The Palestinians will see that they are succeeding in Sderot, and then they'll shoot Kassams at Ashkelon and Ashdod too, and do the same in the whole country until nothing is left."

But three days after Hanan explained why Sderot must stand, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided to let it fall. Saturday night Olmert ordered the IDF to end the limited counterterror operations in Gaza he had allowed it to conduct in recent weeks.

Sunday morning Olmert explained, "Last night the chairman of the Palestinian Authority [Mahmoud Abbas] called to tell me of the decision by all the Palestinian [terrorist] factions to cease their fire, cease all their violent actions, including smuggling [of weapons] in tunnels [from Egypt to Gaza], [end] the deployment of suicide bombers and the firing of Kassam [rockets]. I was happy and congratulated the head of the Authority, and the two of us will do all we can for the cease-fire to get started this morning."

By 6 a.m. all IDF units had abandoned their battle stations in Gaza, as ordered. Yet, when Olmert made this statement Sunday morning, the cease-fire had already fallen apart. By 10 o'clock the Palestinians had launched 11 rockets. And by the end of the day Abbas's Fatah terror group's Aksa Brigades had already disavowed the cease-fire, claiming it was unfair because the IDF is still "allowed" to operate in Judea and Samaria.

OTHER FATAH groups didn't even wait that long. Saturday night the Fatah's Army of Islam and Popular Resistance Committees, which co-kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Shalit with Hamas in June, stated outright that they would ignore the cease-fire.

Sunday night Hamas was also threatening to resume its attacks. Hamas spokesmen argued that Abbas's intention to deploy 13,000 Palestinian forces to the border with Israel in northern Gaza was unacceptable. If Abbas deploys those forces, or if his forces arrest any of our terrorists, Hamas warned, the cease-fire will be history.

But then, even before it was announced or disavowed, the cease-fire was a lie. While Olmert told the Israeli public that as part of the cease-fire the Palestinians would stop smuggling weapons into Gaza from the Sinai and cease all weapons production in Gaza, every Palestinian official and unofficial body denied his claim.

That is, the Palestinians view the cease-fire just as they viewed all previous cease-fires - as a respite to be used to replenish their arsenals and retrain their forces. Hamas's commander Khaled Mashaal made this point explicitly when he said that his group plans to go to war with Israel in six to eight months.

Olmert and his cabinet ministers spent Sunday extolling the virtues of PA Chairman Abbas and waxing poetic about the opportunity that the cease-fire affords us to strengthen him and pave the way for an eventual peace deal with him. So great is the government's trust in Abbas that Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Israel Radio that if Israel receives information that the Palestinians are about to shoot off missiles at our cities, before allowing the IDF to defend us, the government will first ask Abbas to have his guys take a crack at it.

THE AMERICANS, for their part, are not merely cheering Abbas, they are funding, arming and training his "Presidential Guard" and pressuring Israel to allow an additional 1,500 PLO terrorists into Gaza from Jordan to join Abbas's personal army. As US Army Lt. General Keith Dayton, who oversees the US training of Abbas's forces explained to Yediot Aharonot on Friday, Abbas's private army is supposed to be a counterweight to Hamas to ensure "that the moderate forces will not be erased."

To Israelis concerned about the prospect of being erased, and for anyone concerned with fighting the global jihad, statements like Olmert's, Livni's and Dayton's are infuriating because they are based on two glaringly obvious factual errors. First, Abbas's forces are in no danger of being erased. Second, they are not and never have been moderate.

As The Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh reported on Friday, Abbas is the commander-in-chief of all the PA's security forces. While it is true that in recent months Hamas has been fielding an army which now numbers some 6,000 jihadists in Gaza, Abbas has some 45,000 military forces in Gaza under his direct control. As the commander of all Fatah terror forces, Abbas also has several thousand additional terrorists under his thumb.

Both the official Palestinian security forces and Fatah terror cells are armed to the teeth and are the chief beneficiaries of the weapons smuggling from the Sinai.

And yet, aside from shooting rockets, missiles, bullets and bombs at Israelis; co-kidnapping IDF Cpl. Gilad Shalit with Hamas and holding him hostage; kidnapping foreign correspondents and forcibly converting them to Islam; murdering and torturing Palestinians suspected of assisting Israel in fighting Palestinian terror (as Abbas is pledged to do), and running protection rackets that terrorize Palestinian businessmen, workers and professionals alike, Abbas doesn't use his forces for much of anything.

The last thing Israel or the US should be worrying about is Abbas's forces' defeat at the hands of Hamas.

AT THE same time, the last thing they can expect is for these forces to act as moderates. Over the past six years, Fatah terrorists, both in and out of the official Palestinian security services, have committed more terror attacks than Hamas. While it is true that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are commanded by Iran, it is also true that Fatah terror units are deeply penetrated by Iran and Hizbullah.

And yet, rather than accept the fact that Abbas is an enemy, not an ally, and that his "security forces" and Fatah "party" are actively involved in terror and racketeering, the US and Israel pretend that they are credible interlocutors. The US trains them and Israel allows them to be trained and pretends there is a chance that they will protect us from themselves.

In its press release regarding the cease-fire, the Foreign Ministry stated: "Israel is interested in maintaining a cease-fire as a means to end the violence and to enable progress in the political negotiations. In doing so Israel is knowingly undertaking the risk that the terrorist organizations will exploit the cease-fire to rearm and to rebuild their infrastructure."

When asked on Israel Radio about the prospect of the Palestinians using the cease-fire to rebuild their arsenals, Defense Minister Amir Peretz's strategic adviser Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Gilad answered rhetorically, "And we were stopping the smuggling until now?"

He went on to assure his listeners that Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, who has to date enabled massive arms shipments to cross Egypt into Sinai, will now make sure that no weapons get through.

IT IS POSSIBLE that Olmert is playing a game of chance with the lives of Hanan Yaacobov and his fellow residents of the south in the hope of winning points with US President George W. Bush when he visits in Jordan this week. Jordan's King Abdullah set the agenda when he shamelessly told ABC News on Sunday that peace in Iraq is dependent on Israel's willingness to capitulate to Palestinian terrorists because the whole Arab world is deeply emotional in its support of Palestinian terrorists against Israel.

Hanan Yaacobov, who no longer has his father to guide him through childhood, has some very mature guidance for Israel's leaders, who may think it preferable to be applauded by foreigners than to defend their countrymen from our enemies.

"I, Yaacobov's son, am turning to you. Resign your positions! Resign. The defense minister and Olmert should admit that they can't do this, and vacate their places in the government to Bibi Netanyahu and to [Avigdor] Lieberman. If they can [defend us] I want to see their answer. If not, they should vacate their seats, quickly."

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Tuesday saw another nail driven into the coffin of US President George W. Bush's vision of a free and democratic Middle East. The Syrians aren't even trying to hide their involvement in the assassination of Lebanon's Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel.

Hours after Gemayel was murdered, his killers issued a communique calling themselves the "Fighters for the Unity and Liberty of Greater Syria." They said that they killed Gemayel because he was "one of those who unceasingly spouted their venom against Syria and against [Hizbullah], shamelessly and without any trepidation." Gemayel, they threatened, would be the first of many victims. As they put it, "Sooner or later we will pay the rest of the agents their due..."

The hit this week was not a bolt from the blue. For the past several weeks Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah and his bosses in Syria and Iran have made it brutally clear that they intend to bring down the anti-Syrian government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and replace it with a pro-Syrian, pro-Iranian coalition led by Hizbullah.

Although their intentions are clear, a casual observer of events could be forgiven for finding the timing of Gemayel's murder somewhat mystifying. After all, the UN Security Council is preparing the establishment of an international tribunal to try those responsible for the February 2005 murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Why would Syrian President Bashar Assad wish to make people mad at him now by killing yet another anti-Syrian politician in Lebanon?

