During his visit to New York this week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attacked every basic assumption upon which Western civilization is predicated. Ahmadinejad offered up his attacks while extolling his vision of Islamic global domination.

Refusing to note his existential challenge to the Free World, the Western media concentrated their coverage of his trip on his statements regarding specific Western policy goals. His rejection of the UN Security Council's authority to take action against Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program; his championing of the Palestinian cause and Israel's destruction; his denials of Iranian support for terrorism, and his attacks against the US were widely reported. So too, his insistence that Iranian women enjoy full rights and that there are no homosexuals in Iran received banner headlines.

Ahmadinejad gave two major addresses this week - at Columbia University and at the UN General Assembly. He devoted both to putting forward his vision for global Islamic domination. And while the Western media sought hidden meanings and signals for peaceful intentions in his words, the fact is that on both occasions, Ahmadinejad made absolutely clear that his vision of Islamic domination cannot coexist in any manner with Western civilization. Consequently, Ahmadinejad's statements were not negotiating stances. They were the direct consequence of the world view he propounds. As such, they are non-negotiable.

At Columbia University, Ahmadinejad devoted the majority of his speech to a discussion of the role of science in human affairs. While most coverage surrounded his refusal to renounce his call to annihilate Israel, his central message, that he rejects the right of people to be free to choose their paths in life, was ignored. His remarks on the issue were dismissed as "weird" or "unintelligible." Yet they were neither.

Speaking as "an academic," Ahmadinejad said that from his perspective, the role of science is to serve Islam and that any science that does not serve Islamic goals is corrupt. As he put it, "Science is the light, and scientists must be pure and pious. If humanity achieves the highest level of physical and spiritual knowledge but its scholars and scientists are not pure, then this knowledge cannot serve the interests of humanity." Elaborating on this notion, he argued that Western scientists serve corrupt governments who reject the pure and pious path of Islam and therefore are used as agents for corruption.

Tellingly, Ahmadinejad moved directly from his assault on non-Islamic scientists and regimes to a defense of Iran's nuclear program. The message was clear: Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is done in the name of Islam and therefore it is inherently legitimate. As far as he is concerned, refusing to allow Iran to pursue nuclear weapons is tantamount to an assault on God.

IN HIS address at the UN, Ahmadinejad laid out his case for Islamic supremacy. He claimed that all of the world's problems are the consequence of two things. First, by his reading of history, after the Second World War, "The victors of the war drew the road map for global domination and formulated their policies not on the basis of justice but for ensuring the interests of the victors over the vanquished nations."

The second cause for the world's woes is the world powers' rejection of Islam. As he put it, "The second and more important factor is some big powers' disregard of morals, divine values, the teachings of prophets and instructions by the Almighty God... Unfortunately, they have put themselves in the position of God!"

Thankfully for Ahmadinejad, this "corrupted" world order will soon be swept away. Either the "corrupted" powers will "return from the path of arrogance and obedience to Satan to the path of faith in God," or "the same calamities that befell the people of the distant past will befall them as well."

Concluding his UN remarks Ahmadinejad pledged, "Without any doubt, the Promised One who is the ultimate Savior… will come. In the company of all believers, justice-seekers and benefactors, he will establish a bright future and fill the world with justice and beauty. This is the promise of God; therefore it will be fulfilled."

IT COULD be argued that since Ahmadinejad's central message failed to register on his Western audiences that his visit to America was a failure. The fact that no media organs felt it necessary to analyze what he was talking about could be seen as a clear sign that no one is interested in buying what he is selling. But this is a dangerous argument, for it misses a basic truth.

Ahmadinejad is not interested in convincing the US government or even the majority of Americans to convert to Islam. He is interested in convincing adherents of totalitarian Islam and potential converts to the cause that they are on the winning side. He is interested in demoralizing foes of totalitarian Islam within the Islamic world and so causing them to give up any thoughts of struggle.
In this goal he is no different from any of his Sunni counterparts in Saudi Arabia, al-Qaida, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas or their sister organizations throughout the Islamic world and indeed throughout the West.

Throughout the world, Islamic ideologues are aggressively spreading their message of global domination. In mosques, on the Internet, on television, in schools, hospitals and prisons, Islamic preachers can be found propagating the cause of Islamic domination. And aside from Iran, no regime, including the Saudi regime, is immune from the pressures of the message.

Perhaps the central reason that Ahmadinejad's message, and the hundreds of thousands of voices echoing his call throughout the world, are so dangerous is because the Free World is making precious little effort to assert its own message. Indeed, rather than contend forthrightly with the challenge that men like Ahmadinejad and Osama bin Laden pose to the West, the West searches for ways to either co-opt their message by seeking out points of agreement or to show that really, the Islamic imperialists have nothing to fear from the West.

THE MAIN issue on which the West seeks to co-opt Islamic totalitarians is the Palestinian issue. The obvious hope is that by supporting the Palestinians, the West (including Israel) will be able to defuse what its elites consider to be the central grudge that Islamic imperialists hold against them. In so doing, they willfully ignore the basic incompatibility of the Islamic world view with human freedom; the jihadist character of Palestinian society; and the instrumental use that Islamic totalitarians make of the Palestinian issue.

Since it was established in 1994, the Palestinian Authority has been a central clearing house for jihadist, anti-Semitic and anti-Western propaganda. Even after Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June, Fatah has continued to compete with Hamas for the mantle of jihadist purity. Moreover, while its leaders dazzle Western and Israeli leaders with the talk of peace, Fatah's media organs and terror masters maintain the movement's support for terrorism and adherence to political goals that are incompatible with the continued existence of the State of Israel.

Every day, Fatah media mouthpieces extol PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's adherence to the so-called "right of return" which, if implemented, would destroy Israel as a Jewish state by overwhelming it with millions of hostile Arab immigrants. As Palestinian Media Watch documented, while Abbas was meeting with US President George W. Bush in New York, Fatah's daily newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jedida, published articles denying all Jewish connection to Jerusalem, and referring to Israeli cities like Sderot, Beit She'an and Safed as "settlements." So too, the newspaper reported that this past summer Fatah sent teenage boys from Judea and Samaria to a "summer camp" in Syria called "Camp Return."

Rather than contend with Fatah's embrace of jihad, as has been its practice with so-called "moderate" regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, the Bush administration ignores it in the hopes that by supporting Palestinian terrorists not overtly identified with jihad it will somehow weaken the attraction of jihad. So it was that in his remarks before the UN General Assembly, Bush extolled Fatah's "moderate leaders, mainstream leaders that are working to build free institutions that fight terror, and enforce the law, and respond to the needs of their people."

Not only are Bush's sentiments not supported by the Palestinians, who overwhelmingly voted Hamas into office last January, they are not even supported by US allies like Britain, which are pushing for a Western engagement of Hamas. And since Hamas is ideologically indistinguishable from other jihadist groups, it should come as no surprise that the West's willingness to support Palestinian jihadists necessarily leads to their willingness to accept jihadists in general.

Britain's Defense Minister Des Browne made this point explicit Monday when he argued for diplomatically engaging the Taliban in Afghanistan. Using the Palestinian issue as a point of departure, Browne said, "In Afghanistan, at some stage, the Taliban will need to be involved in the peace process because they are not going away any more than I suspect Hamas are going away from Palestine."

The Islamic imperialists' response to the new Western willingness to engage the Taliban was given last week by Osama bin Laden. In a new videotape released in Arabic, Urdu and English, bin Laden called for Pakistanis to wage jihad to overthrow the pro-Western, nuclear-armed government of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

THE POINT in all of this couldn't be clearer. And Ahmadinejad made it at every opportunity. The Free World today finds itself embroiled in an ideological war for its very survival. Our enemies - whether Shi'ite or Sunni - are followers of a totalitarian ideology based on Islam which tells them that Allah wishes to rule the world through them. Israel is a central front in this war. Given the weakness of Western support for the Jews, jihadists see attacking Israel as a strategic tool for eroding the West's ideological defenses and shoring up their supporters throughout the world.

The thing of it is that aside from blind narcissism, there is a reason that the West ignores the dangers facing it. The Western media ignored Ahmadinejad's message, just as it has insistently ignored the messages of bin Laden and Fatah throughout the years, because Westerners have a hard time believing that anyone would want to abide by the Islamic world view which denies mankind's desire for freedom.

But no matter how ugly an ideology is, in the absence of real competition it gains adherents and power. The only way to ensure that jihadists' demonic views are defeated is by stridently defending and upholding the fundamental principles on which the Free World is based. And the West hasn't even begun to take up this challenge.

As a result, it has handed its enemies two victories already. It has demoralized its potential allies in the Islamic world, and it has failed to rally its own people to defend themselves.

In spite of what the West would like to believe, Ahmadinejad and his allies from Ramallah to Waziristan, from Gaza to Kandahar to Baghdad, are not negotiating. They are fighting. Rather than ignore them or seek to find nonexistent common ground, we must defeat them - first and foremost on the battleground of ideas.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Columbia University disgraced itself this week beyond repair.

