"Where was God" conundrum

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Making sense of Haiti


It's not all that often that the front pages of Israel's newspapers and the lead stories on the nightly news programs all devote themselves to a catastrophic event on the other side of the world. Sixty years-plus of conflict have narrowed the range of news ordinary Israelis tend to be drawn to.

When we do focus on troubles abroad, we invariably look for a parochial angle, in this case the fate of a number of missing Israelis in earthquake-devastated Haiti. That's human nature; every country is obsessing about the safety of its nationals caught up in the catastrophe.

Israel is rushing a field hospital, doctors and medical equipment to the stricken island and a team of experts to assess how else we can effectively help. American Jewry has sprung into action through the Jewish Federations of North America partnering with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee; the American Jewish World Service is also mobilizing.

Like many spiritual leaders, Rabbi Barry Cohen of Temple B'nai Israel in Oklahoma City is telling his congregants to give charity: "God instructed us not to stand by idly while our neighbor bleeds."

AS THE initial shock wears off and aid begins to arrive, people are reflecting more generally on the apparent randomness of the misfortune and asking why bad things happen to good people. In the instance of Haiti, the issue really becomes why bad things happen to those already mired in misery. In a country where half the population is illiterate and where per capita income is $3.60 a day.

"Every time Haiti takes one half-step forward, something like this happens. It's so unfair. Why does this happen to Haiti over and over again?" asked The Rev. Lauren Stanley, an Episcopal missionary.

One prominent fundamentalist pastor - even as he raised funds for disaster relief - had a ready answer for Stanley: The people of Haiti turned away from God and made a pact with devil and have been punished ever since.

Mainstream Jewish theology, in contrast, abjures trying to read God's mind. Rabbi Emanuel Feldman, former editor of Tradition magazine, cautions rabbis not to use their Shabbat sermons to offer glib theological "reasons" for why the Haiti disaster occurred - as if they have a direct line to the Almighty. God's actions, many Jewish thinkers would argue, are simply unfathomable to the limited human mind.

And yet we feel impelled to search on. From time immemorial, humans have tried to find spiritual meaning for personal loss and the tragic consequences of natural and man-made cataclysms. While some will say this quest is a prescription for banality, there is an unquenchable thirst for ideas that try to make sense of it all.

The top New York Times nonfiction bestseller this week is Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom. Book dealers are also featuring The Case for God by Karen Armstrong, a former Catholic nun, and The Evolution of God, by Robert Wright, who makes the subtle argument that when people define God more by His compassionate - than other - attributes, humanity is drawn closer to some underlying truth about the divine.

Perhaps the most evocative popular treatment of the "Where was God" conundrum came in Paul Young's The Shack, a Christian novel about a father grieving over the murder of his daughter, who is granted the opportunity to challenge God (in the form of the Trinity). The book sold over 7 million copies in 2009.

FOR SOME, the process of probing why bad things happen is a salve in itself - a case of the journey being as important as the destination.

It's a process that's taken some Jews to mysticism. In the Kabbala we find the suggestion that bad things happen because God has pulled back from the world - tzimtzum - to make room for the finite. And in The Disappearance of God, Richard Elliott Friedman suggests that while God gradually vanishes in the narrative from Genesis to Second Chronicles, the intended endgame is a divine-human reunion.

Reflecting on such ideas can be consoling as we watch the horrible images coming from Haiti. Meanwhile, however, the survivors need tangible help repairing their broken world.

'My seat is higher than yours' diplomacy...oi vey'

Diplomatic demarche


Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has just won the King Faisal International Prize for service to Islam. Indeed, under Erdogan, Ankara's foreign policy is driven by Islamic solidarity. A country that was once directed by Western-oriented secularists is now under the sway of his democratically-elected AKP, a Muslim religious party. Vigorous support for Hamas, Iran and Hizbullah is the order of the day.

On Monday, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, a Knesset member from Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's Israel Beiteinu party, summoned Turkish ambassador to Israel Ahmet Celikkol to protest Turkey's continuing scapegoating of the Jewish state. In the latest instance of anti-Zionist agitprop on Turkish television, an episode of The Valley of the Wolves portrayed Israeli agents and diplomats as blood-thirsty baby-snatchers who abduct Muslim children in order to convert them to Judaism. Wolves and Separation before it - IDF soldiers as sociopathic child-killers - are products of the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation which is overseen by Bulent Arınc, a prominent AKP figure.

National honor, Lieberman postulated at a recent meeting of Israel's diplomatic corps, needs to be defended. When nations behave badly toward us this country will no longer pretend no affront was taken and that relations can go on as if nothing happened. Ayalon has taken this admirable no- groveling policy and ruined it on his first try.

That's too bad because Erdogan's policies beg for denunciation. He'll use any pretext to castigate Israeli policies. Monday's visit by Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to Ankara gave Erdogan an opening to censure Israel's "attitude," its "disproportionate power" and its menacing of "global peace."

Next Erdogan took aim at Israel's policy of nuclear ambiguity: "Those who are warning Iran over nuclear weapons are not making the same warnings to Israel," urging the UN to stop picking on Iran while coddling Israel.

Finally, Erdogan lashed out at Israel for liquidating a squad of Islamic Jihad gunmen just as they were about to launch rockets at Israeli territory on Sunday. "What is your excuse this time?" he asked.

SO, CLEARLY, Turkey has been begging for a diplomatic demarche. But the way Ayalon handled his encounter with Celikkol was so amateurish that it detracted from Israel's agenda. After making the ambassador wait in the hallway outside his Knesset door in front of cameras Ayalon had summoned, Celikkol was ushered in and positioned on a low couch in front of a small table holding an Israeli flag. "The important thing is that people see that he's low and we're high and that there is one flag here," Ayalon said in Hebrew to the cameras.

Yes, it is essential the Islamic government in Turkey know that there are consequences to its unbridled derision of Israel, but the public humiliation of a diplomat shifts the onus from Turkey's bad behavior to Ayalon's boorish performance. This inept response to Turkish hostility demonstrates the need to find a better balance between national honor, national interest and diplomatic decorum. Our deputy minister has long proven effective, sometimes too effective, in courting publicity; he must realize that Turkish-Israel relations are not about him.

Decisions that impact on relations with a country as important to Israel as Turkey need to be coordinated between the Prime Minister's Office, the Foreign Ministry and the Defense Ministry so that all key players are on the same page and that enunciated policies reflect the government's considered position.

Not surprisingly, on Tuesday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned Israel's ambassador Gabriel Levy to seek an explanation for Ayalon's behavior and demand an apology; Celikkol will be returning to Ankara for consultations.

TURKEY has been incrementally shifting its political, economic and military orientation from West to East. Jerusalem is the "canary in the coalmine" - a key indicator that tells Washington and Europe where Ankara's sensibilities lie.

Still, Turkey remains a democracy so the possibility that a more progressive government will one day replace the AKP cannot be discounted.

Minister of Industry, Trade, and Labor Binyamin Ben-Eliezer visited Ankara in November to keep channels open, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak was scheduled to go next week.

Erdogan seems intent on torpedoing Israel-Turkish ties. The least Jerusalem can do is make it harder for him to achieve this goal.

As for our national honor - let's try to maintain it with greater aplomb.

Look who is worried about Obama's Middle East policies

An Arab lament

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, is lamenting President Barack Obama's backing for the idea that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. "Worse, it seems the…administration has slowly but surely adopted [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu's position on the need for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a 'Jewish state,' which predetermines the negotiations over the 'right of return' for Palestinian refuges... ," Bishara wrote late last week.

Abandoning the "right of return" would indeed remove the risk that Palestinian Arabs could demographically asphyxiate Israel by inundating it with millions of refugees and their descendants. But do Arab pundits really think Israel would sign a peace deal that didn't guarantee an end to irredentist claims?

It's hard to fault Bishara's analysis, which comes amid a flurry of diplomatic activity. In addition to backing Israel on the "right of return," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton makes it a point to frequently reference the "1967-plus" formula of basing final borders on agreed land swaps. She's even implying that the settlement issue is a red-herring. "Resolving borders resolves settlements, resolving Jerusalem resolves settlements," Clinton said at the weekend. "I think we need to lift our sights and instead of looking down at the trees, we need to look at the forest."

There are also indications that peace envoy George Mitchell is pursuing a multi-pronged effort to re-start negotiations, including a security component focusing on mechanisms for a demilitarized Palestinian state.

THE administration is heavily invested in re-starting negotiations. Israel is on board. But the Palestinians appear to have adopted Syria's bargaining approach.

Just as Damascus will not come to the table until it is assured - in advance - that its maximalist demands will all be met, the Palestinians, too, have developed an ever-longer list of prerequisites that need to be accommodated before they will deign to talk.