What a casual observer misses is the simple fact that events in Lebanon do not stand on their own. Like Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon is a front in a regional war being waged against the US, Israel and their allies by Iran and Syria. Iraq is another front in this war and Gemayel's murder is intimately tied to developments in Iraq.

The Democratic Party's victory in the November 7 Congressional elections convinced Iran and Syria that they are on the verge of a great victory against the US in Iraq. Iranian and Syrian jubilation is well founded in light of the Democratic leadership's near unanimous calls for the US to withdraw its forces in Iraq; Bush's firing of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his appointment of his father's CIA director Robert Gates to replace him; and Bush's praise for the Congressionally mandated Iraq Study Group charged with revisiting US strategy in Iraq, which is being co-chaired by his father's secretary of state James Baker III.

Although his committee has yet to formally submit its recommendations, Baker made clear that he will recommend that the administration negotiate a withdrawal of US forces from Iraq with Iran and Syria. That is, he is putting together a strategy not for victory, but for defeat.

Baker fervently believes that US foreign policy should revolve around being bad to its friends and good to its enemies. Consequently he thinks that the US can avoid the humiliation of the defeat he proposes by buying off Syria and Iran, the forces behind most of the violence, instability, subversion and terror in Iraq. If the US accepts their conditions, they will temporarily cease their attacks to enable a US retreat that will look only mildly humiliating to the television viewers back home.

This week Bush said he has yet to decide how to move ahead in Iraq. But Baker is moving ahead without him. While Bush also said that he opposes negotiating with Iran and Syria, last Friday The New York Times reported that Baker and his group held talks recently with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem. And, as truth would have it, for the past year or so, the US Ambassador to Baghdad Zalmay Khalizad has been conducting negotiations with the Iranians. Administration sources say that Bush is expected to make a decision on the course of operations in Iraq by mid-December.

But as far as Iran and Syria are concerned, the game has already been called. They are wasting no time collecting their winnings. As Gemayel was being murdered Tuesday in Lebanon, Muallem paid a visit to Baghdad. There he established full diplomatic relations between his country and Iraq. Monday Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced his intention to host a three-way summit with his Iraqi and Syrian counterparts. Responding to Ahmadinejad's invitation, Iraqi President Jalal Talibani is scheduled to visit Iran and Syria next week.

Just as Israelis and American Jews both bitterly recall Baker's acrimonious and degrading treatment during his tenure as secretary of state, so the Syrians and Iranians take comfort from his record. They remember Baker as the man who accepted the 1989 Taif Accord that ended the Syrian-sponsored Lebanese civil war by sacrificing Lebanese sovereignty to Assadian fascist occupation in the name of regional stability.

Then too, Baker is remembered as the man who abandoned Iraq's Shi'ites to their fate at the hands of Saddam after the US failed to assist them in their post-Gulf War rebellion which the US itself had encouraged. Finally, no doubt they noticed that Baker's law firm Baker-Botts is representing the Saudi government in the 9/11 victims' lawsuit against the kingdom.

BAKER'S CURRENT dealings with Iran and Syria parallel closely Israel's talks with the Palestinians in the lead-up to its withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria last year. As Baker does today, at the time Israel appealed to the Palestinians to restrain themselves temporarily to enable an orderly Israeli surrender of the territories.

Last year the Palestinians demanded that Israel hand over the international border between Gaza and the Sinai in exchange for their cooperation. By forcing the IDF to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor, the Palestinian Authority transformed a tactical and symbolic victory for jihad into a strategic victory for jihad. Without Israel controlling the border, Gaza was rapidly transformed into a major base for global terrorists.

Today, the Iranian and Syrian price tags for cooperation are similarly high. The Iranians demand international acceptance of their nuclear weapons program replete with European abandonment of Israel. Their demands have apparently been met.

There is no end in sight for the UN Security Council deliberations over the relatively insignificant European sanctions proposal. And between British Prime Minister Tony Blair's speeches calling for Israeli capitulation on all fronts; French threats to shoot down IAF jets in Lebanon; the Spanish-French-Italian "peace plan;" and France's Arab League-like treatment of Israel in the UN, it is self-evident that the Europeans have abandoned Israel to Ahmadinejad's tender mercies.

Syria set its price for cooperating with the US in Iraq when it murdered Gemayel. That is, in addition to pressuring Israel to give up the Golan Heights, the US will be expected to accept the reassertion of Syrian/Iranian control over all of Lebanon through a new government controlled by Hizbullah and its allies which will replace the Saniora government. The fall of the Saniora government will also spell the demise of the Hariri murder tribunal. Iran and Syria also demand that the US abandon its policy of regime change in both countries.

Another similarity between Israel's retreat from Gaza and northern Samaria last year, its withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, and the proposed US retreat from Iraq today are the obvious consequences of such a retreat for the US, the region and the world. Far from bringing peace and stability, as the champions of the withdrawal policy mindlessly claim, a retreat will cause more war, more instability and more suffering in Iraq, in the region and throughout the world.

In the wake of a US (and Coalition) withdrawal from Iraq, the country would become an Iranian-Syrian-controlled base for global jihad. Battle-tested, heavily armed terrorists, cocky after their victory over the Great Satan, would use Iraq as a stepping-off point for attacks throughout the region and world. Israel and Jordan, as allies of the defeated great power, would be first on the list of targets.

Moreover, as was the case with soldiers and officers of the South Lebanon Army after the Israeli withdrawal, and with Palestinians who assisted Israel in counter-terror operations in Judea, Samaria and Gaza before the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, Iraqis who worked with Coalition forces will likely be killed, arrested and tortured by their new mafia-like terror masters.

Israel will find itself beset by an emboldened, nuclear weapons building Iran, an exhilarated Assad and by Iranian proxies from Gaza to Ramallah to Beirut.

BOTH ISRAEL'S decision to vacate Gaza, northern Samaria and south Lebanon and the current push in the US to leave Iraq are informed by the same strategic confusion. In choosing the strategy of retreat, Israel and the US have ignored the regional and indeed global nature of the war being waged against them. In such a war, it is impossible to view conflicts as discrete campaigns. Everything is related.

Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 inspired the Palestinian jihad. Its withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria caused the two-front war this summer with Iran and Syria in Gaza and Lebanon. That war in turn inspired the current chaos on Lebanon, the Iranian-Syrian brinkmanship in Iraq, and Iran's emboldened sprint to the nuclear finish-line.

The fact that both Israel and the US continue to ignore the nature of the war was made clear this summer when they accepted UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which while setting the terms for a cease-fire in Lebanon made no mention of Syria and Iran - the main parties to the war. Then too, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's stated interest in giving Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians, and the US hope to retreat from Iraq, show that both countries continue to deny reality.

The most pressing question today then is whether Bush will give in to Baker and the Democrats and agree to capitulate to Iran and Syria in Iraq, Lebanon and indeed throughout the world. Unfortunately, things look bleak given that Bush relies most heavily on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Rice has been blocking US action against Syria and Iran for the past two years. She was the primary architect of UN Resolution 1701 this summer, has been pushing for dangerous Israeli concessions to the Palestinians and is known for her good relations with Baker.

Although a great blow to Bush's vision of democracy in the Middle East, Gemayel's murder can still serve as an opportunity for the reinvigoration of that vision. If Bush sees this murder as the warning sign it is of what awaits Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Iraq and indeed the entire world if the US removes its forces from Iraq or is perceived as moving in that direction; if he finally recognizes that Iraq is not a separate war, but a great battle in a larger struggle, then Bush will be able to formulate a new strategy for victory.

Such a strategy, founded on an understanding of the regional and global nature of the war, will change the emphasis of US operations in Iraq in a manner than weakens, rather than strengthens Iran and Syria.

Such a strategy is the only way to ensure the continued functioning of the Saniora government and indeed the survival of Lebanon as an independent nation.

