Two major arms sales were announced over the weekend. First, the US announced that it is planning to sell Saudi Arabia $20 billion in advanced weapons systems, including Joint Direct Attack Munition kits or JDAMs that are capable of transforming regular gravitational bombs into precision-guided "smart" weapons.

Largely in an attempt to neutralize Congressional opposition to the proposed sale, the Bush administration also announced that it plans to increase annual military assistance to Israel by some 25 percent next year and that it hopes that next year's increase in assistance will be maintained by the next administration.

The second arms sale was the reported Russian agreement to sell Iran 250 advanced long-ranged Sukhoi-30 fighter jets and aerial fuel tankers capable of extending the jets' range by thousands of kilometers. Russia's massive armament of Iran in this and in previous sales over the past two years make clear that from Russia's perspective, all threats to US interests, including Shi'ite expansionism, work to Moscow's advantage.

ON THE face of it, these contrasting US and Russian announcements seem to signal that geopolitics have reverted to the Cold War model of two superpowers competing for global power by, among other things, assisting their proxies in fighting one another. Yet, today the situation is not the same as it was before.

Today, the US finds itself competing not only against an emergent Russia, but against Iran, and the Shi'ite expansionism it advances. Moreover, it finds itself under attack from Sunni jihadism, which is incubated and financed by Saudi Arabia, America's primary ally in the Persian Gulf.

The US's proposed arms sale to Saudi Arabia has raised pointed criticism in Israel and among Israel's supporters in the US. As senior defense officials told The Jerusalem Post Monday, the JDAM sale to Saudi Arabia constitutes a strategic threat to Israel which has no way of defending itself against JDAM capabilities.

To assess the reasonableness of Israel's opposition to the proposed sale, and to understand the sale's significance against the background of emerging regional and global threats to US national security interests, it is worthwhile to revisit US actions toward Israel and Saudi Arabia during the Cold War when checking Soviet expansion worldwide was the main goal of US foreign policy.

THE US held Israel at arms length until after its stunning victory against Soviet clients Egypt and Syria in the 1967 Six Day War. In the aftermath of Israel's victory, the US realized that Israel was a natural ally in checking Soviet power in the Middle East. As a result, in 1968 it began providing Israel with political and military aid. This policy paid off in spades in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and in the 1982 Lebanon War when the IDF handily beat the Soviets' proxy armies. Indeed, from the US perspective, there was no downside to supporting Israel. Israel's patent lack of expansionist ambitions ensured that the US would suffer no ancillary blowback for its support.

The US-Israel alliance's central weakness was US's perception of Saudi Arabia as its strategic ally. This weakness came to the fore most prominently in 1981 with the Reagan administration's decision to sell AWACs spy planes to the Saudis. As is the case with the US's current proposed arms sale to the Saudis, back then Israel perceived the AWACs sale as a strategic threat to its national security. Yet, since checking Soviet expansionism rather than securing Israel was the US's primary strategic aim, and since the US perceived Saudi Arabia as an ally against Soviet expansionism, the Reagan administration pushed the sale forward against Israel's strenuous objections.

In the end, the AWACs were not used against Israel. Yet by the same token, they also did nothing to curb Soviet expansionism or advance any other US interest. During the 1991 Gulf War, the Saudis played no effective combat role against Iraq.

The main Saudi contribution to the US's victory in the Cold War was its willingness to finance the mujahadeen in Afghanistan who fought the Soviet invasion. There can be no doubt that the rout of the Soviet military in Afghanistan played a central role in causing the dissolution of the Soviet empire. But there is also no question that the blowback from the war in Afghanistan has been enormously detrimental to US national security and to global security as a whole.

The mujadaheen's US-armed and Saudi-financed victory against the Soviets in Afghanistan fed the aspirations of Saudi supported Sunni jihadists. It spawned al-Qaida and provided arms and combat experience to forces that would come back to haunt the US.

SO AS far as the Middle East and Central Asia are concerned, a primary lesson of the Cold War relates to the relative weight the US can securely place in its alliance with Israel on the one hand, and its alliance with the Saudis on the other. Israel used US support in a manner that advanced both Israel's national security and US geopolitical interests with no blowback. The Saudis were either inconsequential, or advanced US interests in a manner that caused enormous blowback.

Today as the US faces Russian hostility, Iranian expansionism and Saudi-financed Sunni jihadists, it remains afflicted by the Cold War dilemma of the relative importance of its alliances with Israel and Saudi Arabia.

On the face of it, given that today the potential for blowback in supporting Saudi Arabia is far higher and eminently more foreseeable than it was 25 years ago, it should seem clear that in assessing its strategic assets and interests in the region, the US would place far greater weight on its alliance with Israel.

Unfortunately, today the Bush administration is behaving counterintuitively. It pursues its alliance with Saudi Arabia with vigor while eschewing and downgrading its alliance with Israel.

The administration's hostility toward Israel is not limited to its intention to arm the Saudis with weapons capable of destroying Israel's strategic assets in the Negev. It is also actively pressuring Israel not to defend itself against Iran and its proxies. Since the Second Lebanon War last summer, the US has pushed Israel to take no action against Iran's proxy Hamas on the one hand, while pushing Israel to empower Fatah, which has its own strong ties to Iran and to Hamas, on the other. By pressuring Israel to enact a policy of capitulation toward the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, similar to its capitulation to the Palestinians two years ago in Gaza, the Bush administration is advancing a policy that if implemented all but ensures Iranian control over the outskirts of Jerusalem and Amman.

THERE ARE two principal causes of the US's coolness toward Israel and warm embrace of the Saudis. First, the administration's failure to achieve its goals in Iraq strengthened the influence of the Saudi's Cold War proponents. These proponents, led by former secretary of state James Baker's disciples Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, advance their Saudi-centric agenda while paving the way for a US withdrawal from Iraq without victory. In the Baker camp's view, the best way to facilitate a pullout is by strengthening the Saudis so that they can perhaps prevent a post-US withdrawal Iraq from devolving into an Iranian colony.

The second cause of the administration's hostility toward Israel is the Olmert government's irresolute handling of the Second Lebanon War last year. As was the case 25 years ago, so too last summer, the administration supported Israel against the wishes of the Baker camp. Yet when unlike 25 years ago, last summer the Olmert government led Israel to defeat in Lebanon, it weakened the standing of administration officials who view Israel as a strategic ally and oppose the Saudis, while strengthening Israel's Baker-inspired foes who view Israel as a strategic liability.

The Olmert government's enthusiastic embrace of capitulation as a national policy toward the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria merely serves to strengthen the US view that Israel is a strategic liability rather than an asset.

Yet the lessons of the Cold War, and those of the past 15 years remain clear. The Saudis remain at best fair-weather friends to the US, while Israel's strength or weakness directly impacts US national security and geopolitical interests. As was the case during the Cold War, so too today, the US's best option for checking Russian and Iranian expansionism and neutralizing Sunni jihadists is to back Israel.

If the US were willing to understand the clear lessons from its Cold War experience in the Middle East, it would not be pushing Israel to weaken itself still further through land giveaways to Iran's Palestinian proxies. It would not be actively undercutting Israel's national security by supplying sophisticated weapons to the Saudis. It would be admonishing the Olmert government for its irresponsible behavior and exhorting Israel not to go wobbly because it is needed for the larger fight.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Jafar Kiani was an anonymous Iranian prisoner until earlier in the month he became the first Iranian to be stoned to death since 2002.

Iran's decision to revert to domestic barbarism is just one aspect of the regime's strategy for terrorizing its people sufficiently to quell all pockets of resistance to its rule.

The regime's determination to prevent an internal rebellion is an integral part of its larger plan to cast aside all obstacles to its acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Iran already possesses what it needs to make nuclear bombs. What it needs is time. Last summer's war against Israel was timed to provide Iran with a respite from international pressure. Hizbullah's abduction of IDF reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser took place the day before the leaders of the G-8 were scheduled to discuss Iran's nuclear program. By ordering the assault on Israel, Iran diverted their attention away from its nuclear program.

Ever since the war, the Olmert government has declared that the war split the Muslim world into two camps - the moderates and the extremists. Operating on the basis of this perceived split, Israel has sought to build a coalition with the moderates in the hopes that such a coalition will block Iran from acquiring the bomb.

A year after the war, the time has come to make a renewed assessment of the situation. Are moderates blocking Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons? If not, what has transpired?

A good place to start the analysis is with an item that appeared on both Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's to-do list this week. Both leaders telephoned Turkish Prime Minister Recip Erdogan to congratulate him on his Islamist AKP party's electoral victory on Sunday.

Turkey is perceived as the paragon of Muslim moderation. Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and President Shimon Peres have all stated that Israel does not have a problem with AKP's Islamist character. Indeed, in a bow towards Turkish friendship, Olmert revealed last week that Turkey has been facilitating talks between Israel and Syria towards an Israeli surrender of the Golan Heights.

Yet Ankara's readiness to encourage Israel to hand the Golan Heights over to Iran's client state does not necessarily indicate that Turkey is Israel's friend. Indeed, since the AKP rose to power in 2002, it has distanced Turkey from both Israel and the US while warming Turkish relations with Iran and Syria.