Defending his decision to invite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to his campus, Columbia's President Lee Bollinger said he would confront the Iranian leader with a series of "sharp challenges" to his "alleged" support for terrorism, genocide, Holocaust denial, involvement in killing American servicemen and women in Iraq and human rights abuses during his speech on Monday.

John Coatsworth, the Dean of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, expanded on Bollinger's theme of the school's limitless devotion to debate saying, "If Hitler were in the United States and wanted a platform from which to speak, he would have plenty of platforms from which to speak in the United States. If he were willing to engage in a debate and a discussion, to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him." With these blithe little embraces of public debate, Columbia's leaders have destroyed their once august institution of higher learning.

Columbia was rightly condemned from all quarters for its decision to host Ahmadinejad. The hypocrisy of the university which justified its invitation to Ahmadinejad in the name of free speech and then barred protesters who wished to exercise their right of free speech by opposing Ahmadinejad's presence at Columbia from entering the campus has properly been pointed out. So too, the irony of Columbia's decision to roll out the welcome mat for a man who has in recent months closed 15 universities, imprisoned some 3,000 students, hundreds of professors and banned books he claims advance "infidel" values, has been duly noted.

Moreover, Iran's position as the most active state sponsor of international terrorism, its role in directing the war in Iraq, and Ahmadinejad's own suspected role in the 1979 takeover of the US Embassy in Teheran and the subsequent illegal internment and torture of 51 American hostages held for 444 days has also been reasonably noted by critics of the university's move.

IRAN'S PERSECUTION of homosexuals and its oppression of women - both intensified since Ahmadinejad took office two years ago - have been rightly contrasted with Bollinger's decision in 2005 to maintain Columbia's policy of banning the military's ROTC officer training program from the campus due to the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding homosexuality.

Some critics of Columbia's decision have placed the university's invitation to Ahmadinejad in the context of the university's longstanding and well-documented animus toward America and toward the State of Israel. This is the same university, they note, that gives tenure to professors who harass pro-American and pro-Israel students who dare to question their classroom rantings. This is the same university that refuses to host people who hold conservative views on issues like immigration.

Finally, opponents of Ahmadinejad's invitation to speak on campus have condemned Bollinger for providing a prestigious platform to a leader who denies the Nazi Holocaust, pledges to carry out a new Holocaust of Jewry, and is seeking the means to carry out this genocide by developing nuclear weapons.

For these actions, Columbia's critics argue, Ahmadinejad should have been denied a platform at Columbia.

WHILE ALL of these criticisms are accurate, many of the actions and hypocrisies they highlight are not unique to Columbia. Indeed, they describe the standard operating procedures in effect on most major American campuses today. Many major universities have given tenure to anti-American and anti-Zionist professors. Many major universities proscribe debate in classrooms and attempt to bar conservative speakers from their campuses.

Many major universities in the US bar ROTC from their campuses and yet act as apologists for regimes like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt that outlaw homosexuality and treat women like chattel. And many major universities give platforms to speakers who represent racist, homophobic, misogynistic, anti-American and anti-Semitic regimes. Just last year Harvard University invited former Iranian president Muhammad Khatami to address its students and faculty.

To date, with some justification, supporters of Columbia have dismissed or set aside these criticisms of the university as partisan criticism in legitimate policy debates. In their view, Columbia, like other universities, has a perfect right to advance a far-Left world view. It is the job of the university's critics, including alumni and students, to seek to influence the school's behavior by selective contributions or by inviting conservative speakers to give lectures on campus. Both Columbia's detractors and defenders basically agreed that Columbia's position and criticism of its position are part and parcel of the workings of a functioning institution and of a functioning democratic society.

But Columbia's decision to host Ahmadinejad on campus was not of a piece with its previous moves. The problem with the decision was not that it exposed Bollinger and his colleagues as hypocrites. Nor was the principle issue their obvious left-wing political bias. Whether or not Ahmadinejad, who denies the Nazi Holocaust and is gunning for a new one has a right to express his views is similarly not the main issue raised by their move.

THE PROBLEM with Columbia's action, the reason that there can be no moral justification for the university's decision, is because by inviting Ahmadinejad to campus, Columbia has made the pros and cons of genocide a legitimate subject for debate. By asking Ahmadinejad challenging questions, Bollinger has reduced the right of the Jewish people to live to a question of preferences.

No doubt, Bollinger prefers to see the Jewish people remain alive. But this is beside the point. The point is that by debating the issue with Ahmadinejad, Bollinger just put the right of the Jewish people to exist on the table.

Here it is important to note Ahmadinejad's uniqueness. It is true that in supporting the annihilation of Israel, Ahmadinejad is no different from his terrorist underlings Hassan Nasrallah, Khaled Mashaal and Farouk Kaddoumi. Moreover, Ahmadinejad's desire to wipe the largest concentration of Jews on earth off the map simply because it is Jewish is shared by all of his colleagues in the Iranian regime and most intellectuals and religious leaders in the Arab world.

But still there is a difference between Ahmadinejad and all the others. Through his words and his deeds, Ahmadinejad has become the symbol and the leader of the growing international movement which supports and engages in activities to advance the destruction of the Jewish people. Through his words and his deeds, Ahmadinejad has become the poster boy for genocide.

As a result, what was said Monday at Columbia is of no consequence whatsoever. What matters is that by inviting Ahmadinejad to its campus, Columbia University announced that supporting or opposing the genocide of the Jews is a legitimate topic for discussion. In so doing, as an institution Columbia has taken itself beyond the pale of legitimate discourse. As an institution, Columbia has embraced depravity by renouncing the intrinsic sanctity of human life.

COLUMBIA'S supporters who have defended it over the years through mounting criticism, cannot look at Ahmadinejad's visit to campus as simply another policy dispute without themselves legitimizing the school's belief that genocide is a reasonable subject for debate. They cannot defend the school without themselves rejecting the basic principle of Western civilization - that human beings have an intrinsic right to live.

Given this, it is incumbent on all those affiliated with Columbia who adhere to this basic principle to distance ourselves from the university. As an alumna of Columbia College, class of 1991, it is with great distress that I say it is time to disassociate with the school. This does not simply mean cutting off donations. It means understanding that the problem with Ahmadinejad had nothing to do with legitimate policy debates. It means recognizing and openly stating that by placing genocide on the debating table, Columbia ceased to be an institution that can be said to represent our values. It means stating publicly that we will not send our children to the school. It means stating openly that Columbia has abandoned the moral underpinning of civilization and has descended into the depths of evil. It means stating openly that Columbia is a depraved institution.

I DO NOT ENVY Columbia's students today. They worked very hard to get accepted to the school. They no doubt never wanted to be placed in the middle of all this. But they are in the middle and they too have a choice to make.

Will they demand the resignations of Bollinger, Coatsworth and Professor Richard Bulliet who engineered Ahmadinejad's visit or will they sit back and allow these men to get away with making the value of human life a debating topic? Will they rise up in indignation and disgust, or will they, through inaction say that these men, and the immorality they ascribe to remain authority figures for them? Will they say that there are some things worth fighting for and that fighting the views these men advance is more important than the tainted degrees they confer?

The times in which we live are difficult times. They demand an accounting from all of us. Do we uphold our humanity and defend life or do we sink into an easy silence as life's sanctity is called into question by well-heeled, smooth-talking servants of evil who hide their depravity by speaking eloquently of freedom of speech?

Columbia University has made its choice. Now it is our turn to choose.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

According to the commander of IDF Military Intelligence, Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, Israel's raid in Syria on September 6 against what was reportedly a North Korean-supplied nuclear installation in eastern Syria restored Israel's deterrent posture which was so weakened in last summer's war in Lebanon.

Yet as the execution of anti-Syrian Lebanese parliamentarian Antoine Ghanem in a Christian suburb of Beirut on Wednesday indicated, Israel's successful raid did not derail Syria's and Iran's pursuit of their strategic goals. Those goals involve achieving regional domination through their proxies in Lebanon as well as in Iraq and the Palestinian Authority.

In Iraq, the Americans pursue a policy of military confrontation against Shi'ite and Sunni forces that are supported and directed by Iran and Syria. In contrast, in Lebanon and the PA, the Americans and the Israelis have avoided decisive confrontations, opting instead to advance a diplomatic course aimed at bringing about the political defeat of Iranian and Syrian proxies. In Lebanon this involves supporting Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's government against Hizbullah. In the PA it involves supporting Fatah against Hamas.

It is still too early to know how the American strategy of military confrontation against Iranian and Syrian proxies in Iraq will pan out. But it is already clear that the American-Israeli strategy for contending with Lebanon and the PA has failed.

Ghanem was a member of the Christian-Phalange party. He had announced his intention to run in the presidential elections that will take place next week in the Lebanese Parliament. With his assassination, the Syrians and Iranians effectively completed their campaign of murder and intimidation aimed at anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians.