Most importantly, such a strategy will be the only way to ensure that a policy will be formed and adopted by the US and Israel that will prevent Israel's annihilation at the hands of an Iranian nuclear bomb. 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has gone on an appeasement spree and no one seems to mind. On Friday, Blair gave a marquis interview to Al-Jazeera's new psychological warfare platform - its English-language channel - to celebrate its launch.

It is unclear whether Blair meant to give the impression in that interview that he agreed with Al-Jazeera's Man-about-Town-in-Britain David Frost's assertion that the US-British war in Iraq is "pretty much a disaster." But Blair has made unmistakably clear that what he is suing for now is an ignominious American-British retreat from Iraq.

In his recent statements and actions, Blair has been unambiguous in communicating his belief that peace in Iraq begins with Israeli surrender to the Palestinians, Hizbullah and Syria. Blair sees in suicidal Israeli retreats from the Golan Heights, Judea and Samaria the key to unlocking the hearts of the mullahs in Teheran and the Ba'athists in Damascus. As Blair sees it, these enemies of Israel, the US, Britain and the entire Free World will suddenly become reliable friends of the non-Jewish West if Israel is left at their tender mercies. As friends, Iran and Syria will allow the US and Britain to surrender Iraq with their heads held high as they hand global jihadists their greatest victory since the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan.

No less disturbing than Blair's embrace of surrender as a national strategy is the utter lack of outrage against his decision in the British and international media. No one questioned for instance, his decision to grant Al-Jazeera in English an exclusive interview. It is widely accepted, even by some of the British media, that Al-Jazeera's Arabic satellite station is used as a recruiting tool for global jihad. It can be reasonably presumed that the English channel will be used to erode the West's will to defend itself against global jihadist domination. The fact that the network is now operating an English channel should send a chill up the spine of Western and specifically British media outlets which will now have to compete against an enemy propaganda arm masquerading as a news channel.

THERE ARE many reasons that actions like Blair's strategic retreat from reason and responsibility have gone uncriticized by the media. It is not simply that Western, and particularly European journalists are overwhelmingly anti-American and virulently anti-Israel. One of the central reasons for the silence of Western intellectuals and media in the face of actions like Blair's is fear of death at the hands of jihadists.

In France today, high school teacher Robert Redeker has been living in hiding for two months. On September 19 Redeker published an op-ed in Le Figaro in which he decried Islamist intimidation of freedom of thought and expression in the West as manifested by the attacks against Pope Benedict XVI and against Christians in general which followed the pontiff's remarks on jihad earlier that month.

Redeker wrote, "As in the Cold War, where violence and intimidation were the methods used by an ideology hell bent on hegemony, so today Islam tries to put its leaden mantel all over the world. Benedict XVI's cruel experience is testimony to this. Nowadays, as in those times, the West has to be called the 'Free World' in comparison to the Muslim world; likewise, the enemies of the 'Free World,' the zealous bureaucrats of the Koran's vision, who swarm in the very center of the 'Free World,' should be called by their true name."

In reaction to Redeker's column, Egypt banned Le Figaro and Redeker received numerous death threats. His address and maps to his home were published on al-Qaida-linked Web sites and he was forced to leave his job, and flee for his life. While French police just set free the man they know was behind the threats to his life, Redeker recently described his plight to a friend in the following fashion, "There is no safe place for me, I have to beg, two evenings here, two evenings there... I am under the constant protection of the police. I must cancel all scheduled conferences."

For its part, Le Figaro's editor appeared on Al-Jazeera to apologize for publishing Redeker's article.

This weekend British author Douglas Murray discussed the intellectual terror in the Netherlands. Murray, who recently published Neoconservativism: Why We Need It, spoke at a conference in Palm Beach, Florida sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He noted that the two strongest voices in Holland warning against Islamic subversion of Dutch culture and society - Pim Fortyn and Theo Van Gogh - were murdered.

The third most prominent voice calling for the Dutch to take measures to defend themselves, former member of parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali, lives in Washington, DC today.

Her former colleague in the Dutch parliament, Geert Wilders, has been living under military protection, without a home, for years. In the current elections, Wilders has been unable to campaign because his whereabouts can never be announced. His supporters were reluctant to run for office on his candidates' slate for fear of being similarly threatened with murder. Last month, two of his campaign workers were beaten while putting up campaign posters in Amsterdam.

In 2000, Bart Jan Spruyt, a leading conservative intellectual in Holland established a neoconservative think tank called the Edmund Burke Institute. One of the goals of his institute is to convince the Dutch to defend themselves against the growing Islamist threat. In the period that followed, Spruyt was approached by security services and told that he should hire a bodyguard for personal protection. Although he couldn't afford the cost of a bodyguard, the police eventually provided him with protection after showing up at his office hours after Van Gogh was butchered by a jihadist in the streets of Amsterdam in November 2004.

ANOTHER LEADING conservative voice, law professor and social critic Paul Cliteur distinguished himself for his repeated calls for freedom of thought and for the protection of the Dutch secular state. In the weeks after Van Gogh's murder, Cliteur was the target of unremitting criticism from his leftist colleagues in the press. According to a report by the International Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, his colleagues blamed him and his ideological allies for the radicalization of the Muslims of Holland.

Clituer reacted to their abuse by announcing on television that he would no longer speak out or write about the Islamic takeover of Holland.

As the Helsinki report notes, although the European Human Rights Convention stipulates that states must enable free speech, "Annemarie Thomassen, a former Dutch judge at the [European Human Rights Court] in Strasbourg, stated that the limits to freedom of speech in the European context lie where the expressed opinions and statements affect the human dignity of another person. This means that, according to her, in Europe one cannot simply write and say anything one wants without showing some respect to other persons."

IN BRITAIN itself, the fact that no media organ dared to publish the Danish cartoons of Muhammad last year is a clear indication of the level of fear in the hearts of those who decide what Britons will know about their world.

Melanie Phillips, the author of Londonistan, noted at the Freedom Center conference that what Britons hear is best described as "a dialogue of the demented." In this dialogue, European Islamists protest victimization at the hands of the native Europeans while threatening to kill them, and native Europeans apologize for upsetting the Muslim radicals and loudly criticize the US and Israel for not going gently into that good night.
 

In the meantime, jihadist ideologues and political leaders are flourishing in Europe today. In Britain, aside from happily helping Al-Jazeera's ratings, the government has hired Muslim Brotherhood members as counterterrorism advisers.

In the wake of the Muslim cartoon pogroms, the BBC invited Dyab Abou Jahjah, who heads the Arab European League, to opine on the cartoons on its News Night program. Jahjah, who is affiliated with Hizbullah, led anti-Semitic riots in Antwerp in 2002 in which his followers smashed the windows of Jewish businesses, chanted slogans praising Osama bin Laden, and called out, "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas!" Most recently, Jahjah published cartoons depicting Anne Frank in bed with Adolph Hitler.

The first action that Yasser Arafat took in 1994 after establishing the Palestinian Authority was to attack Palestinian journalists, editors and newspaper offices. Journalists and editors were arrested and tortured and all were forced to accept PA control over their news coverage. The man charged with overseeing censorship was then information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo who in a later psychological warfare coup, signed the so-called Geneva Accord with Yossi Beilin in 2003.

This is the nature of our times. We are at war and those who warn of its dangers are being systematically silenced by our enemies who demand that nothing get in the way of our complacency with our own destruction.

If journalists, intellectuals, social critics, authors and concerned citizens throughout the world do not rise up and demand that their governments protect their right to free expression and arrest and punish those who intimidate and trounce that right, one day, years from now, when students of history ask how it came to pass that the Free World willingly enabled its own destruction, they will have to look no further than the contrasting fortunes of Al-Jazeera and Dyab Abou Jahjah on the one hand and Le Figaro and Robert Redeker on the other.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. 

To the delight of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, an international coalition has coalesced around Iran's nuclear weapons program.