Starting with Turkey's refusal to participate in or support the US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime, recent years have been marked by steadily increasing Turkish hostility. Two weeks ago, to Washington's dismay, Turkey signed a $3.5 billion gas deal with Iran.

As to Israel, Erdogan was the first leader to host Hamas terror masters after the jihadist movement won the Palestinian elections in January 2006. During last summer's war, Iran shipped arms to Hizbullah through Turkey. Turkey's leaders have repeatedly declared their support for Iran's right to develop its nuclear program.

IRAN'S COURTSHIP of Turkey is but one aspect of its foreign policy. Over the past several years, Iran has built webs of alliances with other states, alliances that have significantly deepened since last summer's war.

In the first circle, Iran has its clients - Syria, Hizbullah, the Shiite (and increasingly the Sunni) militias in Iraq, and the Palestinians. Just as these forces fought together last summer, so they will fight together in the future.
Ahmadinejad's visit to Damascus last weekend was strikingly similar to meetings he held with his terror underlings before last summer's war.

In its second circle, Iran has cultivated strategic ties with countries in Latin America, which, led by Venezuela, share its hatred for America. These ties serve three purposes. First, they provide Iran with a global deterrent against the US. Second, they provide Iran with ready support in diplomatic forums. Third, they build support for Iran among the "progressive" set in the US and Europe.

In Iran's third circle of alliances are countries like Russia, China and Egypt. While all these states publicly oppose Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons, they effectively block the international community from taking effective action against Iran's nuclear program.

In the meantime, Israel's coalition of moderates has failed to materialize. The leaders of the sought-for coalition, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, refuse to take any action against Iran. Indeed, they effectively support Teheran. In February, Saudi King Abdullah feted Ahmadinejad during a state visit. The next month, by mediating the formation of the Hamas-Fatah government, Abdullah enabled Iran's Palestinian proxy to gain control of the Palestinian Authority. As for Egypt, it is using Iran's nuclear program as cover to advance its own nuclear weapons program.

Then there are the great powers and foremost among them Russia, France and the US. Any UN action against Iran must be agreed upon by all three. And there is little chance of that ever happening.

Russia is Iran's ally. Russia supplied Hizbullah and Syria with arms and intelligence during last summer's war. In the intervening year, Russia has sold advanced weapons systems to both Iran and Syria. Last weekend's report in the Arab media regarding Iranian financing of Syrian purchases of Russian jet fighters, tanks and missiles is part of this overall picture.

Israeli analysts scoffed at the report, noting that the billion dollars Ahmadinejad pledged is insufficient to purchase the weapons he outlined. But those weapons will not all be going to Syria. Last April Iran and Syria signed an agreement essentially merging their militaries. Iran's Defense Minister Mustafa Muhammad Najjar told reporters in Damascus, "We consider the capability of the Syrian defensive forces as our own." He added that Iran "offers all of its defense capabilities to Syria."

While Russia is selling the weapons to Syria, a Russian military official said of the aircraft, "The Syrians will be getting the top line of Russian aircraft through financing by Iran and [will] share some or most of the platforms with the Iranian air force." Jane's Defense Monthly reported that at least 10 of the artillery-missile systems will also be transferred to Iran.

Russia also acts as Teheran's diplomatic shill. During a summit in Teheran last month Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, "We do not see any kind of threat from Iran." In a subsequent visit to Israel, Lavrov insisted that Russia's arms sales pose no threat to the Jewish state, and anyway, the only way for Israel to ensure its security is to surrender the Golan Heights to Syria.

But the Olmert government refuses to acknowledge that Russia has reinstated its Cold War hostility towards Israel. It vapidly praises President Vladimir Putin for his "positive role" in the region and continues to adhere to the line that Russia will agree to UN Security Council action against Iran.

Then there is France. Last summer France displayed open hostility towards Israel in its representation of the Lebanese government in which Hizbullah was then a member at the UN ceasefire talks. On the other hand, in 2005 France joined forces with the US to expel the Syrian military from Lebanon after the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Israel hoped that with Nicholas Sarkozy's victory in the presidential race, France would take a more pro-Israel stance. Unfortunately, the opposite occurred. Sarkozy has warmed French ties with the Iranian-Syrian-Hizbullah axis. Sarkozy legitimized all three when he invited Hizbullah representatives to participate in talks he held with Lebanese factions outside of Paris this month.

Additionally, early this month France led 10 EU member states in meddling in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The foreign ministers of these largely Mediterranean EU member states sent a letter to Quartet envoy Tony Blair, demanding, among other things, that Israel agree to the deployment of international forces in Judea and Samaria, and that Hamas be invited to participate in an international conference on the issue.

As France treats with Iran on Lebanon, the US follows a similar course of engaging the mullahs on Iraq. After his meeting with his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad this week, US Ambassador Ryan Crocker announced the formation of a joint US-Iranian security committee which will discuss Sunni terrorism in Iraq.

Apparently in the interest of advancing America's "security cooperation" with Iran, the State Department refused to raise the issue of the five American citizens being held hostage in Iran at the meeting. And with the prospect of diplomatic "progress" with Iran on Iraq in the air, the US certainly doesn't want to rock the boat by pursuing the issue of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

Indeed, Iran's carrot and stick approach to powers like the US and France form a fourth circle of ties. Iran has worked to neutralize threats from these countries by attacking their interests in other spheres: Lebanon, in the case of France, and Iraq, in the case of the US. Given both countries' enthusiasm for "engagement," it seems that the mullahs have hit on the right approach.

ISRAEL HAS experienced some achievements regarding Iran over the past year. The UN Security Council did pass two sanctions resolutions against Iran. With the active lobbying of opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu, many US public employee pension funds are moving to divest from companies that do business with Iran. And this week, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that like his predecessor Tony Blair, he will not rule out the option of using military force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Yet despite these achievements, Iran has made steady progress with its nuclear program. Wednesday Ahmadinejad announced, "Iran will never abandon its peaceful [nuclear] work." Sunday, a senior Iranian official told The Independent that with almost 3,000 centrifuges operating at its nuclear facility at Natanz, "We have at the moment enough centrifuges to go to a bomb."

Back in Israel, this week Olmert made clear that he wishes to advance contacts with the Palestinians towards an Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria. His advisors told reporters that Olmert is moved by his desire to get beyond his failure in last year's war and the criminal investigations into his shady business dealings. He wishes to be perceived as a statesman.

Of course if Olmert truly wishes to be seen as a statesman, then he shouldn't be concerning himself with Israeli withdrawals that will only strengthen Iran. He should change his strategic focus to Iran which threatens to wipe Israel off the map.

Despite his government's protestations to the contrary, there is no coalition of moderates to work with against Iran. There is no coalition at all. And time is not working in Israel's favor.

If Olmert wishes to gain the public's support, and even admiration, he must quickly build and deploy a military option for destroying Iran's burgeoning ability to destroy the State of Israel.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Jewish history throughout the ages has proven incontrovertibly that Zionism, the assertion of Jewish rights and control over the Land of Israel and the affirmation of Jewish national identity, is the solution to most of the problems that have beset the Jews since the time of Abraham. In the Land of Israel, as a nation of free men and women willing and able to assert and defend ourselves, the Jewish people flourish on every level.

Disturbingly, with each passing day it becomes more and more obvious that the Olmert government does not believe that Zionism is important. To the contrary, both in its domestic and foreign policies, the Olmert government consistently advances anti-Zionist, or post-Zionist policies, that unsurprisingly increase the dangers to the Jewish State and to the Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora.

Zionism is built on four foundations: education, aliya, the Land of Israel, and national defense. As we saw in the war last summer and in the government's abject failure to contend with any of our enemies since, the Olmert government's policies directly undercut Israel's national security.

On Sunday it was reported that Education Minister Yuli Tamir approved a new social studies textbook for third grade Israeli Arabs. The textbook teaches children that the Jewish right to sovereignty in our land is not the truth, but just one among various competing
"narratives." The textbook tells the children that while for the Jews the 1948 War of Independence - in which the infant State of Israel beat back five invading Arab armies bent on murdering all Jews in the Land of Israel, and so secured their independence - is a good thing, for the Arabs it was the "Nakba," or the catastrophe.

AS OPPOSITION leader Binyamin Netanyahu pointed out in an interview on Israeli Radio Monday morning, Tamir's view is both morally and intellectually indefensible. The history of the War of Independence that is taught in Israel's schools is not a narrative. It is the truth. And the history of the War of Independence that is taught in the Palestinian Authority and throughout the Arab world, which claims that the Jews started the war, expelled the Arabs from their homes and stole their lands is a lie.

Netanyahu also noted that throughout Jewish history, violence against Jews has always been preceded by the dissemination of libels against the Jews. And here is the Education Ministry of the State of Israel actively working to propagate those lies.

Tamir was one of the founding members of the post-Zionist Peace Now movement. Over the past decade she has repeatedly argued that Israel's school system is too nationalist and should make room for the Arab "narrative." Two months ago she allowed an Arab-Jewish school in Jerusalem to both celebrate Independence Day and commemorate the "catastrophe" of the establishment of the Jewish State.

Through her actions and statements, Tamir has marked herself as a radical leftist and is considered the leftist fringe of the Olmert government. Unfortunately, her assault on Zionism is far from unique.