With Ghanem out of the picture, the anti-Syrian forces lost the parliamentary majority of 72 out of 128 seats that they won in the 2005 general elections. Today, the anti-Syrian coalition has only 64 sure votes. A presidential candidate needs a 65 vote majority to be elected. Now the pro-Syrian forces have the ability to force their presidential candidate on the country.

Led by Hizbullah, the pro-Syrian parliamentary bloc demands that a "compromise" candidate who will bring "national unity" be elected to the presidency next week. Their demand is openly supported by France, the UN and Saudi Arabia. The Americans have not weighed in on the issue and so it can be assumed that they, too, support it.

Although the demand for "compromise" and "unity" sounds like a call for fairness and even stability, just the opposite is the case. In the Lebanese context, "compromise" and "unity" can only serve to bring about the election of yet another Syrian and Iranian puppet to the presidency. Like outgoing President Emile Lahoud, such a leader will work to prevent Lebanon from extricating itself from Iranian and Syrian influence and control.

That the inclusion of pro-Syrian and Iranian elements in the Lebanese government renders the government, regardless of its members' actual desires, an effective tool of Syria and Iran was made clear in last summer's war. During the war, Hizbullah's membership in the Siniora government worked to transform the Siniora government into a mouthpiece of Hizbullah and, through it, of Iran and Syria.

Many had hoped that Hizbullah's entry into Lebanese politics would signal its integration into Lebanese society and force its leaders to dismantle Hizbullah's military force. But the opposite occurred. Hizbullah's entry into Lebanese politics - and into the Siniora government - consolidated its position as a Syrian-Iranian state within the state in Lebanon. Rather than distance itself from Hizbullah after Hizbullah launched its war against Israel, the Siniora government actively assisted it both diplomatically and militarily. With Hizbullah in the government, the Lebanese military openly assisted its forces in attacking Israel and IDF troops.

Hizbullah used its governmental power to increase its influence over the Lebanese military. With Shi'ites comprising 40 percent of the Lebanese army and with army commander Gen. Michel Suleiman being touted by pro-Syrian forces as a "compromise" candidate for the presidency, it is impossible to trust the Lebanese army's loyalty to the elected government. Indeed, since the war, the Lebanese army has enabled Hizbullah to reassert its control over southern Lebanon and has turned a blind eye to massive arms shipments to Hizbullah coming across the Syrian border.

During last summer's war, in a bid to protect the ostensibly pro-Western Siniora government, the US, France and the UN pressured Israel not to attack Lebanese infrastructures. By so acting, the US, France and the UN ignored the actual status of the government. While it talked the anti-Syria talk, it walked the Hizbullah walk.

Siniora's inability or unwillingness to confront Hizbullah and to end its status as an independent political and military force in Lebanon engendered a situation where, through their support for Lebanon's "unity" government, the US, France and the UN effectively protected Hizbullah and preserved its ability to maintain its independent position in Lebanon as a Syrian and Iranian proxy against Israel. Since the cease-fire went into effect last August, that protection has been maintained by UNIFIL forces stationed along the border with Israel.

Last October, Iran and Syria determined that Hizbullah had nothing more to gain from remaining in the government and so they ordered it to resign. Ever since, they have worked steadily to overthrow the government by politically paralyzing it in Parliament and, of course, by assassinating its supporters. At the same time, they have poured arms and cash on Hizbullah and ordered it to expand its territorial control north of the Litani River, while enacting an ethnic cleansing of southern Lebanon by preventing Christians who fled their villages during the war from returning home.

Commentators warn that if the Lebanese Parliament does not elect a pro-Syrian presidential candidate next week, then Lahoud is liable to call general elections. Those elections, in turn, are liable to give rise to a situation where two separate governments operate in competition. That, we are warned, will almost certainly foment a new civil war.

But given the fact that Hizbullah together with Iran and Syria already wield enormous power over the Lebanese army, it could be reasonably argued that a renewed civil war is the least bad option. The more likely option - that Iran and Syria will consolidate their domination of Lebanon - would be far more destabilizing for the region and for Lebanon itself.

The fact of the matter is that the West's unconditional support for the anti-Syrian forces in Lebanon has always been problematic. Even if Hizbullah had not entered the government, Siniora and his colleagues never had sufficient political or military will or power to fight Iran, Hizbullah and Syria effectively. Indeed, many members of the anti-Syrian coalition are anything but pro-Western.

Aside from the Siniora government's inherent inability to assert its control over the entire country by defeating Hizbullah and its sponsors, the government's regional supporters have never been interested in a confrontation with Hizbullah or Iran and Syria. Specifically, the Saudi government, which acts as the Siniora government's primary supporter in the Arab world, has consistently encouraged it to reach an accommodation with Hizbullah rather than fight it. When the Saudi view is contrasted with the consistent Iranian and Syrian goal of dominating Lebanon through Hizbullah, it is clear that the political victory of the anti-Syrian and Iranian forces in 2005 was insufficient to defeat Hizbullah or free Lebanon from the influence of Syria and Iran. It is, after all, impossible to accommodate an opponent charged with destroying you.

The situation in the PA is strikingly similar to that in Lebanon. But it is also far more problematic. As in the case of the contest between Hizbullah and the Siniora government in Lebanon, so in the PA, the US, Israel and the West in general have decided to support Fatah in its contest against the Iranian and Syrian proxy Hamas.

Militarily, the desire to "strengthen" Fatah has led to a situation where Israel has almost completely stopped its operations against Fatah terror cells. Furthermore, it has abstained from taking action against Hamas's new army in Gaza, lest an Israeli offensive somehow weaken Fatah.

Politically, Israel and the US are bending over backwards to appease Fatah in the hope that doing so will strengthen it against Hamas. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Israel on Wednesday to advance the peace process with Fatah. En route to Israel, Rice told reporters, "We can't simply continue to say we want a two-state solution. We've got to start to move toward one."

For its part, the Olmert-Barak-Livni government already made clear through official statements and leaks that it is ready to withdraw from Judea and Samaria and to partition Jerusalem and surrender the Temple Mount.

The reason that the situation in the PA is worse than the situation in Lebanon is because Fatah is not analogous to the Siniora government. For all its weaknesses, the Siniora government truly seeks Syrian and Iranian disengagement from the country. The same cannot be said of Fatah. As the fighting this week between Fatah terrorists and the IDF in Nablus indicates, far from objecting to terrorism and the war against Israel, Fatah fights side by side with Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Consequently, the massive concessions that the Olmert-Barak-Livni government is now offering Fatah will redound directly to Hamas's (and Iranian and Syrian) benefit. This will be the case both if Israel actually implements those concessions and if they are merely offered formally at Rice's summit in November.

Since Hizbullah quit the Siniora government in October, the Lebanese leadership has rejected all of Hizbullah's demands for "unity." In contrast, both before and since Hamas took over Gaza in June, Fatah has sought to join a Hamas-dominated "unity" government. And while in Lebanon, Iran and Syria actively undermine Siniora and his colleagues, in the PA, they assist both Hamas and Fatah. Both serve Iran's and Syria's purpose of expanding and consolidating their control over Gaza, Judea and Samaria.

In their handling of the situations in Lebanon and the PA, the US and Israeli governments are implementing a strategy predicated on their refusal to acknowledge the nature and significance of regional power struggles in these theaters both for the West and for the Syrians and Iranians. As is the case in Iraq, so in the cases of Lebanon and the PA, the possibility of forming a "moderate" government will only materialize after the Lebanese and Palestinian Iranian and Syrian proxies - Hizbullah, Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad - are defeated.

Moreover, in spite of the IDF's bravado, as long as these proxy forces continue to exist and augment their powers, and as long as the Syrian and Iranian regimes remain in power, no single military operation - no matter how successful - can rebuild Israel's deterrent strength or ensure its security.
 
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

If media reports of last week's IAF raid in Syria pan out, the attack against a North-Korean-supplied Syrian nuclear facility in eastern Syria should serve as a pivotal event in the free world's understanding of the enemy it faces in the current global war. The central question now is whether this clarity will be followed by a strategic shift in the US and Israeli governments' conceptualizations of the challenges facing them in the various theaters of war and diplomacy in which they are now engaged.

What the raid exposed is that the free world faces a cohesive alliance of enemy forces that collaborate closely in their joint and separate offensives against their common foes. Whether or not it is called the axis of evil, after the IAF raid it is undeniable that its members - North Korea, Iran and Syria - collaborate closely in their joint war.

Contrary to the prevailing wisdom, this is not a temporary alliance of convenience among three otherwise unrelated states. It is a strategic alignment of three regimes that have been acting in tandem on multiple levels for decades. Their collaborative operations have served two primary functions. First they cooperate in perpetuating their holds on power. This they do primarily through criminal enterprises. Second, they work together to wage war against their common foes. The second objective is advanced primarily through the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction.