As articulated by various Palestinian Authority spokespeople in recent months, these include: a complete construction freeze everywhere over the Green Line; talks must commence from Ehud Olmert's last generous offer (ignored by the Palestinians as unworthy of a response); Israel must commit to a pull-back to the 1949 Armistice Lines; the Palestinian "right of return" must be recognized; Israel will not be recognized as the legitimate state of the Jewish people; and, the details must be wrapped up within two years.

Under these circumstances, Mitchell's Plan B will apparently be to shuttle between Ramallah and Jerusalem conducting "proximity talks."

Even if by some miracle Mahmoud Abbas did send his negotiators back to the table, the fragmentation within the Palestinian polity, namely Hamas's control of Gaza, limits the chances of a breakthrough.

UNDER THESE circumstances it would be nice if we could report that Egypt is trying to talk some sense into the Palestinians. No such luck. Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit, who was in Washington over the weekend, insisted that the Palestinians should hold firm to their demand for all territories "occupied" by Israel since 1967.

And just to throw another wrench into the works, Arab moderates have resurrected the Saudi-inspired take-it-or-leave-it peace initiative warning - for the umpteenth time - that it will not forever remain on offer. Israeli leaders have repeatedly indicated they are willing to discuss the initiative, which has some positive elements embedded in a fine print no Israeli government could ever accept. Indeed, the initiative is so potentially perilous to Israel that Hamas has yet to reject it outright.

The Syrians have meanwhile appeared on the scene to pull Hamas's chestnuts out of the fire. The negotiations over Gilad Schalit are not going well from Hamas's viewpoint; relations with Egypt are at an all-time low; smuggling conditions under the Philadelphi Corridor are deteriorating; Gazans are growing weary because Hamas's relentless belligerency has netted unremitting misery.

Enter Damascus to bridge the gap between Fatah and Hamas in a bid to create a Palestinian unity government. Rest assured that any alliance manufactured in the Syrian capital will serve Iran's interests more than those of peace.

Mitchell is due back in the region later in the month. The Palestinians say they have been placed on the defensive. Hopes that their positions would be imposed on Israel by the Obama administration have been dashed.

What should Jerusalem do? Continue to show appreciation for the administration's efforts. Because a viable two-state solution that permanently ends the conflict is in Israel's interest.

BECAUSE IN OUR HEARTS WE NEVER LEFT....

Why we are here


Cast your mind back to before Muhammad destroyed the Jewish tribes of Arabia; before Islam expanded beyond the Arabian Peninsula reaching Jerusalem in 638. Before the ancient Roman Empire and the emergence of Christianity; before the Greek empire; even before the Persians came onto the stage of history.

Consider the distant 10th century before the Common Era when the ancient Israelites were consolidating their kingdom under Saul and David.

Over the weekend came a report that an ancient inscription had been deciphered testifying - yet again - to the age-old connection between the people and land of Israel.

On what in ancient times was a main road from the coastal plain to the hill country, Hebrew University of Jerusalem archeologist Yosef Garfinkel, digging in the northern Judean hills at Khirbet Qeiyafa - which borders on the Eila Valley (off today's Route 38) - found a piece of pottery with ink writing which dates back to the Davidic era.

The discovery was made a year-and-a-half ago. A number of scholars are examining the text though Prof. Gershon Galil, a biblical studies expert at the University of Haifa, just made his conclusions public.

The inscriptions, he said, are undoubtedly ancient Hebrew, using words such as almana (widow) that would have been written differently in other local languages.

It is easy to get carried away by academic hoopla. Some bible scholars and archeologists may disagree with the tone of Galil's revelations and the assertion that new ground is being broken. Other scholars have yet to weigh in.

STILL, this much appears clear:

• There was an expansive Kingdom of David which extended well beyond the hill country.

• The Hebrew language was sufficiently developed in the 10th century. It reinforces what many scholars have long appreciated - that parts of the Bible are very, very old.

• During the reign of King David there were scribes who were able to compose complex literary texts such as the books of Judges and Samuel.

• The find establishes that scholarship was taking place away from kingdom's hub, implying that even greater learning was going on at its heart.

The text is equally significant because it shows that a key concern of the ancient Israelites was social justice:

You shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].

Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]

[and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]

the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.

Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.

Galil told The Jerusalem Post he has no doubt that the inscription is ancient Hebrew and that only Jews, not Canaanites, could have authored it.

It is living - Carbon-14 dated - proof that in the 10th century Samuel could have written what traditionalists have ascribed to him all along. (Galil also remarked that ancient Hebrew was once written from left to right.)

IT MAY seem obvious that the Jewish connection to this land dates back thousands of years. "By the rivers of Babylon" - but also by the waters of the Danube, Volga, Dnieper and Rhine - "we sat down and cried as we remembered Zion."

The Jewish lament for Zion knew no bounds.

Yet since the Jewish return under the auspices of the modern Zionist movement, an elaborate industry of denial has sprung up.

Many reputable scholars never set out to deny the ancient connection between Jews and Israel, but simply emphasized the lack of contemporary confirmation that Bible figures such as David were anything like their scriptural portraits. Unfortunately, their work was quickly manipulated and exploited by anti-Zionists. All the while, the Palestinian Arab leadership has remained adamant that evidence of an ancient Jewish presence in this land is a figment of the Zionist imagination. It's unlikely that anything will sway Palestinians out of their obdurate denial.

Still, the work of a generation of bible scholars and archeologists - along with their vibrant debates - continues to uplift the Israeli spirit. It is gratifying to observe - from Eila Valley pottery writings and Dead Sea scrolls to Beit Guvrin tablets - ancient Jewish history falling ever more vividly into place, reminding us why we are here.

George Galloway picks a cause

[George Galloway and friend.]


Why no 'Viva Somalia?'


What could be worse than being forgotten in the rubble of war? As The New York Times reported this week, Gazans feel forsaken. The constant flow of humanitarian aid is staving off hunger and disease, but a pall of listlessness besets the Strip.

It is so dreary that B'Tselem, an Israeli-staffed organization that's funded mostly by European governments and American foundations, has distributed video cameras to 18 young people just to get them out and about.

They make really cool videos about all sorts of subjects - such as smuggling laundry detergent through tunnels between Gaza and Sinai; resisting the "occupation" by singing hip hop music; there's also one about a girls' soccer team.

The videos have found their way onto Ynet, a popular Hebrew news Web site.

THERE'S A revealing comparison to be made between the "siege" of Gaza and what is happening in Somalia, where the World Food Program this week was forced to abandon one million tormented people because Islamist gunmen have made it impossible for its staff to operate.

The al-Shabab accuses the WFP of being spies for the infidels and has murdered a number of aid workers. The extremists are enraged that the WFP will not pay protection money. Overall, 3 million Somalis depend on WFP relief, but the plight of 285,000 acutely malnourished children is especially heart-rending.

Naturally, the WFP also operates in the "Occupied Palestinian Territories" - that is, the area where the Palestinians refuse to create a demilitarized state of their own.

The WFP - through no fault of its own - is part of a web of international bodies that is enabling, rather than trying to overcome, dependency among Palestinians. For 60-years-plus, UN agencies have gone along with the Arab world's insistence that their Palestinian brethren remain perpetual refugees.

UNLIKE THE Somalis, the Palestinians have been fortunate in having Zionists for their enemies. How else could they attract celebrity politicians, like MP George Galloway, and superstar campaigners, like the International Solidarity Movement's Hedy Epstein, a hunger-striking 85-year-old lady who "survived" the Holocaust in London where she arrived in 1939 on the kindertransport.

Galloway's "Viva Palestina" procession left London on December 6 and arrived in El-Arish this week. He quickly picked a fight with the Egyptians over how many vehicles could enter Gaza from Sinai. Cops and activists threw sand at each other and fought with sticks.

The "Viva Palestina" spectacle was coordinated with Hamas, which needed a pretext to orchestrate an "intifada" against the anti-smuggling barrier Cairo has belatedly begun installing under the Philadelphi Corridor.

On the Gaza side of the border, Palestinians shot dead an Egyptian guard, as other guards opened fire on Palestinian rioters, critically wounding five.

Late Wednesday, Egypt allowed Galloway and 55 fellow travelers into Gaza, "bandaged, bleeding and bruised… because they tried to bring medicine to … people under siege in Gaza," said the intrepid British parliamentarian.

Too bad that Galloway and Epstein, along with the play-by-play Al-Jazeera coverage they engender, didn't drive their convoy of 150 truck and 500 international activists - self-satisfied Europeans, mostly, but also 17 Turkish legislators - straight to Somalia to face down the al-Shabab.

THE DIFFERENCE between Somalia and Gaza is that the people of Somalia are not only forgotten in the rubble, their desperation is… simply not interesting.

They are people without options.

Those responsible for their plight are Islamists, not Zionists or Westerners - though, for the Euro-Left, it's all America's fault somehow.