In his remarks Tuesday in Los Angeles before the delegates to the United Jewish Communities' General Assembly, Olmert explained his enthusiasm. First he stated, "America's leadership in preventing Iran's nuclearization is indisputable and unequaled. I just met my good friend, a true friend of Israel, President George W. Bush in Washington... His determination to prevent this most serious of developments is unquestionable. But America must have the support of the international community if we are to successfully defuse this mortal threat."

So from Olmert's perspective, it is America's responsibility - not Israel's - to prevent Iran from acquiring the means to destroy Israel. At the same time, he accepts that the US will take no action against Iran without first receiving permission from the French, Russians, Chinese and Arabs.

Olmert then explained that the Arabs have to agree to let the US protect Israel. As he put it, "A coalition of moderate Arab countries can and must unite their common interest in preventing Iran from undermining stability in the Middle East. This coalition must struggle against the dangers of radical Islam that manipulate the very source of Islam itself."

For her part, Livni told the crowd in California that there is little doubt that the nations of the world will shortly unite to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear capabilities. As she put it, "If the promise of 'Never Again' is more important than the price of oil, then the time for international indifference and hesitation in the face of the Iranian threat has long passed."

Livni then explained that she is eager to give Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians and is working to "brand" Israel as a place where it is fun to live. She concluded by recommending that American Jews invite Israeli Nobel laureates to visit their communities.

In sum, our foreign minister is certain that the international community will act against Iran because it means it when it says it thinks that the Holocaust was a bad thing more than it means it when it says, "Fill it up with unleaded."

Moreover, as far as Livni is concerned, the world will protect Israel because the Olmert government is so eager to render Jerusalem and Tel Aviv defenseless by surrendering Judea and Samaria to Palestinian jihadists.

Aside from that, Livni trusts that the world will protect the Jews because thanks to her we have UN forces protecting Hizbullah on our northern border and we're rebranding ourselves to let the international community know that Jews are both good at science and really fun to drink with.

To their credit, Olmert and Livni are correct to say that today an international coalition made up of the US, the EU and some of the Arabs is forming around Iran. But what binds the members together is their collective opposition to taking any effective action to prevent Teheran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Standing next to Olmert in the White House Monday, Bush limited his remarks on Iran to expressing his hope that the international community would agree to economically isolate Iran. International support is necessary because Iran's chief targets - the US and Israel - don't have the legitimacy to act. As he put it, "My attitude is let's work in concert to convince the government [of Iran] that it's not just the Israeli voices speaking, or the United States' voices speaking, but there's a lot of other voices saying the exact same thing."

There is no doubt that isolating Iran internationally would be a welcome development.

But there can also be no doubt that isolating Iran will not cause it to end its nuclear weapons program. This is particularly true if that isolation involves approving the European draft resolution for mild sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council. In the best case scenario, the most sanctions can do is make it more difficult to Iran to reconstitute its nuclear program in the aftermath of an Israeli military attack on its nuclear installations.

EACH OF the parties in the "Do-nothing-against-Iran" coalition has its own reasons for not lifting a finger.

Bush's interpretation of the Democrats' victory in last week's Congressional elections convinced him not to act against Iran. Starting with his press conference last Wednesday where he announced Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's replacement by Robert Gates, Bush has made absolutely clear that as far as he's concerned, he lacks the domestic political strength to carry out a successful operation.

In one of his recent daily calls for Israel's destruction, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offered Europe a Faustian bargain. He promised to leave Europe alone if the Europeans abandon Israel. On Monday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair accepted his offer. In a speech at the London Lord Mayor's annual banquet, Blair explained that success in Iraq and in Iran is contingent on Israel making concessions to Palestinian and Lebanese terrorists and to the US and Europe making concessions to Syria and Iran.

The fact that Blair made this speech four days after the director general of the MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, said that today 30 terror plots are being planned in Britain; that future threats could involve chemicals and nuclear devices; that young British Muslims are being groomed to become suicide bombers; and that her agents are tracking some 1,600 suspects, tells us just about everything we need to know about Europe's interests. The fact that he made a similar statement to the Iraq Study Group, which, led by former secretary of state James Baker III is planning on recommending that the US sell out Israel and appease the Iranians and Syrians, tells us everything we need to know about how Europe feels about the US hope to isolate - not attack - Iran.

There is little doubt that the Arab states would prefer a non-nuclear Iran. But the Arabs have no intention of preventing Iran from acquiring such weapons. To the contrary, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia now want to build their own nuclear reactors. Iran's program serves as a justification for Arab A-bombs.

The implication of the coalescence of this new coalition is inescapable. Despite Olmert and Livni's breathless protestations to the contrary, no one will take action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. No one will block the prospect of Israel's annihilation.

IT IS worthwhile to consider why this is the case - if only to bring reality to the attention those directly entrusted with ensuring Israel's survival.

The Bush administration is today in a state of strategic disarray. According to historian John Lewis Gaddis in his book Surprise, Security and the American Experience, one of the strategic assumptions that underlay Bush's decision to order the invasion of Iraq was the predicted psychological effect the campaign would have on regimes like Iran. In his words, "The purpose was as much psychological as military: to eliminate individuals, gangs and regimes who commit or support terrorism, but also to intimidate those who might be thinking about doing so."

Unfortunately, the psychological effect was dependent on a clear US military victory. After the initial push to Baghdad and the overthrow of Saddam's regime, America's ability to defeat the insurgency was increasingly dependent on political will. That will in turn was heavily influenced by the level of international support America's actions enjoyed. The Europeans refused to back the campaign and their antagonism prevented the US from undertaking the kind of aggressive counter-insurgency measures - particularly operations inside Syria and Iran, which act as bases for the insurgency - that were necessary to win the conflict decisively.

As time passed, the lack of European support caused an erosion of domestic US support for the Iraq campaign. It was the cumulative effect of that erosion that brought about the Republican defeat last week.

The EU opposes US operations in Iraq, and indeed its member states have become hotbeds of anti-American prejudice for various reasons - one of which is counter-intuitive.

The Europeans perceive themselves as powerless dilettantes. As such, they assume that their hostility will make little impact on the US and that America will eventually win the war against the global jihad regardless of what they think. This being the case, from their perspective, nothing is to be lost in the long run, and much is to be gained in the short run, from abusing the benevolent US and appeasing the violent jihadists.

France in particular would like for the US to emerge from the war victorious but weakened, much as Britain emerged from World War II.

While the Arabs oppose Iranian regional and pan-Islamic hegemony, they believe they will deter Teheran from attacking them by acquiring nuclear capabilities. Moreover, an Iranian nuclear strike against Israel would serve several Arab interests. First, as long as Israel exists, Iran will concentrate on Israel and leave the Arabs alone.

Second, if Iran attacks Israel with nuclear weapons, either Israel or the US will likely launch a devastating counter-strike that will significantly weaken the Teheran regime. Although awash in glory for its destruction of Israel, Iran would be in no position to assert control over the now nuclear-armed Arabs whose "Jewish problem" it had solved.

But no matter, our leaders tell us. We should just think happy thoughts as they do. In Olmert and Livni's world, Israel won the war in Lebanon this summer; UNIFIL forces are good for the Jews; and Hizbullah - which is now working to overthrow the Lebanese government - has no interest in renewing its war against Israel.

The government sees no reason to prevent 1,500 PLO terrorists from Jordan from marching into Gaza with their guns and their families. Olmert and Livni welcome the prospect of releasing thousands of terrorists from prison to "strengthen" PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and they are eager to hand Judea and Samaria over to Abbas, not because doing so would help Abbas, but because it would good for Israel.

As Livni put it this week, we want to hand over land because otherwise the so-called peace process will stagnate, and "Stagnation is not in our interest and it is not our policy."

Our jovial government justifies its decision to do nothing to prevent Ahmadinejad from acquiring the means to keep his promise to destroy the Jewish state by incessantly claiming that someone else is willing and able to pay the price to defend us.

The people of Israel must not be seduced by the blindness and empty promises of our leaders. All efforts must be made to sideline these incompetent, self-serving bumblers and replace them with responsible leaders as quickly as possible.  