Furthermore, all three regimes view diplomatic exchanges with their enemies not as a means to solve their disagreements with them, but as a means to gain advantage by forcing US, Israeli and international concessions that legitimize their regimes and enable them to continue to conduct their war.

TIES BETWEEN the countries have been developing since the 1980s. That cooperation blossomed into a full-scale alliance during the 1990s. This is notable because the 1990s marked the period when both US and Israeli foreign policies centered on repeated attempts to appease all three governments.

In 1994, the US embraced appeasement of North Korea when it signed the Agreed Framework that maintained the economic viability of the North Korean regime in exchange for Pyongyang's pledge to end its nuclear weapons program. The US appeased Teheran by embracing the supposedly moderate government of president Muhammad Khatami, and downplayed Iran's role in terrorist bombings of US targets like the 1996 Iranian-ordered bombing of the US Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia.

Israel pursued appeasement through the Oslo peace process with the PLO, its refusal to contend effectively with the Iranian- and Syrian-sponsored Hizbullah forces in Lebanon, and through its conduct of intense negotiations with the Syrians toward an Israeli surrender of the strategically vital Golan Heights.

It was during the 1990s that North Korean-Iranian-Syrian criminal cooperation reached its apex. It was also during this decade that they made the greatest headway in their ballistic missile and weapons of mass destruction programs. These advances were made while all three regimes pocketed concessions made by the US and Israel, and systematically breached all their commitments to both countries and to international treaties of which they are signatories.

ONE OF the inheritances the mullahs received from the Shah of Iran after they overthrew him in 1979 was a US-supplied Intaglio currency printing press. Since at least 1989 this printing press has been used to produce so-called "super-notes."

Super-notes are highly sophisticated counterfeit US bills that are nearly undetectable. The advent of the super-notes forced the US Treasury to print new currency twice in a decade. In 1992 a Congressional Task Force concluded that the bills which proliferated in Lebanon's Hizbullah and Syrian-controlled Beka'a Valley were of Iranian and Syrian origin. In 2005, the first super-notes were intercepted in the US. They were sourced to North Korea.

According to a report Sunday in Yediot Aharonot, Iran has financed its purchase of nuclear and other materiel from North Korea through the provision of super-notes to Pyongyang. The US believes that Pyongyang itself procured a Swiss-made Intaglio press sometime in the 1990s. Intelligence services agree that Iran, Syria and North Korea collaborate closely in their currency-counterfeiting operations.

In 2003, the State Department concluded that the North Korean regime had sustained its economic viability principally through counterfeit currency operations.

IN SEPTEMBER 2005, the US launched a financial offensive against North Korea which could potentially have led to the eventual financial collapse of the regime when it labeled the Banco Delta Asia, a Macau-based bank, an agent of North Korean money-laundering. The move followed a US investigation showing that BDA was North Korea's primary conduit for laundering counterfeit currency. The move effectively cut Pyongyang out of international financial markets, making it far more difficult for the North Koreans to sustain the regime financially.

North Korea's response to the move was to expand its nuclear and missile collaboration with Iran and Syria still further. Throughout the 1990s, the North Koreans provided Iran and Syria with ballistic missiles, and then missile technologies and assembly plants. After the BDA affair, in July and October 2006 North Korea conducted intermediate and long-range missile tests and then a nuclear test. Iranian scientists were reportedly present at all tests.

THE US responded to the North Korean provocations by intensifying its diplomatic efforts. Those efforts led to the signing of the February 13, 2007 bilateral deal between the US and North Korea, in which Pyongyang pledged to end its nuclear programs within 60 days in exchange for diplomatic acceptance by the US and economic assistance from the US and the international community. In exchange for the North Korean pledge, the US secretly agreed to unfreeze North Korean accounts at BDA and so paved the way for North Korean reentry to international financial markets.

While the deal was hailed as a diplomatic triumph, it suffered from several fatal flaws. The first flaw was that it failed to account for North Korea's pattern of breaching its agreements with the US. As former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton has pointed out, the US had no reason to believe that North Korea would honor its commitments; and, indeed, when 60 days after the deal was signed, Pyongyang had yet to shut down its nuclear installation at Yongbyon, it was clear that North Korea had maintained its practice of diplomatic perfidy.

The agreement also made no allowance for North Korea's existing nuclear arsenal or materials, and said nothing about restricting North Korea's proliferation of nuclear materials and technologies. As last week's IAF raid on the reportedly North Korean-supplied Syrian nuclear installation made clear, this oversight is full of geopolitical consequences.

IT WOULD seem that the main reason the US signed such an ill-advised deal with the North Koreans is that the State Department wished to neutralize North Korea in order to concentrate its efforts on Iran and Iraq. By so acting, the US failed to recognize the fundamental truth that last week's IAF raid exposed. Specifically, North Korea is allied with Iran and to Syria, and as a result cannot be set aside or isolated. It is impossible to confront Iran or Syria or North Korea without confronting the entire alliance. And it is impossible to appease one without strengthening all of them.

This truth has been ignored by both the US and by Israel for decades. The Israeli government continues to view Syria as an independent actor and so hopes that eventually it can be sufficiently appeased to accept the Golan Heights from Israel in exchange for a cold peace.

Israel and the US fail to understand the proxy role the Palestinians play for members of this enemy axis, and so view the establishment of a Palestinian state as a means of neutralizing the Palestinian theater rather than recognizing that such a state will serve at best as a safe haven for global terrorists, and at worst as North Korea's new nuclear client.

The US views Syria only in relation to its nefarious role in Iraq, and so misses the connection between Syrian and Iranian sponsorship of Palestinian terrorists in Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Hizbullah, and the war the US fights in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Israel and the US view North Korea as an isolated Asian nuisance that has little connection to the war in the Middle East. As a result, Israel for decades has been indifferent to North Korean provocations and the US has ignored the global implications of Pyongyang's nuclear program. So too, the US fails to understand how its diplomatic weakness toward North Korea enhances Iran's position at the bargaining table and advances its nuclear weapons program.

ON THE positive side, the muted, even supportive international response to the Israeli raid makes clear that the diplomatic standing of the members of the axis is far weaker than one would have expected. If, as some have claimed, the IAF raid was a rehearsal for an Israeli or US attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, then the international reaction to the IAF raid shows that such a mission will likely be met with minimal, if any, retrospective diplomatic opposition.

Yet it is far from clear that either Israel or the US understand the significance of Israel's operation in Syria. A week after the attack, the US announced its intention to give Pyongyang $25 million worth of heavy fuel oil in return for Pynogyang's good faith in their nuclear activities. Members of the IDF General Staff have recommended renewing negotiations with Syria regarding an Israeli surrender of the Golan Heights. The US is permitting Iranian President Ahmadinejad to attend the UN's General Assembly meeting in New York next week even as Ahmadinejad has escalated his nuclear and anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric in recent weeks.

One can only hope that these Israeli and American moves represent simply the death throes of their clearly discredited view of their enemies as distinct and independent actors. Otherwise, the lessons exposed and the advantages gained from the IAF strike will be squandered, and the free world will be weakened as new life is given to the axis of evil.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

The IDF has abandoned its official silence in a seven-year-old case that has been characterized as a "blood libel" against the IDF and the State of Israel.