In stark contrast, the people of Gaza do have options that would end their misery.

They could stop supporting Hamas, which has mobilized their polity against coexistence with Israel; they could make peace among themselves and allow the comparatively moderate West Bank Palestinian leadership - which is recognized by the international community - back into the Strip. They could free IDF soldier Gilad Schalit whom they kidnapped in 2006. They could stop launching mortars against Israel's civilian population, as they repeatedly did this week. They could choose a two-state solution and accept that Jews also have a right to a homeland. They could end the "siege."

They could build instead of reveling in the rubble and in their victimization.

Balawi versus Zeid ....which direction will the Muslim world go?

'Turning' Islamists

During the Cold War, Westerners consoled themselves in the belief that most people behind the Iron Curtain did not believe in Communism; they were simply entrapped by a morally bankrupt system driven by a moribund ideology. It was not so much the allure of capitalism that ultimately won over the people of Eastern Europe; it was the failure of Communism.

What will it take to "turn" vast numbers of Muslims now enthralled with extremist Islam, and convince those uncommitted, not to follow the path of the Islamists? Much depends on the outcome of the ongoing battle within Islamic civilization between those promoting jihad against the West and those who say Islam does not need to tear down the West in order to thrive.

Yesterday, this newspaper carried a Washington Post dispatch, "Jordan emerges as key CIA counterterrorism ally." The story by that paper's national security reporter revealed that a Jordanian agent working in tandem with American intelligence had been killed by the Islamist suicide bomber who struck a CIA base near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border last week.

It now transpires that the suicide bomber was a 36-year-old Jordanian physician named Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi. He had been "turned" - or so it was thought - during a stint in a Jordanian prison for jihadi activities.

According to Al Jazeera, the medical-man-turned-suicide-bomber was in Afghanistan to trap another physician, Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of al-Qaida's two top leaders. Balawi had provided so much reliable information that he was trusted to enter the CIA post without being thoroughly searched.

The dead agent, Sharif Ali bin Zeid, was Balawi's handler. King Abdullah II participated in Zeid's funeral, raising the ire of Islamists within his kingdom.

This murky story of spycraft and betrayal serves as a metaphor for how the still-nameless war between freedom, moderation and enlightenment against the benighted forces of coercion, fanaticism and medievalism needs to be waged - by pushing Muslims to choose: the way of Balawi or the way of Zeid.

The most practical way to overcome the Islamists is for them to be defeated from within. After all, non-Islamists have a profound stake in the outcome.

YESTERDAY, President Barack Obama met with his top domestic and foreign national security advisers in the White House situation room. The agenda was two-fold: to unravel what went wrong, both on the systemic and personnel level, that allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board Northwest Flight 253; and to take stock of the damage caused by what Balawi did at Forward Operating Base Chapman.

Along with Zeid, seven brave CIA agents, with a combined 100 years' of expertise, were lost. This betrayal, like previous acts of perfidy in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere, underscored how dependent the West is on human intelligence provided by those who swim in a sea of anti-Western fanaticism.

Other lessons emerge. The Islamists must not be underestimated. They are getting good at counter-intelligence and disinformation. Israelis have seen this with Hizbullah.

Now Peter Baker of The New York Times has revealed that US intelligence was nearly fooled into thinking that Islamists from Somalia had infiltrated into the US in order to detonate bombs during Obama's inaugural address.

Fortunately, John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, deduced that a "poison pen" operation was afoot. One terror group was trying to get the US to take out its rivals. Pretty sophisticated stuff and illustrative of what the West is up against.

Another lesson is not to belittle suicide bombers as "sad guys with no self esteem," or risk being surprised by those like Balawi, who are harder to pigeonhole.

The doctor had once told an Islamist magazine: "I have had a predisposition for... jihad and martyrdom since I was little. If love of jihad enters a man's heart, it will not leave him, even if he wants to do so."

CLEARLY, some Islamists are irredeemable. But others are not. If the West recognizes the scale of the challenge and confronts it effectively, and if there are enough courageous men the caliber of Sharif Ali bin Zeid working to preserve Islam from within, we can be reasonably hopeful that the jihadis will one day find themselves relegated to the dustbin of history.

If...

BUNKER BUSTERS FOR THE UAE? CRUISE MISSILES FOR EGYPT?

Washington's open arms


Human nature being what it is, gratitude has its limits. The more we are on the receiving end of a recurring good, the less grateful we become. Nations are likewise susceptible to "What have you done for me lately?" syndrome.

It is fitting, therefore, to acknowledge the ongoing aid Israel receives from the United States. It may not come out of purely altruistic motives, yet Washington's intentions are largely good, and absent its unwavering military and diplomatic backing, the world would be an even lonelier place for our Jewish state.

Within the past several weeks, the US Congress approved and President Barack Obama signed into law an FY 2010 aid package to Israel that includes $2.22 billion in security assistance. This brings the total amount of aid for the year to $2.775 billion. About 75 percent of these monies will be spent in the US. In addition, the US provides "virtual aid" in the form of loan guarantees.

Especially at a time when Americans are hurting economically, this financial support to Israel is deeply appreciated. In light of our shared values and mutual interests, the American people should know that they can always count on Israel.

ISRAELIS also recognize that America has interests elsewhere in our region. For instance, although the US now gets most of its imported oil from non-Arab sources, Saudi Arabia remains a major supplier of crude. Washington has an interest in bolstering Arab allies who may feel threatened by Persian imperialism.

For decades administrations have been selling advanced weapons to Arab states even when Israel strenuously protested these transactions.

Now, according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, an arm of the Pentagon, the Obama administration is about to sell yet more billions of dollars worth of armaments to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

For instance, it plans to sell the UAE 12 of the latest C-130 Hercules military cargo planes and 16 Chinook helicopters. The UAE is also interested in a supply of 400 GBU-24s bunker-buster bombs.

The Saudis are in the market for the latest in anti-tank missiles. And on a more modest scale, Jordan will buy aircraft engines and anti-tank guided missiles.

But the sale of weapons to Egypt is the hardest to fathom. Cairo wants state-of-the-art Harpoon II anti-ship cruise missiles ($145 million); four high-speed missile craft for its navy ($1.29 billion), and 450 Hellfire air-to-surface anti-armor missiles. Throw in 156 replacement engines, plus 24 new F16 fighters, and you are dealing with a lot of firepower.

The Pentagon insists none of this will "adversely affect the military balance in the region."

WE'RE somewhat less sanguine about these weapons. Egypt, which faces no threat from its neighbors, officially spends roughly $2-3 billion annually on its military and fields a 450,000-man standing army - on top of its mammoth domestic security apparatus. Cairo recently established a strategic military relationship with its old partner, Russia, and has reportedly expressed interest in the S-400 anti-missile missile on the pretext that it is worried about Iran.

In the context of a cold peace, Israel's relations with Egypt are on an even keel. True, President Hosni Mubarak, age 81, refuses to visit Israel and has made our foreign minister persona non-grata. But he does cordially receive Israeli leaders. For years he did precious little to block weapons smuggling from the Sinai into Hamas-controlled Gaza; now that he is making an apparently genuine effort, he is facing strident domestic opposition. Having quashed reformist political parties, his most viable opponents are Muslim extremists.

Egypt is a poor country with relatively weak political institutions and no assured mechanism for presidential succession. Its stability is one of Israel's highest strategic interests. Practically half of Egypt's 83 million people are under age 25. Many live on two dollars a day. Compounding the official unemployment level of 9% is endemic structural unemployment. Corruption is rampant; infrastructure is crumbling. Does this sound like a country that needs cruise missiles?

Since 1975, America has invested $14.83 billion in a wide array of AID projects to make Egypt a better place for its people. Helping ordinary Egyptians is where Washington's emphasis can continue to do the most good. Adding to Egypt's considerable stockpile of weapons hardly benefits its people. And such weapons could, heaven forbid, one day fall into the wrong hands.

WHO IS THE ENEMY? WHAT DO THEY WANT? WHAT HAPPENS IF WE LOSE?

Name the enemy



The clear, present and continuing danger posed to Western civilization by the worldwide Islamist terror network cannot be overcome while the American, European and other freedom-loving peoples are neither mobilized nor steeled for the sacrifices ahead.

No serious observer minimizes the perils. The attack carried out in November at Fort Hood by Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-born Muslim, showed the fatal consequences of not intercepting "ticking bombs." And the arrests of Najibullah Zazi, David Headley and five young Pakistani-Americans last year in separate plots against America irrefutably established that homegrown jihadists are a threat - just as they are in the UK, Germany and Spain.

While Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab failed to blow up Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas Day, this attempted mass murder was only the latest proof that an Islamist terror network, with bases in Africa, Arabia and South Asia, cells just about everywhere else, and a noxious presence on the Internet, sees itself in a relentless state of war with the West.