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

A week before the US Congressional elections The New York Times published a front-page story which all but admitted that Iraq's nuclear program had been active until March 2003, when the US-led coalition deposed Saddam Hussein. The Times report relayed concerns of officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding captured Iraqi documents which the administration had posted on the Internet.

The documents in question contained Iraqi nuclear bomb designs that could be useful to rogue states like Iran which are currently working to build a nuclear arsenal. The Times article also reported that, in the past, the same Web site had published Iraqi documents relating to nerve agents tabun and sarin. They were removed after their content elicited similar concerns from UN arms control officials.

In response to the Times story an international security Web site run by Ray Robinson published a translation of a story that ran on the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Seyassah's Web site on September 25.

Citing European intelligence sources, the Al-Seyyassah report claims that in late 2004 Syria began developing a nuclear program near its border with Turkey. According to the report, Syria's program, which is being run by President Bashar Assad's brother Maher and defended by a Revolutionary Guards brigade, "has reached the stage of medium activity."

The Kuwaiti report maintains that the Syrian nuclear program relies "on equipment and materials that the sons of the deposed Iraqi leader, Uday and Qusai… transfer[red] to Syria by using dozens of civilian trucks and trains, before and after the US-British invasion in March 2003." The report also asserts that the Syrian nuclear program is supported by the Iranians who are running the program, together with Iraqi nuclear scientists and Muslim nuclear specialists from Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union.

The program "was originally built on the remains of the Iraqi program after it was wholly transferred to Syria."

This report echoes warnings expressed by then-prime minister Ariel Sharon in the months leading up to the US-led invasion of Iraq that suspicious convoys of trucks were traveling from Iraq to Syria. Sharon's warnings were later supported by statements from former IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, who said last year that Iraq had moved its unconventional arsenals to Syria in the lead-up to the invasion.

ACCORDING TO the US Senate's Prewar Intelligence Review Phase II, which studied the prewar intelligence on Iraq's nuclear weapons program, in 2002, the US had learned from the Iraqi foreign minister that while Iraq had not yet acquired a nuclear arsenal, "Iraq was aggressively and covertly developing" nuclear weapons. The Senate report concluded that Saddam was told by his own weapons specialists that Iraq would achieve nuclear weapons capabilities "within 18-24 months of acquiring fissile material."

In the weeks and months after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, President George W. Bush repeatedly stated that America's primary security challenge was to prevent the world's most dangerous regimes from acquiring nonconventional, and particularly nuclear weapons. When Bush's statements are assessed against the backdrop of the apparently advanced Iraqi nuclear bomb designs that were placed on the Web in recent weeks, it becomes clear that the US-led invasion successfully prevented Saddam Hussein from acquiring nuclear weapons.

In his State of the Union Address in 2002, Bush placed Iraq in the same category of threat to US national security as Iran and North Korea. The three rogues states, Bush argued constituted an "axis of evil" that must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons.

The post-Saddam insurgency in Iraq - an insurgency largely facilitated and sponsored by Iran - has caused the US and its coalition partners no end of grief. Some 3,000 coalition servicemen have been killed since the invasion; the overwhelming majority of casualties have been American. Frustration with the continued bloodletting in Iraq was undoubtedly the most significant factor that caused the Republican Party to lose control of both houses of Congress in last Tuesday's elections.

And yet, for all the difficulties, pain and frustration the post-Saddam insurgency has caused the US, the toppling of Saddam's regime successfully prevented Iraq from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Iraq is a war zone today. But it does not have, and likely will not acquire nuclear weapons - nor chemical or biological weapons, for that matter. To that degree, Bush was neither wrong nor premature when he made it known in the months following the invasion that the US had accomplished its mission in Iraq.

IN THE summer of 2003, assessing future trends on the basis of the US-led invasion of Iraq, Libya's dictator Mu'ammar Gaddafi decided to forgo his nuclear weapons program. Libya's decision to give up its nuclear weapons program was a direct consequence of Gaddafi's analysis of US intentions after the invasion. Quite simply, he believed that the best way to ensure the survival of his regime was to relinquish his aspirations to become a nuclear power.

But as the months and years have progressed it has become clear that far from being a warning to other would-be nuclear armed dictatorships, the US-led invasion of Iraq was a one-shot deal. As Saddam was captured in his hole, Teheran and Pyongyang marched forward, unchallenged in their campaign to become nuclear powers.

The ascent of the most dangerous regimes in the world to the status of nuclear powers reached a new climax last month. First was North Korea's nuclear bomb test on Columbus Day. Two weeks later Iran announced it was doubling its uranium enrichment by utilizing a second network of centrifuges.

For their part, most of the nations of the world have looked on with indifference to these developments. South Korean Foreign Minister and incoming UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appears far more concerned with the Japanese debate over whether North Korea's nuclear test should or should not cause Japan to develop its own nuclear arsenal than with the fact that Pyongyang now has nuclear bombs.

Ban's apparent moral and strategic dementia is of a piece with the international community's apathy. Europe has responded to Iran's sprint toward nuclear arms by offering its usual mix of toothless sanctions, emotional appeals and diplomatic pageantry, all aimed at marking time until Iran announces its entre into the nuclear club.

Russia and China have responded to both Pyongyang and Teheran's nuclear machinations by increasing their collaboration with both regimes.

AS FOR the US, Iran, North Korea and al-Qaida have all been quick to interpret the Democratic victory in last Tuesday's Congressional elections as a sign that the US has chosen to turn its back on the threat they pose to America. By firing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and replacing him with Robert Gates, who supports appeasing the mullahs in Teheran and finding a fig-leaf excuse to vacate Iraq, Bush has done everything to prove America's enemies right. Moreover, Bush administration officials' statements ahead of the president's trip to Asia this week indicate that Bush will seek to contend with North Korea by ratcheting up US engagement with Pyongyang in the six-party talks.

Reasonably, the world is now assessing the US through the prism of its non-action against Iran and North Korea rather than through the prism of Iraq. And the consequence of the view that Iraq was a deviation from a norm of US passivity is nothing less than the complete breakdown of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty.

Last week the London's Sunday Times reported that Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the UAE have all announced their intention to build civilian nuclear reactors. Last Tuesday, in an official visit to China, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak reportedly signed an agreement with Chinese leader Hu Jintao for China to build nuclear reactors in Egypt.

It is not hard to see the lesson of these developments. As the Iraq campaign shows clearly, while the price of taking action to prevent rogue regimes from acquiring nuclear weapons is high, the price of not acting is far higher.

Relating this wisdom to Iran earlier this year, Senator John McCain said, "There is only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option [to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons], and that is a nuclear-armed Iran."

The US and its allies are paying a high price for having successfully prevented Saddam from getting nuclear bombs. The price that Israel or the US, or both, will pay to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear bombs is liable to be even higher. Yet the alternative to paying that price will be suffering, destruction and death on an unimaginable scale. 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Many downplay the significance of the US Congressional elections. It is the six-year slump, they say. But the truth is nonetheless glaring. By all accounts, Tuesday the George W. Bush era came to a close.

The consequences of this turn of events on Israel will be dramatic. Unfortunately, it is doubtful that anyone has explained them to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ahead of his scheduled visit to the White House next week.

Across the political spectrum in Washington today there is a sense that after years of wavering, in the wake of the Democratic victory in Tuesday's Congressional elections, President Bush transferred control over American foreign policy to his father's anti-war advisors.

The President's announcement of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's "resignation" Wednesday signaled the transfer of control over the war against radical Islam from Bush's team to Bush pere's team. Robert Gates, Bush's nominee to replace Rumsfeld, served as his father's deputy national security adviser and CIA director. Gates, who will arrive at the Pentagon from his present position as President of Texas A&M University where Bush I's presidential library is located, is closely associated with former national security advisor Brent Scowcroft and former secretary of state James Baker. He is a member in good standing of the Arabist wing of the Republican Party which dominated the President's father's administration.