On September 10, the deputy commander of the IDF's Spokesman's Office, Col. Shlomi Am-Shalom, submitted a letter to the France 2 television network's permanent correspondent in Israel, Charles Enderlin, regarding Enderlin's story from September 30, 2000, in which he televised 55 seconds of edited footage from the Netzarim junction in the central Gaza Strip purporting to show IDF forces shooting and killing 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura.
After its exclusive broadcast that day, France 2 offered the edited film free of charge to all media outlets. The footage, and the story of the purported IDF killing of al-Dura, was quickly rebroadcast around the world.
Within days, al-Dura became a symbol of the Palestinian war against Israel. His name has been repeatedly invoked by terrorists and their supporters as a justification for killing Israelis, Jews and their Western supporters.
In his letter, Am-Shalom asked for the entire unedited 27-minute film that was shot by France 2's Palestinian cameraman Talal Abu-Rahma that day, as well as the footage filmed by Abu-Rahma on October 1, 2000. Am-Shalom requested that the broadcast-quality films be sent to his office no later than September 15. France 2 has yet to hand over the requested film.
The IDF's move came against the backdrop of French media watchdog Philippe Karsenty's legal battle with France 2 regarding the network's coverage of the al-Dura affair.
Last year, France 2 and Enderlin sued Karsenty, who runs the Internet media watchdog Web site Media Ratings, for defamation for a letter he sent out in 2004 accusing France 2 of staging the al-Dura story.
Karsenty also called for the resignations of Enderlin and of France 2's news director, Arlette Chabot, for their roles in promulgating the alleged hoax.
In October 2006 a French court decided in favor of France 2 and Enderlin, and against Karsenty. The court acknowledged that Karsenty had submitted significant evidence indicating that the event had been staged. Still, in ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, the judges said Karsenty's accusations lacked credibility because, they claimed incorrectly, he had based his accusations on a single source.
The court also stressed that "no Israeli authority, neither the army - which is nonetheless most affected, nor the Justice [Ministry] has ever accorded the slightest credit to [Karsenty's] allegations" regarding the authenticity of the France 2 report.
In his letter to Enderlin, Am-Shalom disputes the judges' assertion. "It is my duty to note," he wrote, "[that their claim] does not correspond to repeated attempts made by the IDF to receive the filmed materials, and with the conclusions of the IDF's committee of inquiry [into the purported shooting] that were widely publicized in the international and French media."
Am-Shalom discussed at length the findings of the IDF's probe into the incident. That inquiry was ordered by then-OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yom Tov Samia.
Citing Samia, Am-Shalom wrote, "The general has made clear that from an analysis of all the data from the scene, including the location of the IDF position, the trajectory of the bullets, the location of the father [Jamal al-Dura] and the son behind an obstacle, the cadence of the bullet fire, the angle at which the bullets penetrated the wall behind the father and his son, and the hours of the events, we can rule out with the greatest certainty the possibility that the gunfire that apparently harmed the boy and his father was fired by IDF soldiers, who were at the time located only inside their fixed position [at the junction]."
Am-Shalom further notes that "Gen. Samia emphasized to me that all his attempts to receive the filmed material for the purpose of his inquiry were rejected."
The IDF is in urgent need of the footage, Am-Shalom said, because "it has been asked to comment on the ruling [against Karsenty] from October 19, 2006, on this issue, which is scheduled to be discussed in a French appellate court on September 19."
"Since we are cognizant of the fact that there have been attempts to stage media events, and since doubt has been raised along these lines regarding the story under discussion, we asked to receive the aforementioned materials in order to conclude this episode and to get to the truth," Am-Shalom said.
In the past, the IDF shied away from taking a strong public position on the al-Dura affair. At the time of the incident, then-chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Shaul Mofaz and then-prime minister and defense minister Ehud Barak did not openly support Samia's inquiry or its findings.
As late as June 23, 2006, then-IDF Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Miri Regev told Haaretz, "I cannot determine whether the IDF is or is not responsible for the killing of al-Dura."

In the aftermath of Karsenty's civil trial last year, the IDF came under considerable criticism both in Israel and from Jewish groups abroad for its silence on the issue.
While the IDF maintained official silence, independent probes by various foreign media organizations and Internet activists over the past several years have called the veracity of the France 2 report into serious question.
Those investigations demonstrated that purported IDF "attacks" against Palestinian civilians were being openly staged by Palestinian cameramen and locals at the Netzarim junction throughout the day of the alleged shooting of al-Dura.

Am-Shalom sent copies of his letter to Samia, incoming IDF Deputy Chief of General Staff Maj.-Gen. Dan Harel, the France 2 representative in Israel, the president of the network in France, and Philippe Karsenty.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

General David Petreaus and US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker's long-anticipated Congressional testimonies this week were edifying on two levels.

First, they told us a lot about the complex and challenging nature of the war in Iraq today. In their presentations, the two men did not simply inform the Congress of the estimable, indeed amazing progress that coalition and Iraqi forces have made over the past several months since the new counterinsurgency surge strategy was adopted. They also highlighted the enormity of the challenges facing the US and their coalition and Iraqi allies as they look to the future of the country.

The two men did not deliver their remarks in isolation. Their appearances on Capitol Hill came against the backdrop of shrill denunciations of Petreaus specifically and the war in Iraq in general. Those denunciations were orchestrated by deep-pocketed left-wing anti-war activists, and by Democratic politicians who apparently march to the beat of the activists' drummers (and bankrollers).

The Left's preemptive condemnations of Petreaus, and the Democratic politicians' continuation of the Left's attacks inside the committee chambers exposed the troubling direction that American politics have taken in the six years that have passed since legislators from both parties stood shoulder to should outside the Capitol building on September 11, 2001, and sang "God Bless America." And as Petreaus and Crocker's reports on the situation in Iraq today and the prospects for Iraq in the future make clear, the Democratic Party's embrace of radicalism has strategic repercussions for the prospects of the war in Iraq and for the future of global security as a whole.

As Ambassador Crocker explained, after 40 years of Ba'athist tyranny, Iraq emerged in 2003 as a traumatized and fractured society that today is still grappling with basic questions regarding its identity and its aspirations. Its ability to come up with reasonable answers to these existential questions is limited by the war now besetting it. The enemy forces battling in Iraq of course seek through force to provide answers to those basic questions - and their answers obviously will not be good ones for Iraq, for the Middle East or for the world.

Petreaus and Crocker explained that in general, the US and its allies face two distinct enemy forces in Iraq today - al-Qaida in Iraq and Iranian-backed Shi'ite forces. As the stunning reversal of the security situation in the al-Qaida infested Anbar province over the past several months shows, US forces have made great progress against the first enemy.

The US wisely capitalized on tribal leaders' disaffection with al-Qaida barbarism and worked with them to launch an offensive against al-Qaida forces and to bring the Sunni tribes into the political processes in Iraq. As a result of this cooperation, terror and insurgent attacks in Anbar, which as recently as last December was considered "lost," have gone down some 80 percent. Tribal warriors have joined the Iraqi security forces by the thousands. And for its part, the Shi'ite-dominated central government in Iraq has embraced the Sunni reversal and is providing monetary and other assistance to the Sunni leaders in Anbar province.

On the other hand, there has been no decrease, indeed according to Crocker and Petreaus there has been an increase in Iranian-directed attacks in recent months. Characterizing Iran's role Petreaus said, "It is increasingly apparent to both Coalition and Iraqi leaders that Iran, through the use of the Quds Force, seeks to turn the Iraqi Special Groups [Shi'ite militias] into a Hizbullah-like force to serve its interests and fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalitions forces in Iraq."

The disparity between al-Qaida's defeats and Iran's Shi'ite countersurge tells us something important about the difference between state-controlled operations and operations by nonstate belligerents. It is true that al-Qaida in Iraq has direct ties to Syria and Iran. Its leaders have ties to Syrian intelligence; its commanders in Iraq are largely directed by al-Qaida's Shura Council in Iran; and it receives arms and funding from Teheran and Damascus.

But still there is a major difference between Iranian and Syrian sponsorship of al-Qaida in Iraq and Iranian support for the Shi'ite militias there. Iran and Syria view al-Qaida as a proxy of convenience. Although its war in Iraq serves their goal of preventing a post-Saddam Iraq from developing into a coherent, multi-ethnic, stable state governed by the rule of law, al-Qaida is not an Iranian (or Syrian) organization. From their perspective, its contribution to the war effort against the US and its Iraqi allies is good for as long as it lasts.

In contrast, Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, the Dawa Party and the Badr Brigades are agents of the Iranian regime, as are Hizbullah and the Iraqi Special Groups.

Petreaus noted that both the US and the Iraqis were surprised by the depth of Iran's involvement in the war. But they needn't have been. Iraq and Iran, with their historic competition for primacy in the Persian Gulf and within Shi'ite Islam, have always been integrally and competitively linked. In the 1980s, recognizing the hostility of both countries to US national security interests, the Reagan administration wisely adopted a policy of dual containment toward them.

Unfortunately, in 2003, the US ignored the interconnectedness of the two countries' fates, and so it adopted divergent policies toward them. While Iraq was confronted, Iran was ignored. Over time, the US policy of neglecting Iran was eventually replaced by a policy of appeasement. This divergence in US policy toward the two countries enabled Iran to renew its traditional bid for control over Iraq just as it was making moves toward regional domination through its nuclear weapons program, its cooptation of the Syrian regime, the expansion of its military and political influence over Lebanon through Hizbullah, and its sponsorship of the Palestinian war against Israel.

Iran's offensive moves in Iraq point to one of the most basic strategic complexities of the entire battle in Iraq. Iraq does not exist in isolation. It is part of the Arab and Islamic worlds. The pathologies plaguing post-Saddam Iraq are not merely the consequence of his brutal totalitarianism. There are also consequences of the pathologies that have taken hold of the Arab and Muslim world since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire 90 years ago. As a result, the American goal of shepherding the development of a democratic, stable post-Saddam Iraq governed by the rule of law, while the rule of the jackboot, the mullah and the imam remain the order of the day in neighboring countries, has always been problematic.

With Petreaus and Crocker's openness in acknowledging Iran's central role in the war in Iraq, we are seeing for the first time an admission that it is counterproductive to view Iraq in isolation from its neighbors. And this acceptance of the regional nature of the war exposes one of the central risks inherent in the US's current counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq.

Perhaps the central component of the US strategy for stabilizing Iraq is the organization and training of the Iraqi army and police forces. While the majority of Iraq's security forces are loyal to their commanders and to the central government, and support the coalition forces they fight alongside, many Iraqi units have been infiltrated by enemy forces - most prominently, by members of Iranian-sponsored Shi'ite militias.