A RECENT New York Times editorial concluded: "Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen? Americans have a right to feel weary. But the [Abdulmutallab] plot is a warning of why it's so important to head off full chaos in Yemen. The last thing the world needs is another haven for al-Qaida."

Indeed. But if Americans are "weary" at this stage of the conflict, it is partly because their leaders - and media - have not properly framed the nature of the threat.

Neither former president George W. Bush, who spoke mostly of a "war on terror," nor President Barack Obama, who speaks in terms of "violent extremists" - and no European leader - has had the courage to say that the enemy is global jihad.

The Islamist danger is not primarily rooted geographically - in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Lebanon, Iran or Arabia - but theologically and politically within the larger Muslim civilization.

The only way Westerners can connect the dots - between, say, the devastating attack against Forward Operating Base Chapman near the Pakistani border in Afghanistan (which claimed the lives of seven seasoned CIA anti-terror operatives), and the attempted ax-murder of a cartoonist in the Danish city of Aarhus over the weekend - is for their leaders to plainly say who the enemy is, what they want, and what is at stake if they succeed.

That US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's first reaction to the attack aboard Northwest Flight 253 was to think that it was unconnected to a larger plot, testifies to how hard it will be to change mind-sets. Even Obama's first reaction was that Abdulmutallab appeared to be an "isolated extremist."

Yet compared to most other world leaders, Obama is positively Churchillian. He has articulated the right goal: "To disrupt, to dismantle, and defeat the extremists who threaten us…anywhere where they are planning attacks…"

He's got the metaphysics right: "Evil does exist in the world." Furthermore, he fully understands the amorphous nature of the enemy, declaring that the "war" is against "a far-reaching network."

The missing link is naming the enemy. Only then will he be able to talk frankly about how hard - and necessary - it is to find trustworthy Muslim allies.

The murdered CIA agents were likely betrayed by Afghans they trusted. Al-Qaida in Yemen was revived partly when terrorists were freed in a prison break, possibly orchestrated by renegade elements of the Yemeni secret police.

EVEN IF Western leaders did mobilize their societies, the struggle against the Islamist menace would remain wearying. This is an enemy that is often embedded among civilians and enforces allegiance by beheading those it suspects of disloyalty. Citizens need to know this, to understand why innocent children are sometimes accidentally killed in military operations conducted by allied forces.

Obama needs to tell Americans and Europeans willing to listen that, though the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists, pretty much all terrorists are Muslim, hence the need for profiling.

An overstretched army, supported by a weary home front, against an ill-defined enemy, does not offer a viable strategy for success. Better to tell people that the enemy is radical Islam, which wants to spread its religion using the sword, and that defeat would mean an end to Western values of pluralism, minority rights and democracy.

Can the West maintain its soul in the face of the Islamist war againt our civilization?

The meaning of 443


Eli Cohen, 29, was heading home on Route 443 on the night of December 21, 2000, when his car was sprayed with automatic weapons-fire by Palestinian terrorists.

When the High Court of Justice this week, unhappily marking Cohen's 10th yahrzeit, ordered the IDF to lift its blanket ban against Palestinian traffic on that same road, reactions were predictable.

On the Right, there were accusations that Court President Dorit Beinisch was recklessly disregarding Jewish lives; on the Left, there were assertions that the road should never have been built in the first place.

A FEW days after the Cohen murder, an ambush wounded two other motorists. The IDF attempted to secure the highway while keeping it open to Palestinian traffic filtering in from adjacent villages and Ramallah. But the attacks continued and Israeli motorists petitioned the High Court, complaining that they felt abandoned by the army.

In August 2001, three more Israelis were killed. Sporadic sniping, rock-throwing and firebombings forced many commuters to abandon the road.

In 2002, the IDF began restricting Palestinian traffic, though it did not issue a formal ban until 2006 when an Arab motorist from Jerusalem, mistaken for a Jew, was murdered on the road.

By August 2007, the security situation had dramatically improved and B'Tselem began lobbying to lift access restrictions because of the detrimental impact they were having on ordinary Palestinians.

The advocacy organization also held that securing Israeli motorists beyond the Green Line had a downside - it solidified Jewish claims to Judea and Samaria. Soon foreign campaigners launched protests along Rt. 443 demanding free access for Palestinian traffic.

Then in March 2008, the High Court began hearing testimony in a case brought by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel on behalf of the very villages from which some of the attacks against Rt. 443 drivers had emanated. Plainly, if the court opened Rt. 443 to Palestinian traffic, a precedent might be set against blanket closures on even more dangerous roads deeper in the West Bank.

As the justices were putting the finishing touches on their decision, security forces discovered the remains of a bomb planted by Palestinian terrorists along the 443 road.

TO THE Right, we would point out that Beinisch and Justice Uzi Fogelman (with Justice Edmond Levy dissenting) felt international law gave them no recourse but to order that the ban be lifted. The highway cuts through territory the international community deems "occupied," and land for its expansion was expropriated exclusively on the legal grounds that it would benefit Palestinian Arab motorists.

Intifada violence forced the ban; the absence of Palestinian traffic made the road safe again. Under these paradoxical circumstances, a road that was sanctioned only because Palestinians were supposed to benefit from it could not forever remain the exclusive preserve of Israeli drivers.

The justices told IDF commanders that they could control Palestinian access to Rt. 443 depending on the security situation. That approach, of course, was tried and failed in the early 2000s. The law may be an ass but the justices should not be demonized.

To the Zionist Left, troubled because 14 kilometers of Rt. 443 cuts through the "occupied West Bank," we would point out that, actually, the access arteries to Rt. 443 begin in "occupied east Jerusalem" and together are integral to Israel's control of the capital.

Israel has no internationally recognized borders on the Palestinian front. We have only the 1949 Armistice Lines, which left us with Highway 1 - a narrow, winding, hard-to-defend, uphill corridor to Zion. Even it briefly crosses the Green Line near Latrun.

All this makes a second artery that connects the capital to the coastal plain - Rt. 443 - a strategic necessity. So of course it should have been built. And Israeli negotiators will push hard to make it part of sovereign Israel in any final-status accord with the Palestinians.

A FREE society's first imperative is survival; its second is not to lose its soul.

How to harmonize these essentials will continue to be a key challenge in the decade ahead.

As increasing numbers of Westerners are realizing this holiday season, those who would bring down airliners, blow up trains - and, yes, shoot Israeli commuters dead - are also daily challenging our capacity to uphold civil liberties.

George Mitchell on his way back to the region

[The mediator and the 'moderate']


Terms of reference

After 100 years of conflict, Arabs and Jews have seen peace envoys come and go; peace plans rise and fall. While these efforts have not always been driven by altruism, certainly America's are rooted in good intentions.

Obama administration peace envoy George Mitchell is now trying to coax the comparatively moderate Mahmoud Abbas back to the negotiating table by offering customized "terms of reference" memos (TOR) for a way forward to him and Binyamin Netanyahu.

According to Arab press reports, Abbas wants to see the Saudi-inspired Arab Peace Initiative, the Oslo Accords, Road Map and Annapolis all cited in his TOR. And he wants negotiations to pick-up from Ehud Olmert's last offer - the one Abbas never bothered responding to.

Plainly, the TORs presented to the respective sides need to be harmonious, otherwise only an illusion of momentum is achieved, though some peace-processors argue that even mere talking is a desirable interim goal to calm a volatile atmosphere.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton essentially provided Israel with the TOR it needed back on November 25 when she stated: "We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements."

Thus the administration, after a year of driving down the wrong road, is now back to where the Bush II White House had constructively left matters - meaning that there can be no return to the 1949 Armistice Lines, and that agreement hinges on land swaps, on Israel's retention of strategic settlement blocs and on the Palestinians accepting the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state.

Talks can resume as soon as Abbas drops his prerequisite demand for a total settlement freeze everywhere over the Green Line.

AN ADMINISTRATION that wants a breakthrough peace agreement in 2010 might also want to rethink its own terms of reference. Here are some suggestions:

• The less the US says about construction in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem the better. Palestinians know that Israel is not going to tear down Neveh Ya'akov, Pisgat Ze'ev, East Talpiot or Har Homa. They argue, however, that the bigger these neighborhoods get, the less space the Arabs will have after a peace deal. All the more reason, Mitchell should be telling Abbas, to hasten back to the bargaining table and stop behaving as if he had all the time in the world.

That said, we think it is unhelpful for Israel to create pocket Jewish neighborhoods with negligible security utility in built-up Arab sections of the capital. Not every Jewish right needs to be exercised.

• The administration has modified its initial fixation on settlement construction. Once the two sides agree on permanent boundaries, settlements on the "wrong" side of the border will be dismantled. Meantime, Israel has taken the extraordinary step of ordering a moratorium on new construction encompassing even the strategic settlement blocs.