In recent years, Gates made one notable foray into the world of international affairs. In 2004 he collaborated with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor in the Carter administration. Like former president Jimmy Carter, Brzezinski is one of Israel's greatest adversaries in US policymaking circles. It is hard to recall a problem, conflict, crisis or war in the Middle East over the past thirty years that Brzezinski has not managed to blame on Israel.

Gates and Brzezinski co-chaired a Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored Task Force charged with recommending a US policy for dealing with Iran. In July 2004 they published their recommendations. The Task Force called for the Bush administration to directly engage the mullahs and to use "fewer sticks and more carrots" to convince the regime in Teheran to stop enriching uranium, and to stop supporting al Qaida and the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. In an effort to convince the Iranians to cooperate, the two recommended that the US discard regime overthrow as a policy option and move more forcefully to establish a Palestinian state as quickly as possible. They also recommended that the US pressure Israel not to take any military action against the Iranian nuclear facilities arguing that such Israeli actions would undermine US national interests.

In recent months, Gates has been serving as a member of the Iraq Study Group chaired by Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton. The Congressionally mandated committee is scheduled to recommend new strategies for managing the war in Iraq to Bush later in the month.

In a series of recent press interviews, Baker and Hamilton have indicated that they will recommend that Bush enter into negotiations with Iran and Syria. The proposed talks they say, will serve to motivate Iran and Syria to stabilize the situation in Iraq in a manner that will pave the way for a retreat of US forces from the country.

Since it is Iranian and Syrian sponsorship of the insurgency that is causing the war to continue, it is fairly clear that Baker is egging for a temporary ceasefire that will last long enough to enable a pullout of US forces. The fact that the price of the temporary ceasefire will be a US defeat in Iraq and the surrender of Iraq to the tender mercies of Iran and Syria is apparently okay by Baker.

SOME OF Bush's critics on the Right claim that Bush's nomination of Gates to replace Rumsfeld won't change anything. Since in point of fact Bush has been conducting talks in various venues with Teheran for the past five years, and given that since 2002 the establishment of a Palestinian state has been a central plank of US Middle East policy, these conservative critics argue that the Gates-Brzezinski recommendations are already official policy.

Moreover, many claim that when Bush made the decision in April 2003 not to widen the campaign in Iraq to the sources of the then-nascent insurgency in Syria and Iran, the President effectively decided not to win the war in Iraq. This is the case because Iraq is merely one front in a regional war. As Michael Ledeen from the American Enterprise Institute, who served with Gates in the Reagan administration argues, the US cannot win the regional war while limiting its operations to playing defense on one front.

When seen from this perspective, far from signaling a strategic shift in US policy, Gates' nomination merely serves to restate an existing policy.

Yet Bush's policies to date have been far from consistent. Indeed, for the past several years Bush has been simultaneously advancing two contradictory policies. On the one hand, as his critics on the Right have repeatedly stated, through his engagement of Teheran and support for Palestinian statehood, he has been carrying out a policy of appeasement towards the Iranians and the Arabs. At the same time however, Bush supported Israel in the war this summer. He isolated the Palestinian Authority after Hamas took power, and throughout his first term in office, he refused to meet with Yassir Arafat in spite of the significant domestic and international pressure exerted on him to do so.

Practically speaking, Bush supported Israel's right to take action to defend itself. (What Israel did with his support is a completely separate issue.) As to Iran, Bush distinguished himself from his predecessors by announcing his support for the overthrow of the regime in Teheran. In recent months, Bush and at least some of the members of his administration pointed fingers at Damascus and Teheran for their sponsorship of the insurgents in Iraq, for Hizbullah in Lebanon and for Palestinian terror groups in Gaza, Judea and Samaria.

So when the full breadth of Bush's policies is taken into consideration, his decision to appoint Gates does signal a strategic shift in direction. Rumsfeld was completely identified with Bush's pro-Israel policies and with his hawkish stances towards Islamic radicalism. Rumsfeld's ouster and replacement by a follower of Baker, Bush pere and Scowcroft signals a clean break with the policies Rumsfeld embodied. Furthermore, by sacking Rumsfeld the day after the elections, Bush sent a signal to the Democrats that he is willing to forego victory in exchange for political breathing space.

Did Bush have to respond to the elections by abandoning his strategic goals in the war? Some claim that pro-war Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman's reelection is a sign that support for the war is not a recipe for political defeat. Lieberman, it should be recalled, was defeated this summer in the Democratic primaries for his Senate seat by anti-war businessman Ned Lamont. That defeat, in a race riddled with anti-Semitic attacks, forced Lieberman to run as an Independent in the general elections. His victory this week is pointed to as proof that supporting the war is not political suicide.

There are two main problems with this view. First, Lieberman's race was unique. As a three-term, successful Democratic senator, Lieberman's defeat in the primary did not end his support among a significant group of Democrats. At the same time, his support for the war won him the Republican vote. Republican senators like Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania were defeated with similar positions on the war because they were unable to garner any significant support among Democrats and only a handful of other Democrats ran as avowedly pro-war candidates.

Secondly, while Lieberman won his reelection victory, he and fellow war supporters lost the war for the soul of the Democratic Party. A lifelong Democrat, Lieberman had to leave the party to win reelection. And he will not share the fruits of the Democratic victory in the Senate in his new status as an Independent. He will enjoy no benefits of seniority. He will not receive a committee chairmanship. While some claim that as an Independent in a closely divided Senate he will have the power to tip the scales in favor of either party, the fact is that neither party is strong enough to make proper use of his vote. So he lacks real political power.

More than anything, the partyless Lieberman will serve as a constant reminder of the power of the radical Left. The radical, anti-war Left which spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting anti-war candidates and so brought about Lieberman's defeat in the Democratic primaries, made a decisive contribution to the Republican defeat in the general election. The threat posed by radical leftist donors, like multi-billionaire George Soros who have launched a crusade against all proponents of the war against radical Islam, makes Democrats and Republicans alike want to put the Iraq war behind them before the 2008 elections.

THIS IS the Washington that will greet Olmert during his visit on Monday. If fortunes had been reversed and Olmert were arriving in Washington after a Republican victory, had he be inclined to do so, Olmert could have used the visit as an opportunity to communicate a number of critical messages.

First, he could have recalled that Bush qualified US support for Palestinian statehood on a Palestinian embrace of democracy, peace, and active opposition to terrorism. Since by electing totalitarian terrorists to power the Palestinians have proven incontrovertibly that they oppose democratic values of freedom and human rights, support terror, and oppose peaceful coexistence with Israel, Bush's continued support for Palestinian statehood makes a mockery of his support for democracy in the Middle East.

As for Iran, if the Republicans had been victorious, Olmert could have made clear to Bush that history will judge him not only by what he has done in Iraq, but by what he will do against Iran and North Korea. Olmert could have presented a plan for a joint Israeli-American operation to destroy Iran's nuclear installations.

But of course, the Republicans lost the elections. Politicians and defense secretaries who would have willingly listened to such messages from an Israeli prime minister have been booted out of office, thrown into the back benches of Congress, and fired by Bush.

Today Israel stands alone against the Palestinians. More disturbingly, the responsibility for preventing Iran from achieving nuclear capabilities has moved conclusively from Washington to Jerusalem.

If Olmert were a strong leader, in light of the Republican defeat and Bush's response to that defeat, he could use the meeting as an opportunity to tell Bush that Israel accepts responsibility for attacking Iran's nuclear installations. But Olmert, who spent his last visit in the US capital trying to convince the Americans to support his plan to surrender Judea and Samaria to Hamas, is not a strong leader. He is a weak leader. The new wind blowing out of Washington will easily cast him asunder.

In truth, little good will come from Monday's meeting at the White House. It is too bad he can't simply cancel it. Israel would be better off if Olmert called in sick on Monday morning.
 