As Petreaus and Crocker warned this week, if the US Congress or the next administration decides to pull the plug on American-led efforts in Iraq, the results will be horrendous. Both men warned that a rapid withdrawal of US forces would likely cause the disintegration of the country, and Iran can be trusted to snatch key pieces of Iraq for itself. But beyond that, a US withdrawal would set adrift nearly half a million US-trained and armed forces who will undoubtedly seek out new sponsors.

The implications of the disintegration of the Iraqi forces for regional and indeed for global security are terrifying to imagine, and the policy ramifications of such an eventuality are clear. If the US plans on a quick exit from the country, the best thing it could do is to stop training and arming the Iraqi army.

This brings us to the strategic danger implicit in the raw hostility and irrationality of the American Left toward everything related to the Iraq campaign, which was expressed so openly in Congress and in the liberal US media this week. When a formerly responsible Congressional leader like the Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee Tom Lantos prefers belittling Petreaus and calling for speedy withdrawal of US forces and a "diplomatic surge" involving negotiations with Syria and Iran over accepting the responsibilities of US global leadership in time of global war, it is clear that something horrible has happened to the Democratic Party.

As The Wall Street Journal put it on Tuesday, the hard Left, which seems to have been catapulted to the leadership of the Democratic Party, "sees politics as not so much an ongoing struggle but a final competition."

The Journal continued, "Under these new terms, public policy is no longer subject to debate, discussion and disagreement over competing views and interpretations. Instead, the opposition is reduced to the status of liar. Now the opposition is not merely wrong, but lacks legitimacy and political standing. The goal here is not to debate, but to destroy."

Much criticism has properly been heaped on the lap of the Maliki government in Iraq for failing to make critical political progress that could improve the long-term prospects for post-Saddam Iraq. Governmental competence is imperative because as Petreaus explained, "the fundamental source of the conflict in Iraq is competition among ethnic and sectarian communities for power at resources."

Petreaus continued, "The question is whether the competition takes place more - or less - violently."

What is notable about Petreaus's statement is that it can be equally applied to all countries. Politics and warfare are both about the relative distribution of power. What separates democracies from tyrannies and failed states is that democracies determine power's distribution through deliberation and debate while tyrannies and failed states are governed by the rule of the gun and the laws of the jungle.

That the political party now in control of both houses of Congress, and well-positioned to form the next administration seems to have discarded this basic truth is far more dangerous for Iraq, the Middle East and indeed the entire world, than the chronic weakness, incompetence, double dealing and corruption of the Maliki government or of any successor government.

The strategy that the US has adopted in Iraq, which has met with such success in the brief time it has been operative, is a long-term strategy. Unless the Democrats regain their senses, it will be difficult for anyone to trust that the US won't simply abandon Iraq, and with it, its responsibility as the leader of the Free World in the midst of a global war.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Something is rotten in the British Jewish community. In recent years anti-Jewish violence and the social ostracism of Jews and Israel have reached new heights in the United Kingdom. Yet rather than confront their bigoted detractors, the British Jewish establishment seems to be surrendering to them. Two recent episodes are notable in this regard.

One of the mainstays of the British Jewish calendar is the annual Limmud Conference, sponsored by the United Jewish Israel Appeal. The conference, which takes place each year during Christmas week, has been heralded by the British Jewish Chronicle as "The jewel in our community's crown."

This year, the organizers invited former Knesset speaker Avrum Burg to be the conference's keynote speaker. It would be an understatement to refer to Burg as a fringe figure in Israel.

Over the past several years, Burg has written in sympathy and support of Palestinian suicide bombers. This year, Burg published an anti-Zionist and arguably anti-Semitic book entitled Defeating Hitler, in which he compared Israel to Nazi Germany and described Zionism as a racist colonialist movement that has poisoned the soul of Jewry.

Burg, who recently received French citizenship, has called for his fellow Israelis to follow his lead and seek foreign passports. While even the Israeli Zionist Left has denounced him, "the jewel" of the British Jewish community has decided to honor him.

The Limmud Conference's move goes hand in hand with the British Jewish establishment's confrontation last week with Britain's Zionist Federation over the ZF's decision to cancel Haaretz reporter Danny Rubinstein's scheduled appearance at its annual conference. THE ZF became uncomfortable with Rubinstein after it learned that on August 30, while participating in the anti-Israel conference at the European Parliament sponsored by the virulently anti-Israel UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, Rubinstein referred to Israel as an "apartheid state."

When Rubinstein arrived in London the next day, he met with the ZF's leaders at the home of the organization's chairman, Andrew Balcombe. There, Rubinstein suggested that he not speak at the ZF's conference that weekend. Although they initially rejected the suggestion, Balcombe and his colleagues eventually agreed to cancel his speech.

The same weekend, Rubinstein spoke before British Jews at an event sponsored by the leftist New Israel Fund. There he castigated the ZF, saying that at the meeting at Balcombe's home he felt he was standing before a "court martial." He accused the ZF of leaving him penniless on the streets of London even though its leaders booked him a hotel room and offered to pay for it.

Rather than challenge Rubinstein on his defamatory attacks against Israel and against the ZF - attacks which abet the bigoted voices within Britain calling for boycotts of Israel and sanctioning attacks on British Jewry - the New Israel Fund, and the Jewish Chronicle, upheld Rubinstein as merely "controversial" and attacked the ZF for supposedly silencing free speech and debate.

WHILE MEN like Rubinstein and Burg are given places of honor among Britain's Jewish establishment, the ZF is having trouble finding a security company willing to protect its offices. Moreover, increasingly, British Jewish organizations express unwillingness to co-sponsor events with the ZF due to their unease at being identified with Zionists.

Although British Jewry's unwillingness to defend itself and Israel from defamatory attacks is disturbing, it is hard to judge British Jewish leaders too harshly given that their tendency to seek acceptance from their detractors and give voice to their opponents while blackballing their supporters isn't very different from the policies being promoted by Israel's Foreign Ministry. In fact, it is safe to say that while something is rotten in the British Jewish community, something is even rottener in the State of Israel's Foreign Ministry.

Danny Rubinstein told the ZF's leaders that he began openly referring to Israel as an apartheid state after former US president Jimmy Carter published his anti-Israel libel Palestine: Peace not Apartheid last autumn. Yet this fact didn't stop the Foreign Ministry from using Israeli taxpayers' money to send Rubinstein to India to given speeches at Foreign Ministry-sponsored events on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in February. T

he Foreign Ministry's embrace of Rubinstein is noteworthy particularly when it is contrasted with the Foreign Ministry's contemptuous treatment of French Jewish activist Philippe Karsenty, who is being hounded by the French media giant France 2 television network for his dogged defense of Israel and the IDF.

ON NOVEMBER 24, 2004, Karsenty, who runs a media watchdog Web site called Media Matters, sent out an email to his subscribers in which he accused the France 2 television network of staging the purported IDF killing of the Palestinian boy Muhammad al-Dura at Netzarim junction in Gaza on September 30, 2000. Karsenty called for the resignation of France 2's permanent correspondent in Israel, Charles Enderlin, and of France 2's News Director, Arlette Chabot, for their role in promulgating the alleged hoax. France 2 and Enderlin sued Karsenty for defamation. They won their lawsuit last October. Next week, Karsenty's appeal of the verdict is set to open.

It will be recalled that on September 30, 2000, France 2 ran 55 seconds of footage from the Netzarim junction filmed by its Gaza cameraman, Talal Abu Rahma. The footage showed Muhammad al-Dura and his father, Jamal al-Dura, crouching behind a barrel beneath a concrete wall. Shots were fired and Muhammad lay down in his father's lap, and then moved his leg and arm. In his narration of the edited, blurry footage, Enderlin announced that the IDF had killed the boy. France 2 offered its edited video free of charge to anyone who wished to broadcast it.

In the days, weeks and months that followed, the al-Dura tape became the iconic image of the Palestinian war against Israel and, indeed, of the general global jihad against the West. It was invoked by the Palestinian mob in Ramallah that lynched IDF reservists Yosef Avrahami and Vadim Novesche on October 12, 2000. It was invoked by mobs of Israeli Arabs as they opened their violent riots on October 1, 2000.

THE IMAGE of al-Dura has been used in Hamas and Fatah terror recruitment videos, television shows and educational materials as a means to encourage Palestinian children to become suicide bombers. The al-Dura tape was used repeatedly in al-Qaida's videotape of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl's execution in February 2002 and in other al-Qaida recruitment videos. His image was published in Iraqi Republican Guards newsletters and indoctrination materials before the 2003 US-led invasion. His name has been invoked repeatedly at Islamist and leftist anti-Israel demonstrations throughout the Western world.