OLMERT AND his colleagues claim that their desire to surrender Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinians is based on their desire to ensure that Jews continue to be the majority of Israel's citizens. The government's contention that Israel's Jewish majority is endangered by the Arabs of Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem is at best debatable.

But what is inarguable is that aliya, or Jewish immigration to the State of Israel, is the main guarantor of Israel's Jewish majority. And yet, while loudly proclaiming its commitment to maintaining that majority, the Olmert government is actively undercutting efforts to encourage Diaspora Jewry to make their home in the Jewish state.

In a recent interview with Yediot Aharonot, Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit laid down the gauntlet against aliya. Sheetrit claimed that Jews should only be granted citizenship "on the condition that they see themselves and their children as partners here in the future."

As far as Sheetrit is concerned, Israel should stop reaching out to Jews and encouraging them to make their homes in Israel. "We don't have to pressure Jews to make aliya. Jews who want to come can turn to Israeli representatives [abroad]."

He added that the Law of Return, which confers automatic citizenship on every Jew should be revised. Jews should be forced to pass citizenship tests as a means to ensure that they are worthy of citizenship. As he put it, "The State of Israel and the Minister of Interior need to assess how to ensure that a person coming into the country is a positive person."

This is not Sheetrit's first assault against Jewish immigration. In the 1990s, he repeatedly stated that he objects to unlimited aliya of American Jewry. Sheetrit argued that American Jews are too nationalistic and therefore, their citizenship should be conditioned on their willingness to abide by the government's peace policies.

Sheetrit has a major ally in his offensive against North American aliya in the Jewish Agency. Until recently, the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency was the only organization engaged in bringing Diaspora Jewry to Israel. In the absence of competition, and with the waning of institutional support for Zionism with the onset of the Oslo peace process, the Jewish Agency has done little to nothing to encourage aliya from Western countries. Indeed, Jewish agency representatives have often discouraged Jews from making aliya.

This should come as no surprise from an agency that happily operated under the leadership of Avrum Burg in the 1990s. Burg, an anti-Zionist, recently authored a memoir in which he compares Israel and Zionism to Nazi Germany.

GIVEN THE Jewish Agency's refusal to take any concerted action to encourage aliya from North America, it is not surprising that throughout the 1990s, when Israel's economy was growing at breakneck pace due to the technology revolution, North American aliya dropped to all time lows.

All of this changed in 2000 when private donors got together to address the issue of aliya from a Zionist vantage point. Nefesh b'Nefesh, a private charitable organization stepped into the vacuum that the Jewish Agency created. It began actively encouraging North American Jews to make aliya. The results have been dramatic. Since 2000, aliya rates from North America have risen 90 percent.

Last week, the Jewish Agency decided it has had enough of Nefesh b'Nefesh and set out to destroy the organization. It cancelled its cooperation agreement with Nefesh b'Nefesh claiming falsely that the group only recruits Orthodox Jews. It then turned to the organization's backers in Jewish Federations and warned them - again falsely - that Nefesh b'Nefesh is abusing its tax exempt charitable status and that funding the group could cause legal difficulties for Federations.

SO BETWEEN the Jewish Agency and the Olmert government, official Israel is going to war against aliya. Again, this from the same government that insists its desire to endanger all major population centers in the country by surrendering Israel's heartland to Hamas, is motivated by its commitment to ensuring Israel's Jewish majority.

And then there is the Land of Israel itself. The heart and soul of the Land of Israel is Zion, the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site, and arguably the most important site in Western civilization, is being systematically destroyed by the Muslims.

This month the Islamic Wakf which controls the Temple Mount restarted their illegal destruction of the sacred site by digging a meter-deep, 80 meter long trench from the northern to the southern end of the Temple Mount. The destruction is being carried out with no archaeological supervision. As a result, as has been the case since the Muslim authorities began their systematic destruction of the Temple Mount 10 years ago with the illegal construction of the mosque at Solomon's Stables, the Wakf is destroying both the holy site, and the archaeological heritage of the Jewish people specifically and of Western civilization as a whole.

And the Wakf is carrying out this cultural destruction with the full backing of the Olmert government. The Olmert government not only gave its approval to the destruction. Operating in accordance with the government's policy, the Israel Police prohibits irate archaeologists from even bending down when they visit the scene of the crime, lest they manage to pick up some of the artifact-rich earth being carted away and destroyed. That is, the Olmert government is actively facilitating the destruction of the cultural, religious and physical heritage on which Jewish identity and through it, Zionism is founded.

TODAY IS Tisha Be'av, the most devastating day in Jewish history. It is the day on which both the First and the Second Temples were destroyed. As Jews in Israel and throughout the world fast and mourn the destruction of our Temples and the loss of our freedom in times past, it is deeply disturbing that we are being led today by a government that is actively working to destroy our future as well.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

In the twilight of George W. Bush's presidency, the president has shown himself to be a small and unpopular leader, but a fairly good politician.

A good politician is someone who knows how to get people to support him by making them believe that he agrees with them, even when the policies he advances are contrary to their wishes and interests. Bush's success in endearing himself to his supporters comes across clearly in his administration's handling of Iran.

For the past four years, US military commanders have provided mountains of evidence demonstrating unequivocally that Iran is the central force behind the terror and violence in Iraq. Iran arms the forces terrorizing the Iraqi people and fighting coalition forces. Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hizbullah forces direct and organize the insurgency. Al-Qaida operatives in Iraq receive their orders from al-Qaida leaders who have been operating in Iran since December 2001.

Iran's activities in Iraq are not limited to directing the terror war. In the Kurdish areas in northern Iraq, Iran exploits its close relations with Kurdish President Masoud Barzani to undermine US-Turkish relations. On Tuesday, Michael Rubin, who serves as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and previously worked as an adviser to the Pentagon in Iraq, discussed this situation in testimony before the House Foreign Relations committee.

Rubin testified that "Barzani has provided safe-haven and arms to PKK terrorists responsible for the deaths in Turkey of more than 100 people since January alone."

Stemming from this state of affairs, in recent weeks, US-Turkish relations, and especially US relations with the anti-Islamist Turkish military, have reached an all time low. For the first time there is a distinct possibility that Turkey may withdraw from NATO. This state of affairs transpires as Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister Recip Erdogan moves to strengthen Turkey's relations with Iran and Syria.

At his press conference last week, Bush spoke forthrightly about Iran's role in the Iraq war. Bush said, "The fight in Iraq is part of a broader struggle that's unfolding across the region...The same regime in Iran that is pursuing nuclear weapons and threatening to wipe Israel off the map is also providing sophisticated IEDs to extremists in Iraq who are using them to kill American soldiers." Bush also pointed his finger at Hizbullah and Syria for the central role they too play in the war.

Bush's remarks were music to the ears of those who have been urging the US to confront the Iranians. But unfortunately, his statement last week, like countless statements that preceded it, was not matched by any revision of the administration's Iran policy. That policy, which the Bush administration has pressed for the past four years, is characterized by continuous and consistently escalating attempts to appease Iran's leaders.

Two months ago the administration held the first US diplomatic contacts with Iranian officials since the Islamic revolution in 1979. With the declared goal of convincing the Iranians to put out the fires they are lighting in Iraq, the administration dispatched its ambassador in Iraq to meet with Iranian diplomats.

Iran responded to this radical departure from traditional US policy with unbridled contempt. Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei taunted, ""Why don't you admit that you are weak and your razor is blunt?" Days after the meeting, the Iranians announced that they had arrested four US citizens who were in Iran visiting their relatives.

This week, two sickly looking American prisoners were paraded before television cameras presumptively admitting that they had been working as US agents to subvert the Iranian regime.

The administration responded to this outrage by on the one hand, expressing outrage, and on the other hand, by intensifying its efforts to mollify the mullahs by renewing direct talks between the US ambassador in Iraq and his Iranian interlocutors.

The absurdity and defeatism inherent in the administration's abject refusal to change course was given full expression in the following exchange between a reporter and State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack on Tuesday.

Question: Given that you have not seen… anything, [from] the first [meeting that] could be helpful. Why do you have reason to believe that another one would be any more successful than the first one if you haven't seen any change yet?

Answer: Well, we'll see. That depends on the Iranians. That's going to be up to them. As I said, it could be helpful. It could be useful to be able to have that direct exchange and to convey a message, once again, directly to them. But we'll see. This is entirely dependent upon the Iranians and what they decide to do vis-a-vis Iraq.

There can be little doubt that most Americans do not wish to be humiliated by Iran. And yet, due to Bush's strident anti-Iranian rhetoric, the administration has reined in criticism of its Iran policy even as that policy is causing the US to take daily Iranian attacks against its soldiers, citizens and vital interests lying down. Rather than object to this failed policy, Bush's supporters are led to believe that there must be more to what is happening than meets the eye, when in fact there isn't.

It is against this background that one should approach Bush's speech Monday regarding the Palestinian conflict with Israel. In his address, as in his statements on Iran, Bush was careful to make his supporters think that he agrees with them even as he advances a policy they dislike.

Bush's success in convincing his supporters that he is on their side was clearly evidenced Wednesday in a Wall Street Journal op-ed authored by Israeli historian Michael Oren. Oren's article, which the White House later distributed to Jewish leaders, upheld the address as an amplification of the Bush Doctrine. In Oren's view, "Never before has any American president placed the onus of demonstrating a commitment to peace so emphatically on Palestinian shoulders."