The administration now needs to take on board that the settlement issue is a red-herring.

• Israelis do not want to see Iranian or al-Qaida camps popping up in the West Bank within walking distance of our major population centers. The sooner the administration incorporates the concept of a demilitarized "Palestine" into its peacemaking, the faster progress can be made.

A workable mechanism for Israeli and international oversight of crossing points between the West Bank and Jordan is equally essential.

• There can be no "right" of Palestinians refugees and their descendants to "return" to Israel proper. Palestinian demands for abandoned property reparations will be countered by the parallel demands by Jewish refugees and their descendants of Arab countries. The administration must tell Abbas to start preparing his people for this reality.

ONE FINAL suggested term of reference: The administration's Iran policy is the peacemaking lynchpin. The quicker the mullahs are defanged, and Hamas and Hizbullah deflated, the sooner moderate Arab elements may be willing to take chances for peace.

We applaud the president for speaking out personally Monday in support of the Iranian people protesting against the Khomeinist regime.

The more he leans on Iran, the closer the region gets to peace.

Make it 1979 all over again

[The worst was yet to come. The late Shah]



What the leaders of the free world can do to support the people of Iran



Looking back from the perspective of more than three decades, the exile of the Shah of Iran and the country's fall to Islamist tyranny in 1979 was arguably the West's worst geo-strategic setback in the second half of the 20th century and doubly disastrous for Israel.

Those who had hankered for change on the grounds that anything would be an improvement over the Shah and his Savak secret police were mistaken. Once in power, the revolution began consuming its own.

A coalition of middle-class reformists, students, intellectuals, leftists and Muslim hard-liners had created an enormous populist movement that forced the cancer-ridden Shah from the throne. But the religious extremists, galvanized by their forbidding leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, were the organizational backbone of the revolution. By intimidating, torturing or killing anyone who stood in their way, they solidified their grip on power.

Today, however, this Khomeinist regime has squandered its popularity and is the target of widespread bitterness, for its suppression of freedoms once tolerated and for stealing outright an anyway rigged presidential election. The core of the opposition comes from disenchanted Islamists and has spread like wildfire to other sectors.

As if to replicate the fall of the Shah, the opposition - though fragmented and lacking a clear plan - has exploited political and religious holidays to send masses of its supporters into the streets. Many now risk being openly photographed.

In response, the Khomeinists have fired at protesters in Teheran, even as the unrest has spread to Tabriz, Shiraz and elsewhere. Despite the regime's best censorship efforts, the world is watching a blood-and-fire uprising in the streets.

On Sunday, an adult nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi was assassinated. He was among some 15 killed by Khomeinist forces as Shi'ite Muslims marked Ashura, which commemorates the martyrdom of Hussein - and is the source of the schism between Shi'ites and Sunnis.

When a Shi'ite government shoots Shi'ites on Ashura, its legitimacy has reached a nadir.

The widespread rioting indicates that regime transformation - if not the outright change many Westerners want - is within reach. The regular police are unable (sometimes unwilling) to stop the protesters.

But Khomeinist shock troops can be expected to do whatever it takes to retain power. Leading opposition figures have been picked up by the secret police. Since the bogus elections in June, at least 400 dissidents have been killed (some sadistically tortured) and over 50 people are missing.

Still, the authorities must be loath to defend "Islamic government" with an uninhibited slaughter of believers by the thousands.

IN SOLIDARITY with ordinary Iranians who are risking so much, the minimum leaders of freedom loving countries ought to do is keep their Teheran-based ambassadors home beyond the Christmas/New Year holidays.

Moreover, why should we not see one Western leader after another interrupt their own vacations to personally speak out in support of the Iranian people's campaign to transform their political system?

As we were going to press, US President Barack Obama was scheduled to interrupt his getaway in Hawaii to speak to reporters. We are hopeful he'll talk about Iran because he said this to the mullahs in his inaugural address: "To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

Those fists are more hatefully clenched than ever.

Will Japan's new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama raise his voice for the Iranian protesters? France's Sarkozy? Britain's Brown? Germany's Merkel? Not their foreign ministers or spokesmen, but the leaders themselves.

This is also the time for Western countries to accelerate clandestine backing for separatist forces in Iran. Selig S. Harrison, a renowned regional expert, writing in The New York Times, called the Kurdish, Arab and Azeri desire for autonomy the greatest threat to the Persian elite.

Since this regime cannot be usefully engaged, it needs to be destabilized - from every possible direction.

The more the Iranian people believe the free world is behind them, the more willing they will be to stay in the streets - and the harder it will be for the Khomeinists to muster the nerve to crush their overwhelming sentiment for change.

Nightmare for air travelers ...

Expect avoidable delays

Against the relentless menace of Islamist terrorism, Westerners need to find a middle ground between a state of permanent - and unsustainable - high-alert, and the reckless attitude of "What, me worry?"

The days when travelers could journey by air without fear of their planes being hijacked are history. So, too, are the days when Israeli authorities could reasonably think that removing security checkpoints in Judea and Samaria would have no fatal consequences.

First the West Bank: The security services are to be commended for an outstanding operation Saturday which liquidated three Fatah terrorists responsible for last Thursday's drive-by murder of Avshalom Chai, a 45-year-old kindergarten teacher and father of seven. One of Chai's killers had been released recently from an Israeli prison; another had promised to eschew terror in return for amnesty.

The killers were tracked to two dwellings in Nablus's Old City, part of a larger sector under Palestinian security control. The cell may have been Hizbullah-run, or overseen by extremist Fatah leaders, or may have acted autonomously. We know only that ballistic tests connected the three to the Chai shooting.

The European-funded advocacy group B'Tselem criticized Israel's failure to take the hardened terrorists alive. But from the data available, we believe that Israeli forces - operating for hours in a hostile environment - acted prudently. We note that B'Tselem did condemn the murder of Chai by reiterating its view that deliberate attacks against civilians are a war crime.

It's hard to know whether reinstating the roadblocks in the greater Nablus area, which the government recently removed at the behest of the Obama administration, will prevent future attacks against Israeli motorists in the northern West Bank. Checkpoints cause inconvenience to Palestinian commuters by extending journey times. But there is often no way to intercept terrorists without inconveniencing the general public - not on a northern West Bank road and not at international airports.

Those who defend freedom must make it hard for terrorists to disrupt the lives of innocents while minimizing the misery caused them in the process.

ONE way to reduce inconvenience and increase security at busy airports is by a greater use of profiling. Farouk Abdulmutallab should not have been free to try and blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 with 289 people on board over Detroit on Christmas Day.

Profiling would likely have identified the 23-year-old engineering student as a potential Islamist terrorist; he would have been methodically searched and stopped at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.

Abdulmutallab, the privileged son of a banker, got his US visa in London in 2008. Family members told The Daily Telegraph that the bomber had been radicalized while a student in Britain. To his credit, Abdulmutallab's father recently warned American consular officials in Lagos that his son posed a danger. The young man was then placed on a catch-all anti-terrorism database, but not on the "no fly" blacklist that would have prevented him from boarding any US-bound airliner.

Mercifully, an alert passenger subdued Abdulmutallab just as he was igniting his explosive device. Those responsible for security in Lagos (which he may have reached from Yemen) and in Amsterdam (where he changed planes for Detroit) need to explain how they let him get on an airliner with a concealed syringe and the crystalline high explosive, pentaerythritol, sown into his underwear, reportedly, in a condom.

IN response to the Abdulmutallab affair, US and European authorities are initiating more stringent and time-consuming searches of all passengers. Absurdly, travelers headed for the US may be required to remain seated during the final hour of their flights - no toilet - and will not be allowed to keep anything on their laps.

Rather than adding profiling to security procedures, thereby identifying possible Islamist terrorists - protecting the rights of the many while infringing minimally on the rights of the very few - all passengers will be subjected to unnecessary, sometimes painful, inconvenience.

The alternative to profiling is requiring all passengers to go through whole-body imaging scanners that can reveal objects beneath a person's clothes. But these devices are pricy and raise all sorts of civil liberties issues.

Unless Western decisionmakers reverse course, their adamant and misguided refusal to utilize profiling will senselessly subject millions of air passengers to a form of collective punishment.

Does Kadima deserve to live?

[Profound ideological differences...not]


Netanyahu tries to throw a party


Hearken back to the great ideological divisions of the Zionist movement: Weizmann versus Jabotinsky, Ben-Gurion versus Begin, Mapai versus Herut.

In stark contrast, the waning days of "the Naughties" will be remembered for Binyamin Netanyahu's thwarted machinations to entice Kadima Knesset members to quit their party and join his government - not out of principle, but for patronage.