Yet the IDF could not have killed the boy. An IDF investigation of the event in late 2000 showed that it was physically impossible for the IDF forces to have either seen or shot at the al-Duras from their position at the junction that day. Aside from that, independent investigations of the events of the day, carried out most notably by Prof. Richard Landes and shown at his Augean Stables Web site, and by Metula News Agency, showed that the event was likely staged. As investigators showed, throughout the day, Palestinian cameramen openly staged scenes of "carnage" performed by amateur Palestinian actors and Red Crescent ambulance drivers. At one point, a cameraman from Reuters and another man crouched behind the al-Duras, filming staged scenes while the two were supposedly under fire, and in imminent peril.

A DOCUMENTARY by German filmmaker Ester Schapira, Three Bullets and a Dead Child: Who Shot Mohammed al-Dura?, was released in late 2002. The documentary, like later investigations by the Atlantic Monthly and other publications, concluded that the IDF could not have killed the boy. Since the controversy first arose, independent investigators have repeatedly asked France 2 to release the 29-minute unedited version of Rahma's film. The requests have been refused.

During his trial last summer, Karsenty presented all the investigative evidence that had been accumulated to that point. The prosecution brought no witnesses, and challenged none of his evidence - sufficing with a letter of support for Enderlin written by then French president Jacques Chirac.

In his ruling last October, the presiding judge argued that although his evidence of the hoax was substantial, Karsenty's allegations could not be credible since "no Israeli authority… has ever accorded the slightest credit to these allegations."

For the past year, Karsenty and his supporters have repeatedly begged the IDF and the Foreign Ministry to support him in his appeal. They have repeatedly appealed to the IDF and the Foreign Ministry to request the unedited France 2 footage. Although various promises of assistance have been made, a week before his appeal, Karsenty has yet to receive any letters of support that he could introduce at his appeal from the Foreign Ministry. According to people close to the trial, Israel's ambassador in France, Danny Shek, enjoys warm relations with Enderlin.

FOLLOWING the Israeli government's lead, most major Jewish organizations in the Diaspora have refused to support Karsenty or to demand the release of the unedited footage of the 2000 film that has served to justify and incite murder and hatred of Jews in Israel and throughout the world ever since. Among American Jewish organizations, the Zionist Organization of America is the only major group that has come out strongly in support of Karsenty.

It is hard to know what to make of this rotten situation. As Jews begin our new year on Wednesday evening, it can only be hoped that with the new year will come a new understanding of our rights and responsibilities.

After seven years of the Palestinian jihad, and six years of the global jihad, it is high time we understood that if we do not defend ourselves and oppose our enemies and detractors, no one will do so for us.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert couldn't have looked more pathetic when he responded this week to a rocket attack on a day care center in Sderot by writing a letter of complaint to the United Nations. But what is he to do?

Olmert and his government colleagues are stumped. They are unwilling to pay the political price that comes with abandoning the defense of the western Negev to Palestinian rockets in Gaza. But they are also unwilling to pay the military and political price of launching a wide-scale ground campaign in Gaza.

In vain attempts to get themselves off the hot seat, they try to change the subject to Tony Blair's visit, or Condoleezza Rice's upcoming visit or the imaginary peace accord they might sign with Fatah terror chief Mahmoud Abbas someday. Then too, they beat their chests every time the IDF destroys a rocket launcher and threaten to stop supplying electricity to Gaza and start targeting Hamas commanders. They say all of this even though they know full well that nothing they are doing or talking about doing will prevent the Palestinians from attacking Israel.

This is so because nothing Israel is now doing or talking about doing will change the Palestinians' view that attacking Israel with rockets and mortars serves their interests. And nothing being done today or being considered for tomorrow will diminish their capacity to assault the Negev.

The Palestinians have good reasons to continue their attacks. Those attacks keep the Palestinians mobilized as a society against "the Zionist enemy." They also guarantee continued Iranian, Syrian, Egyptian and Saudi military and financial support for Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah.

Furthermore, the Kassam barrages advance the Palestinians' long-term strategic goal of fomenting the collapse of Israeli society. By maintaining their offensive they daily portray the government and the IDF as impotent in the eyes of Israel's citizenry. Israeli society, in turn, is demoralized and its demoralization induces a sense of lost sovereignty and powerlessness that legitimates and prolongs the paralysis of the IDF and the government. The enemy, of course, uses this paralysis to enhance its offensive capabilities and reinforce its legitimacy in the eyes of its society.

With those rationales for striking, it is obvious that the Palestinians will continue to assault Israel with rockets and mortars for as long as they can. And given the nature of its enemy it is similarly clear that Israel must take away the Palestinians' ability to attack its territory.

There is only one way to achieve this goal. The IDF must take the western Negev out of rocket range by conquering northern Gaza. It must cut off the Palestinians' supply lines by retaking control over Gaza's border with Egypt. And the IDF must establish a two-kilometer-wide security zone within Gaza along its border with Israel to prevent terrorist infiltrations.

Unfortunately, it is hard to see either the government or the IDF General Staff agreeing to take this necessary action. Over the past several years, some dubious notions about the nature of 21st century warfare have taken hold of Israel's military and political decision-making circles. These notions have ensnared them in a conceptual trap that convolutes their debates and obfuscates imperative choices they are duty-bound to make.

THIS CONCEPTUAL trap is set-forth and defended in a book published this year by the University of Haifa. Diffused Warfare: The Concept of Virtual Mass, was authored by former Navy Commander Vice Admiral (ret.) Yedidia Groll-Yaari and strategist Haim Assa. Briefly, the work argues that "classical" military doctrines built around linear battles of massed columns of conventional forces are no longer relevant today. Yaari and Assa claim that in asymmetric conflicts against sub-state guerrilla and terror forces, control of territory is not necessarily desirable and as a result, maneuver warfare that concentrates forces in one place with the aim of destroying enemy forces is antiquated and serves mainly to complicate matters. I

n their view, rather than seeking to control territory, the militaries of democratic states should reorganize around the concept of stand-off battles predicated on precision weaponry. Those weapons, backed by network centricity which enables near unimpeded information flow to commanders in the rear, can create virtual mass by assaulting multiple, dispersed enemy targets simultaneously, and so foment systemic shock. After the initial systemic shock of enemy forces is induced, repeated precision attacks will prevent the enemy from reorganizing to fight effectively. In light of this, militaries today should organize around their air and special forces components, which can move rapidly in and out of target areas.

As the IDF's pinpoint attacks in Gaza today, and in Lebanon last summer show, the IDF and the government share Yaari's and Assa's view. The problem unfortunately is that their view is incorrect.

First of all, it isn't true that classical warfare was based as a rule on concentration of mass and linear battle lines. From the times of Joshua, Gideon and Alexander the Great, military commanders have conducted successful campaigns which defeated their enemies by fomenting systemic shock. Throughout the ages, if there has been one rule of thumb for battlefield success, it has been to apply your strengths against your opponent's weaknesses - whether through frontal assaults, sieges, psychological operations or aerial bombardments.

Moreover, whether control of territory is necessary or not is a function of the nature of the enemy and of the society from which it operates. In World War II, Allied forces did not need to occupy liberated France after they overran it because the local population did not oppose them.

In 2003, the Americans successfully overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq through a diffused "shock and awe" campaign that did not involve occupying and controlling the country. The Americans erred in failing to recognize the potential for resistance among the Iraqis and Iraq's neighbors Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Due to their misreading of the intentions and aspirations of disgruntled Iraqis and their neighbors, the Americans did not take control of the country or secure its borders and so allowed insurgent forces to develop and take hold of territory from which they launched their insurgency.

Yaari and Assa uphold the IDF's 2002 Defensive Shield campaign in Judea and Samaria as proof that diffused warfare doctrines can replace conventional maneuver forces doctrines. Yet Defensive Shield involved massed concentration of IDF forces, not virtual mass. The IDF used maneuver forces to retake control over Palestinian urban centers in Judea and Samaria. That control has been maintained ever since. If Defensive Shield and the American experiences in Iraq tell us anything, they tell us that massed and diffused warfare doctrines complement one another. They are not mutually exclusive.

The Second Lebanon War similarly exposed the importance of controlling territory. The IDF's General Staff deployed its forces in various areas which they never actually conquered or controlled. As a result, it was impossible to build or sustain logistical supply lines to support their efforts. Units were forced to disengage from the enemy in the midst of battles to evacuate wounded and dead comrades. The need to airdrop rations, water and ammunition to units in the field exposed them to enemy fire.

Finally there is the issue of systemic shock. The diffused warfare doctrine asserts that the chaos induced by the simultaneous stand-off bombing of multiple targets can induce the paralysis of enemy forces. But this is not necessarily true. Guerrilla forces, by their very nature, thrive in chaotic environments. In their case, the most effective way of inducing systemic shock and paralysis is often through the imposition of order. And a precondition for imposing order is exerting control over territory.

YAARI AND Assa admit that the doctrine of diffused warfare was not developed as a result of military imperatives, but as a consequence of political constraints. Here they acknowledge that contrary to the claims of the political Left, military and political ends are integrally linked. The question though is how should this linkage influence military planning and operations? For Assa and Yaari the answer is clear.