And in fact, the president did have some strong words for the Palestinians. He said they "must match their words denouncing terror with action to combat terror. The Palestinian government must arrest terrorists, dismantle their infrastructure, and confiscate illegal weapons - as the road map requires. They must work to stop attacks on Israel, and to free the Israeli soldier held hostage by extremists. And they must enforce the law without corruption, so they can earn the trust of their people, and of the world. Taking these steps will enable the Palestinians to have a state of their own. And there's only way to end the conflict, and nothing less is acceptable."

This strong statement led Oren to assert that Bush's speech was a clear message of support for Israel and against Palestinian terrorism. Yet the statement, and others that Oren quoted in his defense of Bush, were wholly disconnected from the actual policy that Bush is advancing and that he spelled out clearly in his address.

Neither on Monday nor at any other time did Bush condition his support for the Palestinians on their taking concerted action against terrorism. Indeed, as he made clear in his speech, his policy is predicated on the basic assumption that the Palestinians must be bribed with money, American legitimacy and Israeli lands, and that Israel must be pressured to make more and more concessions to the Palestinians before one can expect them to change their terrorist policies, values and goals.

Far from revisiting this assumption after Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's US-trained Fatah forces surrendered to Hamas in Gaza last month, administration officials responded to the rout by intensifying their belief in it.

Take for example Bush's demand that Abbas arrest terrorists. Bush made this demand while simultaneously upholding Abbas as a peace-seeking, terror abhorring leader. Yet Abbas's one consistent demand is for Israel to release terrorists from prison and grant amnesty to terror commanders it has yet to arrest.

Today the administration has made preventing a Hamas takeover of Judea and Samaria its immediate goal.

Monday morning The Washington Post reported that since the Hamas takeover of Gaza, US intelligence agencies have concluded that the only thing preventing Hamas from taking over Judea and Samaria is the IDF. As one senior intelligence official put it, "Israeli military operations are the major factor restricting Hamas activity [in the areas]." Yet rather than urge Israel to maintain its counter-terror operations, Bush said that the Israelis should find "practical ways to reduce their footprint" in Judea and Samaria. He also pledged $80 million to Fatah militias whose officer corps are teeming with the same terrorists that Abbas is supposed to be arresting.

Bush told the Palestinians that this is a "moment of choice" for them. It is time for them to decide if they are for terror or peace. But then, he said the same thing five years ago. Since then, at every decision point, the Palestinians chose terror. They have built terror armies and amassed terror arsenals. The have strengthened their ties to Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and al-Qaida. They overwhelmingly elected Hamas to lead them. But in the interests of advancing its policy of appeasement, the Bush administration abjectly refuses to acknowledge that the Palestinians have already chosen.

Abbas is the man that Bush believes will cause the Palestinians to have a change of heart. Bush places his trust in Abbas - the man who has pocketed billions of dollars in assistance from the US, the EU and Israel but has never lifted a finger against terrorists or done anything to end the corruption endemic in his government. Bush upholds Abbas, who equipped his US-trained forces with anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles which are completely useless for fighting terror cells but come in mighty handy for fighting Israel.

Israel's assigned role in this diplomatic farce is the patsy. Due to the exigencies of democratic politics, and in the absence of leadership on either side, over the past few years, US-Israel relations have taken on a sado-masochistic quality. To endear himself with the State Department and Europe, Bush has chosen to insist that Israel endanger itself. To survive in office, Olmert, like Ariel Sharon before him, has agreed to endanger Israel in order to secure the support of the Left in his governing coalition, the media, and the State Prosecutor's office.

The one conclusion that cries out from all of this is that in the waning days of the Bush administration, and perhaps of the Olmert government, the American and Israeli publics need to find ways to make it clear that they demand good leaders, not good politicians.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

'It's all a joke. It's just a joke."

That's how the Palestinian terror commanders in Judea and Samaria explained the show they made of handing in their weapons to Fatah commander Mahmoud Abbas's official militias over the weekend.

"This is all a big joke," they told reporters while posing for pictures. "Abbas asked us to sign a declaration saying we won't attack Israel and so we are."

And why not? The Palestinian Authority Chairman agreed to pay them thousands of dollars in exchange for the photo opportunities. There is also the non-financial incentive. In exchange for their propaganda photos and their signatures on declarations not to engage in terror anymore, Israel has pledged to take these murderers off of its wanted list. So just for participating in a satire, these men get to walk without fear for the first time in years.

The deal between Prime Minister Olmert and Abbas claims that 178 members of Fatah's Aksa Martyrs' Brigades terror organization will hand in their weapons and pledge to stop being terrorists. From now on the only Palestinians in Judea and Samaria who will bear arms will be members of Abbas's "official" security forces. But since most of these men are already members of those official militias, and the rest are set to be commissioned in short order, the deal has no impact on any of them.

In anticipation of the formalization of the agreement at the Olmert-Abbas meeting Monday, the IDF ended its nightly raids in Judea and Samaria for the first time in five years. Those raids, in which thousands of terrorists were apprehended in their sleep and their networks disrupted, were the main reason that Israelis in Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, Netanya and Hadera have been able to sleep in a modicum of safety for the past three years.

It is these raids, rather than Abbas's vaunted efforts to strengthen the so-called peace camp in Palestinian society or the security fence that have prevented suicide bombers from entering Israeli cities with any frequency.

SATURDAY the IDF's General Staff ordered Central Command to receive prior General Staff approval for any such raids in the future. By taking the ability to fight terrorists away from the commanders in the field, the General Staff essentially made fighting terrorists off limits for IDF forces in Judea and Samaria. That is, without officially announcing it, Israel has agreed to Abbas's demand that it extend its "unilateral cease-fire" in Gaza (which existed until Hamas rose to power last month), to Judea and Samaria.

It should be recalled that the Hamas takeover of Gaza was abetted by Israel's decision to declare a unilateral cease-fire there. Israel stood down in Gaza in an effort to strengthen Abbas's control over that area. Since Abbas refused to use his US and Egyptian supplied arsenal to take on Hamas, Israel's decision to stand down in Gaza played a central role in enabling Hamas to raise its Iranian-trained terror army in the area to which Abbas's forces abjectly surrendered.

Now, in the interest of strengthening Abbas and his terrorists-turned peace activists in Fatah in Judea and Samaria, Israel is extending the policy to the outskirts of its major population centers.

While disturbing, the General Staff cannot be blamed for ordering its forces to stand down in Judea and Samaria. The 178 terrorists who Olmert just took off the wanted list are themselves the IDF's main targets.

TAKE Daoud Hajj for example. On February 19, 2002 Hajj commanded an Aksa Brigade's attack on an IDF roadblock near Ramallah. The terrorists killed three off-duty soldiers in their sleep and another three soldiers who came to their rescue. After the attack, Hajj was given an officer's commission in the Palestinian security forces and moved into Arafat's presidential compound in Ramallah. He still lives in what has become Abbas's compound.

On Monday, Aaron Klein in World Net Daily released several other names on the list of pardoned murderers. These include the commanders and deputy commanders of the Aksa Brigades in Nablus, Ramallah and Jenin. Ala Senakreh and Nasser Abu Azziz in Nablus were the masterminds of all the suicide bombings in Israel in 2005 and 2006 that emanated from Judea and Samaria.

Kamal Ranam, from Ramallah commanded scores of shooting attacks against Israeli motorists in Judea and Samaria last year. In one such attack, against a school bus carrying middle-school girls, Ranam and his men boasted that they used US weapons that had just been shipped to Abbas to carry out the attack.

Zacharia Zudbeidi, the Aksa Brigades commander in Jenin is the darling of the Israeli Left due in large part to his well-developed propaganda skills and gutter Hebrew. Zubeidi has directed at least two suicide bombings and overseen scores of shooting attacks that have claimed the lives of dozens of Israeli civilians and soldiers.

And now, all of these men are free to go about their business in the open.

THE GOVERNMENT'S decision to grant immunity to these terror-masters represents a complete breakdown of Israeli strategic thinking. This cognitive break with reality is all the more disconcerting as it comes at a time when Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and the Palestinians remain firmly on war-footing.

The conference of Lebanese factions being held this week outside of Paris, which includes Hizbullah representatives, is a major victory for Hizbullah and Iran. In light of the clear Hizbullah and Iranian intention of dominating Lebanon and opening a new round of war with Israel, the Sarkozy government's decision to treat Hizbullah as a legitimate political force in Lebanon is both misguided and dangerous - especially to Israel.

But then, it is nearly impossible to pin the blame on the French since Israel too is strengthening its enemies. The Aksa Brigades have deep and abiding ties to Syria, Iran and Hizbullah. Since 2001, much of the Aksa Brigades terror activity has been financed and directed by all three. Indeed, since 2000, there has been little distinction between the Aksa Brigades and Islamic Jihad, which is an overtly Iranian organization. Given this, it was no surprise when the Palestinian Authority offered to acquire Israeli clemency for Islamic Jihad terrorists as well.