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Insofar as ethnic group politics are concerned, it may very well be the case that American Jewry has more riding on the results of today's Congressional elections than any other American ethnic group.

The current issue of Commentary magazine includes an article entitled, "Dual Loyalty and the 'Israel Lobby'" by Gabriel Schoenfeld. Schoenfeld describes succinctly the corrosive impact that the work of two political science professors, John Mearshimer from the University of Chicago, and Steven Walt from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, has had on the position of American Jewry. He then explains what the warm reception their work has enjoyed says about the political and cultural climate in the US.

This past March, Mearshimer and Walt published an anti-Semitic broadside entitled "The Israel Lobby" in the London Review of Books and on the Kennedy School's Web site. The paper asserts that a consortium of American Jewish groups and individuals has conspired to undermine US national security by forcing the US to support Israel in contravention of America's national interest.

To defend their central thesis, Mearshimer and Walt relied on the work of such crackpots as the anti-Semitic Jew Norman Finklestein, the anti-Semtic former congressman Paul Findley and the anti-American and anti-Semitic linguistic professor Noam Chomsky.

As Schoenfeld notes, both Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and Alex Safian, the Associate Director of CAMERA, have proven painstakingly that Walt and Mearshimer's work is distinguished by the "factual errors, the pervasive use of double standards in argumentation, the rich array of logical fallacies, and above all the distortions, malignant insinuations, and outright falsehoods, both about the historical conduct of American Jews and about the historical conduct of American foreign policy, at its heart."

Were all well in American letters these days, Walt and Mearshimer would have been shunned by intellectual and academic circles following their foray into the land of academic chicanery and bigotry. But far from being shunned, Mearshimer and Walt have become academic superstars. Just recently they signed a $750,000 book deal with Farrar, Straus and Giroux to author a book-length version of their paper. DVDs featuring their celebrity appearances at an event sponsored by the terror-linked Council for American Islamic Relations at the National Press Club in September, and their "debate" with dovish and anti-Zionist Jews at Cooper Union are being advertised in The New York Times.

RATHER THAN ostracize the pair, the Council on Foreign Relations - which recently hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for crumpets and tea - referred to their paper as "hardheaded analysis."

Schoenfeld's most disturbing insight arises from his comparison of Walt and Mearshimer's diatribe against Israel and American Jewry to similar anti-Semitic arguments made by Nazi sympathizers Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford and Father Charles Coughlin in the US in the 1930s. Both then and now the genocidal anti-Semitism of America's enemies provided an excuse for scapegoating Jews as a way to prevent Americans from seeing the dangers to their own security.

Shoenfeld notes the glaring distinction between the popularity of Lindbergh, Coughlin and Ford 70 years ago, and that enjoyed today by Mearshimer and Walt. Lindbergh, Coughlin and Ford's moment in the sun preceded the outbreak of World War II. In the 1930s a public debate raged between those who called for confronting Nazi Germany and those who called for ignoring, appeasing or collaborating with Nazi Germany.

Coughlin, Lindbergh and Ford were the most prominent voices denying the threat that Germany posed to the US and to the world as a whole. While extolling the virtues of Adolf Hitler, the three men scapegoated the Jews, accusing them of undermining US national security by stirring up public concern and animosity towards the Nazis.

After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and Hitler declared war against the US, the three were marginalized, and decried as bigoted rogues. The issue of Germany's threat was settled and the national debate moved to the constructive issue of how best to go about defeating the Germans and Imperial Japan.

IN THE case of Walt and Mearshimer today just the opposite has occurred. In the prewar 1990s, ideas like Walt's and Mearshimer's were recognized as intellectually indefensible and bigoted, and consequently were marginalized. The notion that radical Islam is an imaginary threat concocted by Israel and American Jews gained currency only after the US was attacked on September 11, 2001.

That is, the notion that global jihad is the Jews' fault only became politically acceptable after Arab jihadists blew up the World Trade Center and bombed the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people in New York and Washington.

Sadly, the popularity of Walt and Mearshimer's thesis is a consequence of a larger cultural phenomenon. Today large swathes of people throughout the Western world wish to avoid the harsh reality of global war at almost any price. This desire induces them to blame any person or group they feel is forcing them to recognize this reality. And so over the past five years we have been witness to malignant vituperations of hatred directed against President George W. Bush, the neoconservatives, and the Jews for their insistence on recognizing the reality of war.

Indeed, it is Bush's insistence on recognizing the reality of war far more than the Democrats' refusal to accept the results of the 2000 presidential elections that has fuelled the widespread, obsessive and venomous hatred that Democrats heap on the president.

THE ALL-encompassing nature of this hatred has shunted aside much constructive criticism of Bush's policies in leading the war against the global jihad. And this is a terrible shame because while Bush understands the reality of war, there is no doubt that over the past five years he has made serious mistakes of judgment in its prosecution.

Over the weekend, Vanity Fair published an article outlining devastating, yet constructive critiques of Bush's management of the war by leading American neo-conservatives. The major strand that joins the criticisms proffered by many of those questioned is that Bush has been tasking the wrong people with prosecuting the war.
 

Since September 11 large sections of the US government have been openly advancing policies that undermine the president's stated war aims. Yet, rather than acknowledge the unsuitability of his senior aides, Bush has deepened his reliance and widened the authority of people such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former secretary of state James Baker, who are openly working to undermine his stated aim of winning the war against radical Islam.

The neoconservative critique bears attention and debate if the American people wish to win the war. Unfortunately, the kind of criticisms that they set out in the article, and indeed have set out for the past three years and more, receive scant attention in the public debate in the US. This is the case because the Democratic Party has essentially embraced Mearshimer's and Walt's view that the war is not real and that the US can simply turn its back on it.

RATHER THAN debate how best to win the war, the Democrats have purged their ranks of leaders like Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, who wish to engage in such a debate. At the same time they have worked to limit public discourse to a witch hunt against those they argue have conspired to delude the American people into believing they are at war, and to attacking Bush for insisting on continuing the fight.

Instead of debating how best to contend with the Iranian nuclear threat; Iranian and Syrian support for terrorists and subversion of US efforts in Iraq; and a host of other salient strategic and tactical issues, Democratic leaders like Senator John Kerry mindlessly claim simultaneously that more soldiers are needed in Iraq, and that all soldiers should be removed from Iraq. Similarly, Democratic leaders argue that resources directed toward the war effort in Iraq are being diverted from the war against terror - the war they insist is a hoax.

This of course all brings us back to Israel and the Jews.

The central contention of people like Walt and Mearshimer and Democratic leaders like Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Kerry and Senator Ted Kennedy is that there is no global war that needs fighting. If they understood that the US is fighting a global war, then the question of whether Israel is part of the problem or part of the solution would have been settled definitively in Israel's favor five years ago. It is only by ignoring the reality of the war that it is possible for people to pretend that Israel is the cause of Islamic fascism, or that American Jews and Jewish neoconservatives are the source of the world's misfortunes.

TODAY US voters are going to the polls. The outcome of the Congressional elections will be critical for determining whether the war can be won, and what the future holds in store for American Jewry. Today the American people will decide whether they want to have a political discourse that will expose mistakes in order to correct them and so enable the war to be prosecuted to victory, or if they prefer to deny that the war exists, and so ensure defeat and cataclysmic bloodshed.

A Republican victory will provide an opportunity for a debate over how the war is being run to take place. A Democratic victory will guarantee that such a debate is squelched in favor of finger-pointing against Jews and Israel, and the US itself, for having the nerve to note the dangers and insist upon defending against them.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. 

Israel is trying to reinvent itself.

Last week Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni hosted a conference where she launched a new multimillion dollar project to "rebrand" Israel. As Livni put it, since coming into office, she has been struck by the disparity between the vibrant, liberal, free Israel she knows and Israel's image abroad.