In their words, "By the start of the 21st century the international legitimacy of armed conflict had become a dominant consideration in the decisions of states to go to war. The status, indeed the very existence, of international courts for war criminals is indicative of the primacy of this factor. Furthermore, domestic opposition to military force that risks the lives of innocent civilians is no longer a marginal phenomenon and has come to have a significant impact on national decision making processes. Thus two factors - international legitimacy and the aversion to operations that intentionally or unintentionally endanger the lives of non-combatants - now largely determine the operability of concrete military actions."

And herein lies the root of the difficulty that the IDF and the government experience in confronting Gaza and Israel's enemies in general today. Yaari and Assa, and like them the IDF and the government, perceive both domestic and international political constraints as static, absolute and determinative. But they are none of these things. As Israel proved in Defensive Shield, it is possible to conduct maneuver warfare and seize and maintain control over territory in spite of political opposition.

As the US military's current surge operations in Iraq demonstrate, military successes on the ground, properly represented by military commanders and political leaders, can change domestic and international perceptions of the legitimacy of prolonged military campaigns.

The relative power of forces as varied as the White House, the UN, leftist internationally funded NGOs like Peace Now and Four Mothers to determine the effectiveness of military campaigns is not preordained. It is a function of the will of governments and nations and the competence of their military forces operating on the ground.

There is no doubt that when fighting a foe that seeks to elude direct contact with one's military forces, it is often necessary to conduct diffused campaigns with no clear center of gravity in order to expose and defeat its hidden forces. But there is also no question that the imperative of suiting one's forces to meet the challenges of dynamic battlefields does not cancel the need to field maneuver units capable of conquering and controlling territory.

When confronting the enemy in Gaza today, no new super-modern, new-fangled doctrines that simply distort the nature of battle through the ages can deny the simple truth: If Israel wishes to defend its sovereignty and its citizenry, it cannot rely on precision weapons. It must seize and maintain control over northern Gaza and southern Gaza, and establish a security zone inside of Gaza along the border with Israel.

One by one the warriors ascended the stage Sunday evening to receive their commendations for battlefield valor and heroism during the war with Hizbullah last summer. Showing no emotion, they stood stiffly at attention before IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi as an announcer recounted how each one in turn eschewed his own safety and voluntarily walked, flew or rode into enemy kill zones to save wounded comrades and defeat the enemy.

The ceremony in Tel Aviv, broadcast live on television, was deeply inspiring. As Ashkenazi said, the 38 men - four of whom were killed in battle - who received decorations for heroism are the best of Israeli society. And as Defense Minister Ehud Barak noted, Israel's neighbors should beware. If they dare to wage war against Israel, it is these fearless warriors, who already proved they will stop at nothing to complete their mission, whom they will face in battle.

The warrior spirit, so evident Sunday night, plays a decisive role in the lives of line soldiers and their commanders. The education combat soldiers receive from their parents, and the training and personal example set for them by their squad, platoon, company and battalion commanders all lead to a situation where heroism is a natural component of the IDF's fighting units. By exposing this fact, the awards ceremony was a source of inspiration and relief.

BUT THE ceremony was also frustrating. The majority of the decorations were given for acts of heroism related to the evacuation of wounded soldiers from battle under heavy enemy fire. Most of those battles occurred between two and five kilometers from the border with Israel. What they demonstrate is that Israel never effectively controlled the battle space it fought on.

This was not the fault of the forces on the ground. This was the fault of the General Staff that sent those forces into battles undermanned. It was the fault of the General Staff that undervalued the strength of Hizbullah units; failed to understand its battle schemes; and mismanaged the fighting. Disturbingly, aside from Ashkenazi, who replaced disgraced Lt. Gen Dan Halutz as Chief of General Staff after the war, almost all the commanders who displayed such incompetence last summer remain in their positions.

The General Staff of course, was not alone in its incompetence. It was led by the most ineffectual government Israel has ever seen. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his government squandered the unprecedented international support that Israel enjoyed on July 12, 2006 when it properly decided to go to war after Hizbullah attacked northern Israel with rockets and missiles and kidnapped IDF reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.

The government failed to understand the regional character of the war and so refused to attack Syria. It ignored the gravity of the situation and so refused for weeks to call up IDF reserve forces. Then after belatedly calling up the reservists, it delayed ordering them into battle until international support for Israel had all but disintegrated and the government had already decided to sue for a cease-fire that left Hizbullah intact as a fighting force and as a political force in Lebanon. In so doing, the government ensured that the heroism of Israel's forces could not be brought to bear in a manner that could enable Israel to emerge victorious from the war.

LIKE THE General Staff, the government too remains in power.

By losing the war despite our soldiers' competence to win, the Olmert government surrendered the power to shape Israel's strategic environment to the country's enemies. And our enemies have lost no time in initiating changes in the Lebanese, and indeed regional landscape. These changes ensure that when Israel's warriors are next called to fight, the enemy forces they will face will be far more powerful and dangerous than those they faced last summer.

Since last August's cease-fire, under Iranian direction Hizbullah has operated on three levels at once. First, Hizbullah has reasserted its control over the border towns in southern Lebanon. Hizbullah has prevented Christian Lebanese, who fled the fighting last year, from returning to their villages and so has ensured that the population along the border area is loyal to its forces.

Through a campaign of constant intimidation of UNIFIL forces, amplified by occasional armed attacks, Hizbullah has effectively destroyed any will that UNIFIL forces might have had to prevent Hizbullah from reasserting control over southern Lebanon. Hizbullah's control over UNIFIL is made clear by the behavior of Spanish forces. After six Spanish troops were killed in June when their patrol came under attack, the Spanish government held open talks with Hizbullah and Iran to ensure the future protection of its forces.

Hizbullah has not limited its operations to the border zone. It moved most of its arsenal and positioned most of its forces north of the Litani River. There, the Iranian government has invested tens of millions of dollars in buying villages outright from Christian and Druse landowners to expand Shi'ite control of the country to the Syrian border through which arms are moved daily, unopposed.

As Amir Taheri reported this week in The New York Post, some 50% of lands in the Druse village of Sraireh have been purchased with Iranian funds by Hizbullah. The Druse/Christian village of Chbail has similarly been bought and others, along the border with Syria, are being targeted for purchase.

POLITICALLY, Hizbullah and Syria have actively worked to undermine the US-backed Siniora government. Here, the Lebanese military "victory" Sunday against Syrian-backed guerillas in the Nahr el-Bared camp is notable. It took the Lebanese military nearly four months of fighting to take over the camp. One hundred fifty-eight Lebanese soldiers were killed in the confrontation against a mere 360 Syrian-backed guerrilla fighters. Most of the guerillas escaped unscathed on Sunday morning as Lebanese forces moved into the camp.

The Lebanese army's pathetic performance at Nahr el-Bared tells us something important about the loyalties of the Lebanese military - 40% of which is Shi'ite. During the war last summer, Lebanese forces openly assisted Hizbullah in identifying and marking Israeli targets for missile attacks. Since the war the Lebanese army has paid the pensions to the families of Hizbullah fighters killed in the war.

THE QUESTIONABLE loyalties of the army extend beyond its soldiers. Army Commander General Michael Suleiman enjoys warm relations with Syria. As Barry Rubin reported yesterday in The Jerusalem Post, the Syrians are supporting Suleiman as a potential candidate in the Lebanese presidential elections scheduled to take place on September 25. With a "glorious victory" at Nahr el-Bared behind him, Suleiman is being hailed as a national hero.

The Olmert government announced last week that tensions along Israel's border with Syria have decreased markedly. Barak and Olmert proclaim that war with Syria which seemed imminent in July has been successfully averted. But even if this is true, it is far from clear that the abatement of tensions works in Israel's favor.

Syria's apparent decision not to launch an immediate attack on Israel does not signify a loss of Syrian will or interest in attacking Israel. Today Iran and Russia are tripping over each other as they line up to provide Syria with advanced weapons and modernize the Syrian military. Their assistance ensures that when war comes, Syria will perform well.

For the first time since the end of the Cold War, Russian military advisers are training Syrian forces on the ground in Syria. As Ma'ariv reported Friday, Russian advisors are involved in improving Syria's signals intelligence and electronic warfare capabilities. If plans go through for the Russian Navy to station its forces at the Syrian port of Tartus, the Russians are scheduled to secure that port with advanced land to air PMU-2 ballistic missiles that will cover most of Syrian airspace.

At Sunday's ceremony, the members of the General Staff looked visibly ashamed as the stories of the heroism of the forces they sent into misguided battles were recounted. To their credit, at least the generals, including Halutz, showed up for the ceremony.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert couldn't even do that much. Just as he refused to attend the official memorial service for the war's dead in July, so Sunday, Olmert was too busy to attend the ceremony.

Israel owes its survival to its warriors. But for them to successfully defend the country against the expanding regional threats, they must be led by commanders and politicians who are worthy of their sacrifices.
 
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.