While Israelis worried that Netanyahu was exhausting himself grappling with the emotionally draining Gilad Schalit affair (he kept rushing home to rest and take medication for a sore throat), it turned out he had the energy to oversee the final moves in a months-long behind-the-scenes scheme to dismantle Kadima by luring at least seven of its 28 legislators into joining his coalition. He offered cars, offices, budgets, even a golden parachute to nervous defectors.

The late Yitzhak Rabin similarly enticed Tsomet Knesset members Gonen Segev, Esther Salmovitz and Alex Goldfarb to defect his way in 1995. Their support proved critical in passing the Oslo II accords 61-59. Rabin's scheming ultimately shattered Tsomet, but at least he was inspired by principle - an ill-fated quest to make peace with Yasser Arafat.

In contrast, Netanyahu's desire to splinter Kadima involved no discernible matter of principle, merely a desire to widen his political base and a goodly measure of revenge.

Tzipi Livni put her interests first in March 2009, by refusing to join a Netanyahu-led government which could have been stable, centrist and reformist. Instead, she forced him to cobble together a coalition that depends on the Orthodox parties, thereby stymieing desperately needed electoral reform, a gateway to solving a range of systemic problems plaguing the political system. Livni haughtily predicted Netanyahu's government would fall within a year and deported herself as the premier-in-waiting. Meantime, she alienated many in her own Knesset faction.

YESTERDAY, Netanyahu finally held an oft-delayed meeting with Livni on national security issues and, citing "the security situation," unexpectedly invited Kadima to join a national unity government. Livni is suspiciously mulling the offer.

By raiding her party, Netanyahu was demonstrating that his grip on power was as solid as her's was shaky. Though he didn't gain any Kadima defectors, he did expose the party's fragile political condition. Under these circumstances, Livni's influence in a Netanyahu government would now be limited.

Even without an assist from Netanyahu, it had become increasingly clear that Livni's flash-in-the-pan popularity was not going to translate into political substance. She and her No. 2, Shaul Mofaz, despise each other. They waited until this week's defection crisis before meeting yesterday to discuss a way forward, but still could not agree. Neither appears to place the interests of Kadima at the top of their agenda, though a split will strengthen neither.

WHATEVER else Netanyahu's gamesmanship foreshadows, it is testament to the end of ideology in Israeli politics. There are few philosophical differences between Netanyahu, Labor's Ehud Barak and Livni. It's all personal. They and their "lean and hungry" understudies agree on just about everything, from how to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians (assuming Israel had a peace partner) to the fundamentals of domestic economic policy.

This realignment of the body politic is, alas, unaccompanied by a mechanism to implement the will it reflects.

AMIDST all of this week's plotting and maneuvering, there is a larger good at stake.

Netanyahu has dragged the Likud kicking and screaming to the political center, sometimes employing methods not found in Roberts Rules of Order. The possibility that his party could yet be hijacked by the radical Feiglin camp cannot be ruled out. Labor, meanwhile, is moribund.

That's why it is essential there to be a viable "third way" party to serve as a potential vehicle for progress and reform. Kadima garnered the most votes in the last two elections. It still harbors a Sharon-esque sentiment for pragmatism that's worth salvaging. Were Livni and Mofaz to knock each other out, perhaps a consensus-building viable new leader would emerge.

The end of ideology should have meant an end to pointless polarization, not an end to principle. The Left cannot promise "peace now" and the Right cannot realistically preserve "Greater Israel."

Ariel Sharon's Kadima established an alternative view to such false either/or political choices - one that's now embraced by the four largest parties in the Knesset.

Despite its failings, Kadima and its legacy are worth preserving.

Pushing lovers of liberty to their limits

[One mullah left the Dark Side.]



A gesture for Montazeri

In the era before cable and satellite television, the news programs on America's three commercial broadcast networks carried a great deal more influence than today. Perhaps that is now beginning to change.

Veteran journalist Diane Sawyer marked her 64th birthday on Tuesday by debuting as anchor of the still popular ABC TV evening newscast. Her first coup - an interview conducted in Copenhagen on Friday with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Trying to sway American public opinion is plainly important to him. Luckily, he's no master of public relations. Ahmadinejad gets bogged down in polemic and circumlocution when a straight answer would serve him better.

On sanctions - he said bring it on; I don't like being threatened while simultaneously being invited to negotiate.

He rejected a Times of London report, datelined Washington, which claimed Iran is testing a nuclear triggering device as "fundamentally not true." The story was based on "fabricated" papers "disseminated by the American government."

Ahmadinejad's message is that there is no Iranian bomb in the works. He told a home audience that if there was one he'd be "brave enough" to say so.

And when Sawyer asked point-blank: "Will you say to the American people, tonight, that Iran will never weaponize nuclear material?" Ahmadinejad replied: "We have got a saying Iran which says 'how many times shall I repeat the same thing?' You should say something only once. We have said once that we don't want nuclear bomb. We don't accept it."

Reassured? Neither are we.

Was he concerned that his bellicosity, his flouting of Security Council resolutions and International Atomic Energy Agency rebukes might prompt some country - or countries - to launch a military strike?

Ahmadinejad put on his best Dirty Harry expression: "We don't welcome confrontation, but we don't surrender to bullying either."

Asked about three youthful American adventurers who foolishly strayed into the Islamic Republic from the Kurdish region of Iraq and have been imprisoned, Ahmadinejad insinuated they were spies. When Sawyer said their parents were desperate to contact them, Ahmadinejad offered this non-sequitur: There are 3.5 million prisoners in America.

BACK IN Iran, the death, at 87, of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri - a founding father of the Islamic Republic, who crafted its judiciary system - has galvanized dissident politicians and clerics.

Montazeri's funeral in Qom on Monday brought out tens of thousands of frenzied mourners chanting "God is Great!" When a tepid letter of condolence from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was read, the crowd roared: "Dictator, this is your last message: The people of Iran are rising!"

May it be so.

Let's not fool ourselves; the Iranian opposition is not Western-oriented and certainly not agnostic on Israel. Still, it is significant that former presidential hopefuls Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, along with former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hashemi Rafsanjani, have all latched onto Montazeri as a symbol.

Long ago, the revered cleric broke with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini over the regime's murderous brutality. Recently, Montazeri challenged a basic Iranian myth by calling the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Teheran "mistaken." Significantly, he issued a fatwa against investing in a nuclear bomb. After the contested elections in June, he called for the release of all political prisoners. He courageously criticized the post-election executions carried out by the regime as an affront to Islam.

Unfortunately, for those of us who'd like to see regime change, the opposition is not yet a cohesive movement and has no concrete strategy. Its limited goals are to overturn the rigged elections and increase freedom of expression.

MEANWHILE, Western leaders are arriving, glacially, at the realization that Iran's duplicitous determination to manufacture nuclear weapons - and perfect the means to deliver them - is not going to be reversed by diplomacy. The Chinese and Russians are likely to enfeeble any effort at a robust sanctions regime; Germany and Italy will find it hard to reduce their dependency on Iranian lucre.

But there is something that's doable right now and doesn't require financial sacrifice or very much diplomatic daring: To signal support for the Iranian opposition, countries which value liberty should opt to indefinitely extend the vacations of their ambassadors now on home-leave for the Christmas and New Year holidays.

Is that too much to ask in honor of Montazeri's memory?

Schalit Case: Between Emotional Blackmail & a Heavy Heart

Fateful decision

A portentous decision on whether to trade Gilad Schalit - who has been in Hamas captivity for an excruciating 1,275 days - for a thousand imprisoned Arab terrorists is now being finalized. The raw anguish of Gilad's parents, Noam and Aviva, has been imprinted on the Israeli consciousness since their son fell into enemy hands on June 25, 2006.

Our hearts tell us to pay Hamas's price.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his top ministers, however, have the terrifying responsibility of acting with both their hearts and minds. Their deliberations cut to the essence of what it means to be Israeli.

Israelis do not want a second Ron Arad affair; Gilad is now so close to freedom, he's virtually touchable. For him to slip away now would be devastating.

Paying Hamas's price, though, would constitute a second "Jibril Deal." That 1983 prisoner swap with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine saw 1,150 Arabs exchanged for three Israeli soldiers. One of those Arabs was Ahmed Yassin; others would become his lieutenants. Together they created Hamas.

There are doubtlessly men of Yassin's "caliber" among the 1,000 Hamas seeks. After his release, Yassin was re-arrested, only to be released in 1997 by Binyamin Netanyahu - during his first term as premier - in yet another prisoner exchange.

Beyond the moral bankruptcy of rewarding past evil, with history as our guide - and with heavy hearts - we assert that Israelis will die if the government obtains Gilad's freedom by acting only with its heart.

Things were not supposed to get this far. Days after our Gilad was taken, Hamas demanded the 1,000 prisoners. Ehud Olmert responded: "We won't let anyone believe that kidnapping is a tool to bring Israel to its knees." Privately, however, the then-premier gave Egypt the green light to commence bargaining. Those talks are culminating now under Netanyahu.