According to research conducted by a number of public relations firms, Israel's international image is one of a war-torn society riddled with religious fanatics and intolerance. At the same time, most people view Israel as either a democracy or as a country moving towards democracy. As Livni sees it, "It's time to bridge the gap between the real Israel and its international image."

The foreign minister has decided to dedicate the Foreign Ministry to the task of bridging the gap. She has hired a whole host of public relations firms who have conducted focus groups and used other mass marketing tools to figure out how to reinvent Israel in a manner that will make people like us.

These PR firms together with Foreign Ministry have decided that the best way to change people's perceptions of Israel is by showing the world how multicultural it is. To this end, they plan to move the emphasis of Israel's public diplomacy from defending Israel in its bid to defend itself against its neighbors who seek its destruction to promoting Israel as a "fun" country. They will market Israel as a libertine country replete with beautiful beaches, beautiful women, wild nightlife and a large, dynamic and booming hi-tech economy.

As Livni's adviser Ido Aharoni explained to reporters last week, "Israel is not perceived as fun or normal. Our job is to say, 'Yes, we are not normal, but we are far more normal than you think.'" To get this point across, the Foreign Ministry is encouraging Israelis to set up Weblogs and to post their home movies on the You Tube video Web site. It is working in conjunction with the Israel Association of Gay Men, Lesbians and Transgenders to encourage homosexual tourism and it is planning to run targeted ads in women's magazines - for instance in Oprah Winfrey's magazine - to show liberals that Israel is just as liberal as they are.

Early next year the Foreign Ministry is scheduled to choose a marketing strategy to promote this new image or "brand" for Israel. Once it does, it will try to force what Aharoni refers to as "message discipline" on all those involved in selling Israel to the world. As both PR executives and Foreign Ministry officials have indicted, that "message discipline" will make talking about jihad a big, retro no-no.

Livni's rebranding project has generated a great deal of largely positive press coverage at home and abroad. Unfortunately the project is a massive waste of public funds. Worse than that, it exposes a deep conceptual confusion among those responsible for advancing Israel's interests in the world regarding what their job is and why it is that they face the challenges they face.

Simply stated, contrary to what Livni claims, it is not the principal responsibility of the Foreign Ministry to close the gap between the reality of Israel and Israel's international image. The Foreign Ministry is responsible for using diplomacy to advance Israel's national interests. The purpose of public diplomacy is to increase international sympathy and support for Israel.

The level of international sympathy that Israel enjoys has little do with whether or not foreigners are aware of how beautiful our beaches are. The level of international support for Israel is little impacted by whether Israel's image is one of a vacationer's paradise or a war zone.

What does influence levels of sympathy for Israel is whether or not people understand that Israel has an unconditional right to exist and an inherent right to defend itself against those who wish to destroy the state and murder its citizens. People are induced to sympathize with Israel when they are exposed to the fact that its enemies are unappeasable, and when they understand what happens to women who wear bikinis or simply demand to meet their husbands before marriage in Gaza and Ramallah.

Moreover, people do not feel hostility towards Israel because they are tired of hearing about the war being waged against it. Israel lacks international support because people fail to understand why it is in their own interest to support Israel.

ONE OF the major goals of the "rebranding" project is to increase tourism to Israel. To this end, several of the participants in last week's conference claimed that the fact that Israel is perceived as a religious country is a marketing liability. Israel's religious reputation drives away potential tourists who are attracted less by the divine than by the libertine, they said.

This is an odd argument for people who make their living in marketing. The first rule in marketing is to start with your core market and Israel's core market is religious - particularly Christian - tourists.

Last month Tourism Minister Isaac Herzog told The Jerusalem Post that while Jews remain the largest single group of tourists to Israel, with 40 percent of the market, evangelical Christians today are closing in fast. Today every third tourist in Israel is an evangelical Christian.

Israel only began making a serious effort to attract Christian tourists in 2001 when then tourism minister Benny Elon made outreach to American evangelicals his primary goal at the ministry. Given that there are some 60 million evangelical Christians in the US, it should be clear to marketing executives that Israel has barely begun to scratch the surface of their tourism potential. Moreover, Herzog noted that the millions of Christians in Latin America and Europe are yet another still-to-be tapped, massive tourism market.

So if the marketing executives aren't paying attention to Israel's core market potential when they shape their rebranding concepts, who are they paying attention to?

David Saranga from the New York Consulate-General told the Post last week that one of the primary target audiences that the Foreign Ministry is trying to attract is the homosexual community. Ministry officials view gay culture as the entryway to the liberal culture because, as he put it, gay culture is the culture that creates "a buzz."

That is, the main target of the Foreign Ministry's multimillion dollar PR campaign is the liberal Left in the West. This makes sense not because these people are Israel's most likely supporters. To the contrary, Israel's natural supporters are the ones that the liberal Left pokes fun at. Indeed, the so-called liberal Left are the ones who call Israel "that shi**y little country" at fancy dinner parties.

The reason it makes sense that advertising executives and Foreign Ministry officials wish to spend millions of taxpayer dollars reinventing Israel to receive support from the liberal Left is because overwhelmingly, these Israeli executives and officials run in liberal Left social circles. They wish to reinvent Israel because they want to be popular on the cocktail party circuit.

The desire to win support from the Left is a reasonable enough goal. The problem is that these Israeli officials fail to understand the nature of their problem with their liberal friends. Leftist support of the Palestinians does not stem from ignorance regarding Israel's liberal views of feminists or homosexuals. Gay activists and feminists from New York to Paris to London to Stockholm do not participate in pro-Palestinian protests because they are under the misimpression that Israel is illiberal or homophobic or misogynistic.

They participate in anti-Israel protests because they think that Israel is wrong. And they oppose Israel because they don't realize that their own freedom is closely linked to Israel's ability to win the jihad being waged against it. The fact that they believe as they do is at least partially the fault of the same Israeli officials who now wish to stop discussing why Israel fights, and instead discuss how Israel parties.

FOR THE past 13 years, Israel's public relations has centered on our support for the so-called peace process with the PLO. Foreign Ministry officials believed that by making Israel's peace platform the central pillar of its international PR drive, they would inspire people to support us.

But this is not what people understood. People understood that Israel was encouraging them to support the PLO. And so they did. And when PLO officials told them that Israel is a racist state, they believed them.

By arguing that they should talk about how peaceful and fun Israel is, Israel's diplomats seek to rid themselves of the difficult job of defending Israel's right to exist and its right to defend itself from its enemies that seek its destruction. Rather than promote radical feminism in Israel, it is their thankless job to attack and expose those who deny the Jewish people's right to self-determination and statehood as bigoted and wrong.

It is similarly the job of Israeli diplomats to demand an accounting by Palestinians. Israeli officials should be pointing their fingers at the Palestinians and their supporters and demanding to know why they deserve support after having transformed their own society into a jihadist society dedicated to Israel's eradication, to the destruction of the US and of the West and to the subjugation of Christians, women, and homosexuals.

Israel will build international sympathy for its cause among its potential supporters across the political spectrum when it reframes the public debate on the Arab-Israel conflict in a manner that places the spotlight on the Palestinians and their barbarism and hatred. This is about them. It is not about our beaches.

At the same time, as the experience of millions of Tibetans and Darfur Sudanese attests, garnering international sympathy is not the goal of diplomacy. Building international support is the goal of diplomacy. It is not sufficient for Israel to simply explain why it has a right and a duty to defeat the forces of global jihad seeking to destroy it.

Israel's public diplomacy challenge is to explain to the world how jihadist violence against Israel breeds jihadist violence in Paris, Brussels, London, Melbourne, Madrid and New York, and how Israeli victories over jihadists in Ramallah, Gaza, Beirut and Teheran enhance the security of the rest of the free world. That is, Israel will be successful diplomatically not because it tells people that it is a fun place, but because it tells people that it is an important place, when it explains to people why Israel's success is related to their own success.

Israel doesn't need to reinvent itself. All it needs to do is tell the truth.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.