The fact that Abbas himself is interested in strengthening Fatah ties with Iran, Syria and Hizbullah is made clear by his insistence that Olmert permit Fatah leader Farouk Kadoumi and DFLP leader Naif Hawatmeh to enter Judea and Samaria. Kadoumi, who has never accepted the so-called peace process with Israel, is a frequent visitor to Iran. In a visit there last November, Kadoumi met with Iran's Foreign Minister Manoucher Mouttaki. There he attacked the US for its refusal to recognize Hamas and applauded Iran for its plan to destroy Israel. Kadoumi said, "With the grace of Almighty God and firm determination of our youths and brotherly stands adopted by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its leadership we will liberate Palestine and will say our prayers in Holy Jerusalem."

As for Hawatmeh, the unrepentant murderer of 22 Israeli children at the Ma'alot massacre in 1974 has been living in Damascus for the past generation. He is widely seen as an agent of Syria's intelligence services.

But, Abbas claims that these men are necessary to fight Hamas and so Israel has let them in.

FROM THE Palestinian perspective, there is no reason to suffice with Israel's military capitulation. After all, if Israel is willing to accept Fatah's demands, then why limit them? And so, ahead of Olmert's meeting with Abbas, Fatah Prime Minister Salam Fayad said that it would be "pathological" for Israel to believe that military capitulation is all that is required of it. Israel, Fayad said, must renew negotiations toward its withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem as well. Otherwise, he said, Fatah will never be strong enough to fight Hamas.

It is not coincidental that this entire exercise in national suicide has taken place this week. It is a fitting backdrop to the ascension of Israel's high priest of national delusion - Shimon Peres - to the presidency. Peres is the architect of Israel's decision to embrace lies and reject truth as a national strategy.

Israel's new head of state is the man who, as Israel's foreign minister in 2001 traveled to the US in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and told the UN General Assembly that the proper response to the attacks on Washington and New York was Palestinian statehood and nanotechnology.

This is the man who demands an end to the study of history which he deems counterproductive to looking toward the nanotechnological future.

This is the man who in 1993 forced Israel's Zionist establishment to its knees by insisting that Yasser Arafat was a man of peace.

This is the man who in 2002 oversaw US President George W. Bush's abandonment of his demand that the Palestinians fight terror as a condition for US support of Palestinian statehood.

The role of Israel's president is by law restricted to ceremonial functions. But Peres didn't even wait to be sworn in before he announced his intention to ignore both the letter and spirit of the law in his single-minded quest to realize his dream of peace through Israeli capitulation to terror.

And really, why should he care what the law says? Peres is arguably the strongest man in Israeli politics since David Ben Gurion. He controls Kadima and Labor. He enjoys the complete backing of the print and broadcast media and the legal establishment. He enjoys massive support from Israel's plutocrats. And so, as he enters his 85th year, Peres is right to feel unfettered in backing the Palestinians against Israel in the name of peace.

For the Palestinians this is a joke. For Peres this is a dream. And for the Olmert government this is national policy.

The Israeli people must remember to laugh when the bombs begin to drop.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

On Wednesday, it was reported that the UN has determined that Mount Dov, otherwise known as the Shaba Farms, belongs to Lebanon and that Israel must relinquish the area to UN control ahead of its transfer to Lebanon. Although the UN later denied the report, true or false it reminded us that since last summer's war, pressure on Israel to withdraw from Mount Dov has risen dramatically.

It should be recalled that in 2000, the UN certified that Israel had fully withdrawn from Lebanese territory. The UN acknowledged that sovereignty over Mount Dov is disputed between Israel and Syria.

Hizbullah rejected the UN's finding and insisted that Mount Dov is Lebanese territory. As Lebanese politicians such as Druse leader Walid Jumblatt have argued, Hizbullah invented the claim as a means of justifying its continued war against Israel.

During last summer's war, Hizbullah's demand for Mount Dov was supported by the Saniora government of which Hizbullah was then a member. Since both the US and France support the Saniora government, they accepted the demand.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which determined the conditions of the cease-fire, authorized the UN's secretary-general to determine which country the area - which controls the back entrance to Mount Hermon, the sources of the Sea of Galilee and the Israeli communities on the Golan Heights - belongs to.

The UN's claim that it has yet to settle the issue of sovereignty over Mount Dov has given the Olmert government a temporary reprieve from international pressure to withdraw from the strategically vital area. But the fact that last year Israel agreed to empower the UN to study the issue is itself a disaster for Israel.

By allowing the UN to revisit a sovereignty issue it had already settled, Israel gave up its right to assume that the international community will one day recognize its borders. If Israel were to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines, for instance, the Mount Dov precedent shows that there is no guarantee that a Palestinian, Syrian, Egyptian or Jordanian demand for more Israeli land wouldn't enjoy similar international backing.

Over the past year, Israel has conducted no critical analysis of the political and military consequences of Resolution 1701. No one has discussed the significance of an agreement that places Israel on equal footing with an illegal terrorist organization and makes no mention of Hizbullah's state sponsors, Syria and Iran. No one has asked how the IDF will deal with UNIFIL forces, which at the Olmert government's insistence are deployed along the border, when the next round of fighting begins.

ISRAEL'S FAILURE to analyze 1701 is but one illustration of how it has avoided truly reckoning with what happened last summer. Israel's failure is especially disconcerting given that today we are poised on the edge of another war against the same forces - Hizbullah, Iran, Syria and the Palestinians - that fought us last summer.

A year ago, assisted and directed militarily by Iran and Syria, and backed politically by international human rights groups, the UN, France and the Western media, Hizbullah successfully carried out a 34-day attack against Israel. Israel failed to either stop or mitigate the Hizbullah onslaught.

Since then, assisted by Iran and Syria, Hizbullah has rearmed and expanded its missile arsenal. It has filled its ranks with operatives who have undergone training in Iran. Hamas has taken over Gaza and built its own army of some 10,000 soldiers, many of whom have also been trained in Iran. Syria and Iran have both mobilized for war and Iran has made great progress in its nuclear weapons program.

In Lebanon itself, Hizbullah, Iran and Syria are actively destabilizing the Saniora government. Whether or not their ultimate goal is to repeat the Hamas model in Gaza by fomenting a Syrian-Hizbullah takeover of the country, their actions to date have neutralized all threats to their freedom of action. The Lebanese military is neutralized. After the car bombing against Spanish UNIFIL forces last month, Spain and another country are holding talks with Hizbullah and Iran.

The Bush administration, which supported Israel in the first weeks of the war, is now keeping its distance. From its support for Hizbullah's demand for Mount Dov; its pressure on Israel to support Fatah; to its attempts to appease Iran, the Bush administration is clearly signaling that it views Israel as a liability.

In Israel itself, the only point of light is the tactical training that IDF forces have been undergoing since the cease-fire. But although the training is vital, the fact is that the tactical level was the least problematic level of the last war. Although they were ill-equipped and ill-trained, in every head-on engagement with Hizbullah, IDF forces convincingly defeated the enemy.

The real problems that the war exposed were on the operational and strategic levels of war. And here, no improvements have been made.

Under then-chief of General Staff Dan Halutz, the General Staff conceived of the war as an air battle, with a limited ground component comprised of special forces. Although this operational concept failed in the first days of the war, the General Staff stubbornly maintained it throughout.

Due to the General Staff's refusal to revisit its operational concept, it was unable to draw lessons from engagements with the enemy. Rather than examine the surprise inflicted on the special forces in their first engagements with Hizbullah and update IDF operations in accordance with what those engagements revealed about Hizbullah's deployment and mode of operations, the General Staff ignored the experience and allowed itself to be drawn into a war it didn't understand. Forces were deployed willy nilly in battles of no operational significance and with no connection to any overarching plan for victory.

A month before the war, Halutz closed down the IDF's Operational Theory Research Institute. The institute was responsible for training corps commanders in operational warfare. That training boils down to giving commanders cognitive tools to test their operational environment and to update their plans to ensure they maintain the initiative. As Halutz's successor, Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, has noted on various occasions, today there is no operational thinking in the IDF. Perhaps this is important. Perhaps it is not. We'll only find out in the next war.

Strategically, the situation has deteriorated rapidly. Despite the obvious nature of Israel's failure, the Olmert government insists that we won. And since it claims we won, it also claims that nothing needs fixing.

The government's insistent claims of victory have forced it to also say that Israel is now safer for having fought the war. As a result, the government downplays the significance of Hizbullah's rearmament and of Syria's preparations for war.

Moreover, by ignoring the fact that with Iranian and Syrian guidance, the Palestinians and Hizbullah launched a coordinated attack against Israel, the Olmert government is forced to ignore the significance of the strategic alliance that exists between its enemies. It is because of its need to underplay the dangers that it continues to embrace Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas, even though Fatah forces participated in the kidnap of Cpl. Gilad Shalit. The government is forced to embrace Abbas, even though since September 2005, he and his forces did nothing to prevent Hamas from training, arming and raising an army in Gaza.

Intent on ignoring the results of its failed war, the government says nothing about the fact that the weapons Israel allowed the US to supply to Fatah were surrendered to Hamas without a fight and are now being used to attack Israeli soldiers. Indeed, next week, with full US backing, Abbas is scheduled to demand that Olmert allow him to deploy armored vehicles and a Jordanian brigade in Judea and Samaria, and to equip his forces with bullet-proof vests and more guns.