Israel concurrently tried pressuring Hamas. The IDF quickly rounded up 64 Hamas "parliamentarians" in the West Bank; it launched Operation Summer Rains sending tanks and commandos into Gaza in search of Gilad. (When this affair is over, Israelis deserve to know why a soldier held within driving distance of the Ministry of Defense could not be rescued.)

By early July 2006, dozens of Palestinian gunmen had been killed, others taken prisoner, to exact a price for Schalit's continued captivity. Israel temporarily re-took parts of Gaza - for the first time since the 2005 disengagement. Hamas absorbed these blows and responded with intensified shelling against Sderot and Ashkelon.

Relentless Hamas rocket attacks ultimately led to Operation Cast Lead in December 2008. All in all, since Schalit was taken, Hamas's recklessness has cost the lives of well over a thousand Palestinians and left a trail of devastation in Gaza. Yet Hamas remained steadfast in its demands certain that Israel would ultimately capitulate. Indeed, within days of Schalit's capture, then-internal security minister Avi Dichter said publicly what Hamas wanted to hear: that Palestinian prisoners should be released for Schalit's freedom.

NOW, Israelis will be assured that the most lethal of the freed prisoners will be confined to Gaza or exiled abroad; as if there is no two-way traffic in Gaza's tunnels.

And with the absolute sincerity of an alcoholic having one final drink before going cold turkey, the government will assert that the Schalit deal will be Israel's last lop-sided prisoner exchange.

A deal will buttress what Palestinians already believe, that Israelis understand only force. Tomorrow's Palestinian leaders, therefore, will be that much more obdurate. It will become still harder for a credible Palestinian leader - no matter how ostensibly moderate - to abjure violence.

Stopping on a dime will mean that the pundits and politicians who orchestrated the campaign that took matters this far will have some explaining to do. If Netanyahu does pull back, it will be because Israelis were bluffing ourselves as much as we were bluffing Hamas.

A "no" now would take Hamas down a peg. Netanyahu could directly address the Islamists' disappointed constituents, emphasizing that meeting Hamas's rapacious demands would have dishonored him and caused Israel to lose face. Palestinians will understand that. So will Israelis.

He should frankly acknowledge that he was ready for an honorable deal. Indeed, he must stress that he remains ready for an honorable deal.

THE HARROWING ordeal of Gilad's selfless parents touches us all. Their son has become our son.

Nevertheless, Netanyahu must reverse course. The killers should remain incarcerated; if they don't, more Israelis will surely die.

####

A new survey that came across my desk this morning conducted jointly by the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, between December 9-15, 2009 found that a slim majority (52%) believes Israel should pay almost any price to return prisoners of war. I thought the figure would have been much higher. Interesting.

A new poll offers insights into what Palestinians most want

[Another grueling day of 'the occupation.' Pre-Christmas shopping in Ramallah.]



The great disconnect


As Israelis continue to brawl over a settlement construction moratorium that Western powers denigrate as insufficient and Palestinians dismiss as worthless, the West Bank's Palestinian Arab population has reason to feel contented.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has told Western media outlets that the West Bank economy is experiencing an upswing, and that next year could see double-digit growth.

Some 47,000 Palestinians have permits to work in Israel or in Israeli enterprises within the West Bank. About 1,500 VIP business people (selected by the PA) have the right to cross between Israel and the West Bank at any time. Arab citizens of Israel have been encouraged to resume commerce with their West Bank brethren. Crossing points have been upgraded; crossing hours between the West Bank and Jordan have been expanded.

Only 14 major IDF security checkpoints remain inside the West Bank, easing the commute between Palestinian population centers. Unemployment is down to 18 percent (compared to over 40% in Gaza). The local stock market is on an upswing; likewise foreign investment.

A new mall has opened in Nablus. The cornerstone of a new neighborhood in Jenin was laid by PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Plans for a new suburb in the hills of Ramallah for middle-class Palestinians are advancing. A Bethlehem industrial zone is in the works.

Four EU-funded electrical substations are on the drawing boards. A second Palestinian cellular phone company is now online. People are buying more cars. Bethlehem alone hosted a million tourists last year. West Bank imports and exports have exceeded $4.3 billion this year.

HAS THE relative prosperity of West Bankers made them more inclined to compromise with Israel? Not really.

The latest survey of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, headed by Khalil Shikaki, found that most Palestinians would not mind if Abbas retired; they think his talk of doing so is mere posturing.

Sixty-one percent of Palestinians say that Fatah and Hamas are jointly responsible for the continued split within the Palestinian polity. Reuniting the West Bank with Gaza is the Palestinians' top priority, with most saying this goal is more important than maintaining the cease-fire with Israel.

At the same time, if elections were held today, Abbas would receive the support of 54% of the Palestinian electorate compared to Ismail Haniyeh's 38%. Haniyeh's overall popularity among Gazans stands at 43% - not much lower than President Barack Obama's among Americans (49%).

But roughly 40% of eligible voters say - given a choice between Haniyeh and Abbas - they'd stay home.

What if younger blood were injected in the race? What if the man Yasser Arafat entrusted with running Fatah's terror campaign under the Tanzim brand were the moderates' standard bearer? Answer: Marwan Barghouti would take 67% of the ballots compared to 28% for Ismail Haniyeh - while participation would shoot up to 73%.

Were parliamentary elections held today, Fatah would garner 43% versus 27% for Hamas. Broken down by region, Fatah would win 41% of the West Bank and 46% of Gaza; Hamas would capture 23% of the West Bank and 34% in the Strip.

Most illuminating is the rating personal/family safety and security get. In the West Bank the comfort level is 63% (up from 58% four months ago). In the Gaza Strip, 65% of respondents said they felt safe and secure (compared to 63% four months ago).

This comfort level relates not to the economy, but to an end of the Hobbesian lawlessness that prevailed as a result of the second intifada. Gazans are as grateful to Hamas as West Bankers are to Fatah for returning normalcy to their lives - though Gazans acknowledge they have paid a greater human-rights price for their calm.

FROM AN Israeli viewpoint, the heartbreak is that despite a massive investment of resources by the EU and US, accompanied by essential Israeli cooperation, the relatively well-off West Bankers hanker after the imprisoned Barghouti, partly because he refuses to rule out a third paroxysm of violence.

The core attitudes of West Bankers and comparatively deprived Gazans are not poles apart, with so many believing that violence pays. Economic well-being, then, does not obviate political frustration.

Tragically, Palestinian "moderates" are doing precious little to lessen the dissatisfaction of their people, because they have failed to candidly discuss the compromises necessary to achieve viable aspirations.

Orthodoxy's larger communal responsibility1

[The Chief. A reasonable man with an intransigent streak?]


'E' versus JFS


When the British noblemen and ladies formerly known as Law Lords became justices of the Supreme Court, they abandoned the trappings of formality such as wigs and robes. Thus Lord Phillips, president of the court, was bareheaded and attired in a business suit when he delivered Wednesday's historic decision that London's eminent Jews' Free School, known as JFS, could no longer use Orthodox criteria of Jewish identity as the basis for its admissions policies.

The ruling came as an expensive blow to the British Orthodox establishment headed by Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks.

The case involved a 13-year-old boy known as "M" (for purposes of confidentiality) who was refused a place in the oversubscribed faith school because his mother had been converted by a non-Orthodox beit din. The conversion is recognized by Masorti, Reform and Liberals; the father davens in a Masorti shul. Sacks, however, ruled the boy was not halachicly Jewish, and thus not entitled to JFS admission. M's father repeatedly appealed Sacks's ruling, leading, ultimately, to this week's court decision.

Sacks had previously also blocked the admission of a child whose mother had undergone conversion by Israel's Orthodox rabbinate on the grounds that the family had not subsequently led an Orthodox lifestyle.

The losing side has tried to console itself by claiming the 5-4 decision was made by the "narrowest of margins." But a perusal of the 90-page judgment suggests that two of the dissenting justices nevertheless expressed discomfort with JFS policy. Indeed, most of the 13 jurists who have examined the facts and law of the case since it began have sided with M over JFS.

The court did not welcome being asked to resolve this intramural dispute. Still, in setting forth its respectful decision, Lord Phillips explained that the boy had been excluded from the school because of the requirements of "the Orthodox Jewish religion." That led the court to conclude: "One thing is clear about the matrilineal test; it is a test of ethnic origin… by definition, discrimination… on racial grounds."

We can understand that from the court's perspective, admissions policies may not be based on either matrilineal or patrilineal descent. But Judaism is indeed passed down from one's parents. And Jews are a people whose members are not exclusively an ethnic group and not solely followers of a faith system.