THE ARROGANCE and ignorance of Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and their colleagues plays a significant role in the government's refusal to reconcile itself to reality. But their personal failings tell only part of the story. Both Israel's political leaders and its military leaders are party to a general conceptual failure that has plagued Israel since the Rabin-Peres government signed the Oslo Accords with the PLO in 1993.

To embrace the PLO, Israel had to abandon its national narrative and adopt the false narrative of peace. Only by so acting was it possible to embrace a terrorist group dedicated to its destruction. Although today Israel has no Palestinian or Syrian partner in peace, and is beset by a global jihad fueled by Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Israel's policymakers continue to cling to the peace narrative.

The peace narrative assumes that Israel rather than the Arabs is responsible for the lack of peace in the region, and so Israel, rather than the Arabs must change its behavior to engender the peace it has blocked. As a result, the peace narrative negates Israel's right to defend itself from aggression, for doing so would distance the chance of peace. Even worse, an Israeli assertion of its right to self-defense would risk exposing the fact that there is no peace to be had and that Israel is not responsible for its absence.

On the military level, the attraction of an air war for generals is largely a consequence of the peace narrative. If Israel is on the verge of peace, then soldiers shouldn't be dying, and control of land - which we want to give away for peace anyway - is neither necessary nor desirable. If we still are forced to fight, it is best to do so from an altitude of 20,000 feet. Boots on the ground would involve an acknowledgement that we are at war.

On the political level, the peace narrative has paralyzed strategic analysis and policy making for 14 years. If we are in a peace process, then it isn't only that we mustn't defend ourselves. We mustn't assert our sovereignty at all. We mustn't tell the UN that in accordance with Israeli law, Mount Dov is part of the State of Israel. We mustn't tell the US that Judea and Samaria are Israeli territories and that we haven't the slightest intention of giving them to our enemies. We mustn't tell the Palestinians that they have shown they cannot be trusted with international borders and we are therefore taking back the Gaza-Sinai border. We mustn't acknowledge that Fatah is our enemy or that Syria is an Iranian client state.

Tuesday, Military Intelligence asserted that the only way to avert war with Syria is to reach a peace deal with Syria. Since Syria is uninterested in peace, what Military Intelligence actually said is that Syria about to launch a war against us. But since we have yet to discard the delusion of peace, it is unclear that anyone understood the message.

A year after the war, we still haven't found the courage to recognize that security, not peace, is our goal. Until we do, we will remain plagued by war.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and US President George W. Bush are in for a big disappointment. Palestinian and Arab sources say that with the scheduled return of Egypt's intelligence detail to Gaza next week, Fatah will commence discussions toward politically capitulating to Hamas. And so the US and Israeli plan to respond to the Hamas takeover of Gaza by strengthening Fatah has failed.

Neither its failure, nor the US and Israeli insistence on courting failure is the least bit surprising. For the past 14 years, Washington and Jerusalem have clung to their belief that that the way to bring stability and peace to the Middle East is to establish a Fatah-dominated Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea and Samaria and parts of Jerusalem - in spite of its consistent failure.

Since 1993, from blueprint to road map to vision statement to horizon vision, with a singlemindedness bordering on religious zealotry, successive Israeli governments and US administrations have advanced the idea that Fatah is the deus ex machina that will solve all the woes of the region. Both countries' apparent obsession with finding the proper way to establish a Fatah state has caused them to stubbornly ignore mountains of evidence which clearly showed that their basic assumption - that a Fatah state would engender stability and peace - was wrong.

THROUGHOUT the 1990s, both countries shut their eyes as Yasser Arafat built irregular Fatah militias; enabled Hamas and Islamic Jihad to carry out suicide bombings against Israel; and transformed the Palestinian schools, mosques and media into indoctrination centers which hooked the Palestinians on jihad.

In 2000 Arafat's rejection of statehood and peace at the Camp David summit exposed the fact that the Fatah-based, two-state solution was a failure. Yet both Jerusalem, under the Barak and Sharon governments, and Washington, under the Clinton and Bush administrations, refused in the intervening years to accept its failure. To the contrary: Since 2000, Israel and the US have redoubled their efforts to "strengthen Fatah" in the hopes of establishing that Palestinian state.

Even as their favorite "moderates" - who at various times have included Arafat, Abbas, security chief Muhammad Dahlan, convicted mass murderer Marwan Barghouti, former PA prime minister Ahmed Qurei and current Fatah Prime Minister Salam Fayad - have all been implicated in terror attacks and funding, both Israel and the US have remained unstinting in their view. Fatah must be strengthened in order to achieve a two-state solution.

STILL TODAY, in spite of Hamas's takeover of Gaza, its popularity in Judea and Samaria, and Abbas's inability to even control his own terror forces in Fatah, the Bush administration and the Olmert government are adamant: Fatah must be strengthened in order to achieve a "political horizon" that will bring about the Palestinian state.

And now, by engaging in negotiations with Hamas, Fatah intends to prove them wrong yet again. And again, far from engendering peace and security, the Fatah-based policy breeds yet more instability and greater Palestinian support for terror.

Given their public commitment to the Fatah-based "two-state solution," there is little hope that either US President George W. Bush or the Olmert government will accept their "vision's" failure. Yet today in both Washington and Jerusalem significant voices are calling for a reappraisal of the Fatah-based strategy. Discussions are taking place among policymakers in both capitals regarding a possible "Jordanian option."

Proponents of the "Jordanian option" maintain that a Jordanian military contingent deployed to Judea and Samaria can act as a deus ex machina that will save the day for all sides. They will end the chaos on the Palestinian streets and ensure Israeli security. By doing so, it is claimed, the Jordanians will pave the way for a reform of Palestinian society which will enable negotiations to restart between Israel and the Palestinians toward a two-state solution.

WHILE THOSE involved in these discussions are to be congratulated for their willingness to put aside the Fatah deus ex machina, their view of a Jordanian deus ex machina suffers from a flawed reasoning similar to that which plagues the Fatah enthusiasts. Advocates of the Jordanian military option project their own aspirations for security and a political settlement on the Jordanians without checking to see whether the Jordanians share their aspirations. And, they do not.

It is true that since King Abdullah closed Hamas's offices and expelled its leaders from Jordan in 1999, the kingdom has advanced an anti-Hamas policy. But it is also true that until 1999, Jordan supported Hamas and allowed it to use Amman as its home base. Both Jordan's decision to embrace Hamas and its decision to expel Hamas stemmed from Jordan's assessment of its national interests.

Unlike Israel, Jordan can, under certain circumstances, coexist with Hamas. The threat that Hamas poses to Jordan is qualitatively different from the threat it poses to Israel. And so, unlike Israel, there is no reason to believe that Jordan will not cut a deal with Hamas in Judea and Samaria that will enable the group to continue to exert control over the Palestinians and threaten Israel.

A Jordanian military deployment would not merely neglect and probably harm Israel's security interests. It would also cause great harm to Israel's political interests. The deployment of Jordanian forces to the region would not mitigate international criticism of Israel as the "occupier" of the areas. And rather than forming closer political ties with Jordan, the Palestinians would continue to view attacking Israel as the best way to advance politically.

WHAT BOTH the Fatah road map to the two-state solution and the Jordanian road map to the two-state solution show quite clearly is that there is no two-state solution.

Rather than search endlessly for new blueprints and horizons, both Israel and the US would do well to ask themselves the basic question of what their interests are vis-a-vis the Palestinians.

Both Israel and the US would likely agree that they are interested in stabilizing the security situation in the Palestinian areas - first and foremost in Judea and Samaria to prevent Hamas from extending its reach to the Jordan River. Aside from that, both Israel and the US would agree that Palestinian society must transform itself from the jihad-supporting polity it is at present to an anti-jihadist polity.

If it shows anything, the failure of the Fatah paradigm should show that all the best wishes and efforts of Israel and the US cannot cause the Palestinians to change course. They themselves have to be brought to a point where, over time, they will perhaps decide that they have taken a wrong course.

TODAY, for all the talk of bringing in the Jordanian army, the fact of the matter is that the security situation in Judea and Samaria is the only good news in town. Since the IDF reasserted its control over the areas in 2002 during Operation Defensive Shield, the Israeli military has managed to largely prevent the Palestinians from rebuilding terror infrastructures capable of carrying out major or sustained attacks against Israel. Since Israeli military control is the only strategic asset to be found, it is the only thing that should be left untouched.

What should be radically altered is the political strategy informing US and Israeli policymakers. The 14-year obsession with strengthening Fatah has hooked the Palestinians on the belief that they can and should expect Israel to fund and legitimize them even as they become ever more radical in their hatred of the Jewish state and ever more devoted to the cause of its destruction.

It will no doubt take a generation to disabuse the Palestinians of this belief. And as long as this belief informs the Palestinians, there is no chance of ever reaching a political accommodation between them and Israel.

SO RATHER than seeking to appease the Palestinians into accepting statehood, Israel and the US must set the course for an internal Palestinian reckoning with what they have become. To this end, the most Israel can responsibly offer the Palestinians is civilian autonomy with no military component. This state of affairs must last until the Palestinians themselves have proven, through their actions, that they have kicked their addiction to jihad.

If thoughts now turn to Jordan, it is in the realm of political transformation and not in military affairs, where Jordan can make a major contribution to stability that can pave the way to a future peace. From 1950-1988, all Palestinian residents of Judea and Samaria were also Jordanian citizens. For the first time since King Hussein revoked their citizenship rights, today there appears to be a willingness among members of Jordan's ruling class to engage in discussion toward reinstating them.

Today people like former Jordanian prime minister Abdul Salim al-Majali are quietly engaging in discussions with the Israeli and American policy communities about the possibility of reasserting Jordanian political responsibility for the Palestinians. Although these discussions are couched in the rhetoric of an Israeli withdrawal from the entirety of Judea and Samaria, there is no reason to believe that opening offers will also be closing offers.

While the Olmert government and the Bush administration seem intent on ignoring them, there are viable options for securing the Palestinian front and preventing a jihadist takeover of Judea and Samaria. But to move toward them, fantasies of Fatah forces or Jordanian forces marching in to save the day and move us to a fantasyland of two-state solutions must be discarded in favor of real options based on real interests.

Originally pubished in The Jerusalem Post.

Any doubt that Hamas is an Iranian proxy was dispelled this week by a snippet on the Middle East Media Research Institute's blog.

MEMRI reported: "An article in the Iranian weekly Sobh-e Sadeq, circulated among the Revolutionary Guards, states that Fatah documents captured by Hamas have revealed that Egypt played a role in instigating the clashes which led to the Hamas takeover of Gaza. The article added that this is the second time Egypt has betrayed the Palestinians, the first being [the slain Egyptian president Anwar] Sadat's betrayal at the Camp David summit."

So Hamas is sharing the treasure trove of intelligence it captured during its takeover of Gaza with Iran. In the greatest intelligence victory ever accomplished by a jihadist organization, Hamas (and Iran) now possess the files of all of the Palestinian security apparatuses, and the personal papers of Fatah leaders such as Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas and Muhammad Dahlan.

Hamas sources claim that Fatah's abject surrender of the information should come as a surprise to no one. They brag that in the months leading up to their putsch, Fatah operatives were happy to sell them all the weapons and intelligence information they asked for.

Iran's use of the Fatah files against Egypt demonstrates that the emergence of Hamastan in Gaza endangers not only Israel, but regional security as a whole. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, the US and Israel can all expect reports to surface that will, in the best case, cause them deep embarrassment. Their governments may be destabilized and their security operations may be compromised.

No doubt this state of affairs was central in causing the Egyptians, Saudis and Jordanians to all tell Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah chief Abbas not to clash with Hamas but to try to forge a new accord with it.

And so Hamas's position improves by the day. On Sunday, just after Israel made its first payment of $120 million to Salaam Fayad's Fatah government, Fayad announced that the money will go to pay salaries of PA employees in Gaza. This tells us two things. First, it shatters the illusion of two distinct PAs - one that is bad and one that is good. By paying PA employees in Gaza, Fayad showed that from Fatah's perspective, there is only one PA, not two.

Second, his move exposes as a lie Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's claim that the money was going only to Fatah. Indeed, it showed that Israel is funding Hamas. After all, if Fayad weren't using Israeli money to pay the Gazans, Hamas would have to pay them out of its own pocket.

BBC reporter Alan Johnston's release on Wednesday was another win for Hamas. After Johnston's release, Britain's new Foreign Secretary David Miliband - whose mother, a Holocaust survivor, is a member of the radical anti-Zionist organization "Jews for Justice for Palestinians" and whose late father was a Communist - gushed over Hamas. Miliband said that Hamas leaders "denounced the hostage-takers and demanded Alan's release. I fully acknowledge the crucial role they have played in securing this happy outcome."

In comments to Parliament, Miliband left the door wide open to the possibility of Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government recognizing the Hamas government.

Rather than chide the British for their embrace of a movement driven by barbaric hatred for Jews and bent on Islamic global domination, the Israeli government lavished praise on the British for successfully negotiating Johnston's release and tried to make nice with Hamas. Olmert coyly suggested, "As is known, Hamas members holding [IDF soldier Gilad Shalit] are - in effect - preventing the release of Palestinian prisoners as has been agreed upon."

By thus framing the issue of Shalit's release, Olmert signaled to Hamas that Israel is interested in cutting a deal and has already accepted the Iranian-proxy's control over the outskirts of Ashkelon and Ashdod.

Hamas has other new friends - al-Qaida for instance. While just last March al-Qaida was condemning its fellow Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organization for signing the Mecca agreement with Fatah, in the al-Qaida video disseminated this week, the group's deputy commander, Ayman al-Zawahiri, praised Hamas and called for Muslims to join the terror group.

In his words, "We tell our brothers, the Hamas mujahadin, that we and the entire Muslim nation stand alongside you, but you must redress your [political] path. Muslims must join Hamas ranks and we will back them by facilitating the passage of weapons and supplies from neighboring countries."

The Olmert government's refusal to take the Hamas-Iranian threat in Gaza seriously fits well with its overall refusal to forge any coherent policies for dealing with any of the mounting threats that Israel faces.

Last week, the Syrians celebrated the 33rd anniversary of the "liberation" of Quneitra on the Golan Heights, which Israel ceded to Syria in the cease-fire agreement that ended the Yom Kippur War. In government ceremonies, ministers in Bashar Assad's government emphasized the dictator's commitment to "liberating" the Golan.

It was also reported that in honor of the anniversary, the Syrians opened the Damascus-Quneitra road to civilian traffic for the first time since 1967. If true, it would appear that the Syrians are setting the stage for terrorist infiltration of the Golan Heights.

Radio Damascus reported Wednesday that the Syrian regime views IDF exercises in the North as a threat. This announcement can only be seen as a Syrian bid to develop a pretext for starting a war against Israel.

And what sort of war awaits us? A missile war.

While the Olmert government argues over the relative merits of overhauling and upgrading the National Security Council, and bolsters our national security by appointing Ruhama Avraham - the woman of many hair colors and stylish outfits - to the cabinet, the main lesson of the Second Lebanon War is being systematically ignored.

THE WAR showed that Israel's enemies' primary target is the home front. This understanding was supposed to propel the government to secure civilian population centers nationwide, since Syrian missiles are capable of hitting every square centimeter of the country. But one year later, not even Sderot has been reinforced and the bomb shelters in the North remain neglected. It took the Finance Ministry 11 months to release funds to purchase gas masks for the public even though it is well known that Syria has chemical weapons.

Although Olmert said that for him the last war is but "a distant memory," in Lebanon it is living history. Hizbullah is rearming so massively that even the UN has taken notice. Last week, UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon reported to the Security Council that the Syrian-Lebanese border has been completely breached and that shipments of Iranian and Syrian arms transit the country without the slightest difficulty.

On Monday, outgoing Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh effectively told Israel Radio that the government is neglecting the security needs of Israel by starving the IDF of the funds necessary to adequately equip its forces and secure the home front ahead of a possible war with Hizbullah, Syria and Hamas. He also accused the government of mishandling the Iranian nuclear threat.

Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz all lull the public into complacency by claiming that the UN Security Council sanctions against Iran are effective, and that Israel and the US are closely coordinating their policies on dealing with the Iranian nuclear weapons program. In his interview, Sneh called their bluff.

Sneh argued that the sanctions have not prevented Iran from advancing its nuclear program and stated outright that "there is no coordination on the operational level between the Israeli and US militaries on Iran."

Sneh added that the governmental underfunding has left the military bereft of good options for attacking Iran's nuclear installations on its own.

On the other side, Teheran is mobilizing all of its resources for a war against the US and Israel. Risking its own destabilization, the regime instituted gasoline rationing last week. And this week President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran will soon begin rationing electricity.

Intent on ignoring the dangers, Israel's government has opted to attack those who warn of them. Case in point is its treatment of former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton. Last week Bolton told The Jerusalem Post that the Bush administration's Iran policy has failed.

In his words, "The current approach of the Europeans and Americans is not just doomed to failure, but dangerous. Diplomacy and sanctions have failed... So we have to look at: 1, overthrowing the regime and getting in a new one that won't pursue nuclear weapons; 2, a last-resort use of force."

Bolton added that there might not be enough time to bring down the regime before the Iranians acquire nuclear weapons.

Israeli officials, snug in their bubble, reacted to the interview by attacking Bolton. One official dismissed Bolton by calling him America's "Avigdor Lieberman." Another patronized, "It is possible that his comments were meant to expedite the process. We would all like to see more aggressive diplomacy."

But as Sneh made clear, not only were Bolton's remarks accurate, but also, thanks to the Olmert government, Israel lacks the means to independently address the threat of its own annihilation, and has no military coordination on the matter with the US.

To their credit, the ministers responsible for dealing with Iran are very busy with pressing concerns. Last week, Lieberman took a trip to Europe, where he tried to advance his idea of bringing Israel into the anti-Israel EU. And in light of UNIFIL's stunning accomplishments in preventing Hizbullah from rearming, Israel's "Strategic Affairs" minister also used his time to push his idea of deploying NATO forces to Gaza.

On Wednesday, Livni met with her Moroccan counterpart. Livni praised Morocco for its participation in the Saudi Peace Plan that has been disavowed by the Saudis.

Olmert the peacemaker concluded a peace accord this week between his cronies Ronnie Bar-On and Haim Ramon. He also negotiated a temporary cease-fire with his political rival Meir Sheetrit. Most critically, Olmert ensured Israel's long-term security by appointing Ruhama Avraham a minister-without-portfolio in his Lilliputian government.

The local media organs, all of which moronically ignore the emerging threats, keep promising the public that the Olmert government will fall as soon as the Winograd Committee issues its final report on the Second Lebanon War, sometime in the next few months. But there is no guarantee that this is true.

In the best case scenario, the report will merely tell us what has been clear for the past year: With or without a restructured National Security Council, our political leaders are incompetent boobs whose only concern is their personal political survival, regardless of the consequences for the nation's security.

But really, why worry? After all, Shas is happy. Lieberman is satisfied. Olmert is rock solid. And Ruhama is moved to tears.

Perhaps we should be crying, too.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Today Hamas consolidates its power in Gaza and plans its next moves in Judea and Samaria. Fatah - its main competitor - has collapsed.

Fatah was plunged into a state of organizational shock last month after its US-trained militias surrendered control of Gaza to Hamas and its US-benighted commanders fled the area.

Although with sufficient bribes for its angry followers courtesy of Israel and the US, Fatah may be able to temporarily resuscitate itself (at least until its leaders feel secure enough with the size of their Swiss bank accounts to decamp to Borneo), Hamas's consolidation of its control over Gaza has nonetheless sealed Fatah's death warrant.

In the course of its jihadist putsch in Gaza, Hamas took control not only of Fatah's US- and European-financed military arsenal and the CIA and MI-6 intelligence gathering equipment Fatah was lavished with. It also took control of Fatah's intelligence files and the personal files of Fatah leaders. This means that Hamas now has complete documentary evidence of Fatah's corruption; its involvement in terrorism; and its double dealing with the West, with rogue regimes like Iran, and with terror groups like Hizbullah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Qaida.

THERE CAN be no doubt that under the tutelage of the Iranian and Syrian intelligence directorates, Hamas will use its treasure trove of information in a manner that will block any move by Fatah to renew its support bases in Palestinian society.

Hamas's intelligence windfall will similarly prevent Fatah from significantly resisting Hamas's consolidation of control over Gaza and the expansion of Hamas's rule to Judea and Samaria.

Two examples of Hamas's use of information to date suffice to make this point clear. First there is Israel and the US's favorite Palestinian "straight-shooter" Salam Fayad. Fayad - a former senior official from the terror-linked Arab Bank and the current prime minister of Fatah Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Judea and Samaria government - served willingly as finance minister in Hamas's government before the Gaza takeover.

Claiming that Fayad was a personal friend of hers, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ignored her own government's boycott of the Hamas government to meet with Fayad when he visited Washington in the spring.

Sunday Gaza-based Hamas terrorist and parliamentarian Yahya Musa accused Fayad of corruption. Referring to him as "the head of the thieves," Musa claimed that Fayad is "suspected of embezzling $36 million from the Agricultural Development Company."

Musa also hinted that Fayad has personally overseen the finance of terrorism by stating that he "used to channel public funds to Fatah."

THE SECOND example is Hamas's use of information on Fatah commander Muhammad Dahlan. On June 15, Hamas took control of Dahlan's palatial residence in Gaza. Hamas claimed it found a suitcase filled with gold, forged Pakistani and US passports and the identification card of murdered IDF border guard Nissim Toledano. The last find is particularly revealing.

Since 1994 both the US and Israel ignored mountains of evidence of Dahlan's involvement with terrorism. Both governments have clung to their support for Dahlan despite his close relationships with senior Hamas terrorists like Muhammad Deif and his own forces' direct involvement in the murder of Israelis. The fact that Dahlan had possession of Toledano's ID card shows just how ill-advised this support for Dahlan has been.

Toledano was kidnapped on his way to his border guard base in 1992. His mutilated body was found near the Dead Sea some days later. Toledano's abduction and murder became a pivotal event for all that would follow in the region.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. In response, the Rabin government deported 417 Hamas terrorists to Lebanon where they were quickly taken under the wing of Hizbullah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. In 1994, in the wake of the Oslo peace process with Fatah, Rabin allowed the 417 to return to Gaza, Judea and Samaria. Once back, they immediately fomented a terror onslaught against Israel the likes of which had never been seen before. It was the returnees who organized the first suicide bombings, beginning in April 1994.

The fact that Dahlan was in possession of Toledano's ID raises the question of Fatah's involvement in his kidnap and murder and casts a pall over the entire attempt by Israel and the West to make a distinction between Hamas and Fatah terrorists.

There can be no doubt that more information about Fatah leaders (and their business and other connections with Israeli political leaders and others) will follow - as suits the operational interests of Hamas and its Iranian bosses.

In light of this it is clear that Fatah can be of no use to anyone any longer. Indeed, those who work to strengthen Fatah may well be opening themselves to blackmail and public humiliation at a time and place of Hamas's choosing. So not only is Fatah a dead horse, it is a dead horse rigged to a landmine.

YET FOR all that, supporting Fatah and Abbas remains the central goal of Israel's government. This week Israel handed some $120 million over to Abbas and Fayad. Next week it will release 250 Fatah terrorists from prison. Last week Prime Minister Ehud Olmert embraced Abbas at Sharm e-Sheikh after expounding on Abbas's greatness with US President George W. Bush at the White House the week before.

Olmert and his colleagues portray Abbas as a central member of a camp of "moderates" which includes the Saudis, the Egyptians and the Jordanians. All these so-called moderates are supposed to form a coalition with Israel, the US and the EU against the "extremists" in Hamas, Iran, Hizbullah and Syria. Unfortunately the camp of moderates is a fiction. Jordan is so frightened of a jihadist coup that its government statements are barely distinguishable from Muslim Brotherhood press releases.

Over the weekend, at Egypt's invitation, Hamas terror forces deployed along the Gaza border with Egypt.

For its part, Saudi Arabia oversaw the formation of the Hamas-Fatah "unity" government last March which subordinated Abbas and Fatah to Khaled Mashaal and Hamas. The Saudis have embraced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In his maiden visit to the Sunni Islamist capital, the genocidal, messianic Shi'ite Ahmadinejad was kissed, and hugged, and held hands with King Abdullah.

For her part, rather than condition any further US support for Fatah on credible steps to fight Hamas and its own terror networks, Rice is redoubling her pressure on Israel. Rice is planning to use $86 million in US-taxpayer funds to have Lt. Gen Keith Dayton train Fatah forces in Judea and Samaria. That's the same Gen. Dayton who trained and armed the Fatah forces in Gaza who cut and ran rather than fight Hamas last month and so surrendered their US-supplied weapons to Iran's proxy without a fight.

Additionally, Rice is aggressively pushing her plan to force Israel to negotiate and conclude a treaty with Abbas that would involve an Israeli pledge to surrender Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem to Fatah. This is the same Fatah whose membership is revolting and bolting and the same Abbas who Fatah members are revolting against.

AS FOR the Europeans, newly appointed Quartet envoy Tony Blair is set to begin negotiating with Hamas in his planned visit to Gaza next week.

While like Rice, Blair has repeatedly claimed that the absence of a Palestinian state is the cause of all the troubles in the Muslim world today, a week ago a Blair adviser went a step further. According to media reports, the official advised the Israeli government that as far as Blair is concerned, Israel is responsible for the global jihad because of its refusal to surrender to Palestinian terrorism.

The only reasonable explanation of the Olmert government's behavior in regards to the Palestinians is that the government hopes that by appeasing the US and the rest of the gang on the Palestinian issue, Israel will receive their cooperation in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, here too, all evidence points to the conclusion that Israel has not received anything on the Iran front from any of the relevant actors in exchange for its willingness to let Hamas take over Gaza and to continue to finance and arm Fatah terrorists.

Over the weekend Saudi Arabia's Deputy Foreign Minister met with Iran's ambassador to the Kingdom and reasserted Saudi Arabian support for Iran's pursuit of "peaceful nuclear technologies." The Saudis and the Iranians also agreed on the need for Islamic solidarity against the "enemies of Islam."

As for the Egyptians, not only are they, like the Saudis now openly moving to get nuclear capabilities of their own, the Egyptians are responsible for enabling Hamas to take control of Gaza. In spite of repeated Israeli entreaties, Egypt has never lifted a finger to prevent the flow of arms and terror personnel across its border. To the contrary, it facilitated Gaza's transformation into a jihadist hub. Since last summer's war, Egypt has moved towards reestablishing full diplomatic relations with the Iranians.

Today both the US and the Europeans are poised to set aside the option of escalating sanctions against Iran for its refusal to end its uranium enrichment activities. Over the weekend, their representatives to the International Atomic Energy Agency debated a plan to take a break from escalating sanctions if Iran agrees to stop expanding its uranium enrichment. That is, the US is presently considering a plan that would allow Iran to continue to enrich uranium without facing effective international sanctions as a result.

The tragedy of this situation is that a coalition could be brought together that would be capable of meeting both the Palestinian and Iranian threats to Israeli and global security. Friends of Israel in Congress, the Bush Administration and the US policy community would be happy to work with Israel to counteract Rice's failed policies.

Unfortunately, Israeli leaders capable of appreciating and acting on this fact are nowhere to be found in the Olmert government.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.