THE QUESTION of "who is a Jew" has vexed the Jewish world ever since the Enlightenment, when remaining within the fold became a matter of personal choice.

Clearly, Jewish affiliation cannot reasonably be rooted in a slack identity that demands scant commitment or conflates Judaism with the popular causes of the day; nor can affiliation be meaningful if it is based exclusively on biology.

Mainstream Judaism does not accept that observance of Jewish rituals and a profession of Jewish beliefs alone makes one a Jew. Judaism asks for more.

As Jewish civilization hopefully pursues a golden mean to the identity conundrum, it is unfortunate that Sacks and his dayanim painted M's family into corner, forcing them to seek a solution in the British courts. Could not a more humane and politic alternative have been found?

The court's decision is, however, not the end of the world. Starting with the 2011/12 academic year, Jewish schools (whether they receive state aid or not) will employ admissions guidelines based on religious practice, not ethnicity. The children of converts from the various streams will have access to a Jewish education. We trust those with tenuous halachic ties will be inspired by their learning to find appropriate channels to strengthen their Jewish affiliation. Paradoxically, Britain's ultra-Orthodox schools will feel no impact; they have always insisted on a particular faith lifestyle as a prerequisite for admission.

THE LARGER lesson here is that when Orthodoxy is accepted by the state as the authorized expression of Judaism, it ought to exhibit greater humility and tolerance toward other Jews - whether over the interment of a Masorti boy within a Spanish Jewish cemetery, or over sharing religious space at the Western Wall plaza.

The Orthodox have every right to set standards for their stream, but when their clergy are called upon to act in a fiduciary capacity for the entire community, they need to show greater forbearance and love.

Close your eyes & think of England

We're all Tzipi Livni

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband have been sitting on their hands rather than push through legislation that would make it impractical for anti-Zionist campaigners to conduct "lawfare" against visiting Israeli officials.

The latest episode in which, to paraphrase Karl von Clausewitz, law is used as the continuation of war by other means, involved the threat to arrest former foreign minister Tzipi Livni on the nonsensical charge that she committed war crimes during Operation Cast Lead. According to yesterday's Guardian, a British court issued the arrest warrant this week only to withdraw it when it turned out that Livni - apparently forewarned - canceled her visit.

Israel's enemies still come away with a propaganda victory because reports that a high-ranking Israeli was accused of such heinous charges chip away at Israel's legitimacy. Note that al-Jazeera on Monday headlined the Livni warrant story instead of immediately going live to Gaza for Hamas's anniversary rally.

The British legal system adheres to "universal jurisdiction" in the matter of war crimes. A magistrates' court need only be convinced to issue a warrant - based on claims by advocacy groups supporting the Palestinian Arab cause - for an Israeli official to be taken into custody for events that had nothing to do with Britain.

In September, Defense Minister Barak was about to be served with a warrant when the Brown government intervened with the court, citing immunity for officials carrying out their diplomatic duties. But Livni might have been exposed to arrest because, unable to schedule a meeting with Brown, her visit to address the Jewish National Fund could have been construed as private.

Pro-Palestinian groups have been engaging in lawfare since 2005, when Maj.-Gen. (Res.) Doron Almog, former OC Southern Command, barely avoided being served with a warrant by remaining on his El Al plane at Heathrow. Unfortunately, he was forced to scrap his mission - to raise funds for adults with autism. There has been a succession of similar attempts against other IDF officers from Aviv Kochavi and Geva Rapp to Moshe Ya'alon; former Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter was also a target.

Those who seek to humiliate the Jewish state mockingly assert that Israel led the way on universal jurisdiction by bringing Eichmann to justice.

PLAINLY, Britain so closely identifies with the Arab position on borders, settlements and Jerusalem that it no longer even feigns diplomatic evenhandedness. For the Foreign Office, the West Bank is simply the "Occupied Palestinian Territories." British officialdom reacted to Livni's near-arrest by releasing the mealy-mouthed statement: "The UK is determined to do all it can to promote peace in the Middle East, and to be a strategic partner of Israel. To do this, Israel's leaders need to be able to come to the UK for talks with the British Government. We are looking urgently at the implications of this case."

What a perfect example of a bunch of words strung together devoid of substance.

The Brown-Miliband government - sadly with the acquiescence of some elements within the British Jewish establishment - has also been promoting a boycott of goods produced over the Green Line on the grounds that a Jewish presence anywhere beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines is illegal. The decision, according to the British Zionist Federation, was instigated by Oxfam (which you might have thought was a nonpartisan charity) and the EU-funded "War on Want."

Too bad London prefers a boycott to a negotiated agreement on permanent boundaries which would equitably resolve the settlement issue. Moreover, Sweden's recently failed effort to have the EU leap-frog negotiations between the parties by preemptively recognizing Palestinian claims to all of east Jerusalem was also strongly backed by the Brown-Miliband government.

Brown twice promised to propose legislation that would hamper lawfare by requiring Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales to approve the issuance of any war crimes warrant.

Some suggest Brown and Miliband have purposefully not fulfilled this promise to chastise Israel. Others say they simply lack the political capital to face down their own rabidly pro-Palestinian backbenchers and - just months before national elections - do not want to be dependent on the Tories to pass a law.

Whatever the explanation, this has not been Britain's finest hour.

Spawn of Ahmad Yassin

Hamas at 22


Time flies when you're spilling blood. Has it really been 22 years since Hamas was established in Gaza as an off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood by Sheik Ahmad Yassin?

Tens of thousands of Palestinians packed a Gaza City square yesterday to mark the anniversary and heard Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh pledge, from behind a podium decorated daintily with orange, white and red flowers, that Hamas would never make peace with Israel.

Propagandists for the Palestinian cause are wont to refer to the territory as "an open-air prison for its 1.4 million residents." In truth, it's more a working model of what a Hamas-led Palestine would look like.

Granted there is plenty of desperation and misery in Gaza - much of it self-inflicted. Women may not be seen astride motorcycles. Couples strolling along the beach have been stopped by police and asked to produce proof of marriage. The freedom of Palestinian journalists to write critically about Hamas is limited, otherwise they might expose the campaign of abductions, unlawful killings, torture, and death threats against critics of the regime.

Hamas considers all of "Palestine" an Islamic trust and itself in a permanent state of war with the Jews. Beginning with the 2005 disengagement and dramatically intensifying after Hamas's takeover of the Strip from Fatah in 2007, Israel has maintained a blockade.

Concrete and steel are embargoed - Hamas would use these for military purposes. But Israel does allow a constant flow of humanitarian goods to go in; 698 trucks last week - not counting a special convoy containing books and stationery donated by Qatar. Unlike prevailing conditions in some Organization of the Islamic Conference states, there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Still, as long as Hamas chooses war with Israel, we'd prefer that Gaza's civilian needs be met via its border with Egypt.

ALL IN all, it has been a decent year for Hamas. Much of its leadership survived Operation Cast Lead by hiding in hospital basements. It did not find it too hard to replace tons of lost weapons - via smuggling tunnels beneath the Philadelphi Corridor - and reconstitute its cadre of commanders. In fact, it now has missiles that can strike Tel Aviv.

Egypt is plainly unable - perhaps unwilling - to stop the smuggling despite advanced equipment and training provided by the US.

Hamas also managed to keep Gilad Schalit's whereabouts secret from IDF intelligence for yet another year. And it continued to brainwash Palestinian children to hate.

The military setbacks suffered by Hamas during Operation Cast Lead were more than offset by a cornucopia of diplomatic benefits thanks to the Goldstone Report and post-war media coverage which accepted Palestinian assertions that most of the war's casualties were civilians and that Israel's use of force against Hamas was "disproportionate" and immoral.

Hamas continues to receive strong military backing from Teheran. On Sunday, its Damascus-based politburo chief, Khaled Mashaal, was hosted by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He urged Hamas not to go wobbly on Israel.

He needn't worry. It is unlikely that Hamas will experience a metamorphosis in 2010 and agree to end terrorism, accept Israel's right to exist and embrace the agreements ratified by the Palestinian Authority.

That is too bad. Because divided between Fatah and Hamas, the Palestinian polity is immobilized. The idea that Mahmoud Abbas will find the courage for genuine give and take at the negotiating table while Hamas breathes down his neck is risible. And if the Netanyahu government assents to a lop-sided prisoner release, Hamas's strength and Fatah's weakness will become even more pronounced.

Given that Israel is not prepared to seize the Gaza Strip from Hamas's clutches and that neither Palestinian elections nor a Palestinian unity government would solve the Hamas problem; and that moreover, Hamas in contrast to Fatah offers coherence and discipline, Nathan Brown of the Carnegie Middle East Center wonders if perhaps Israel should not explore a Machiavellian modus vivendi with the Islamists.

It is an approach some Israeli strategists, including ex-Mossad chief Efraim Halevy, would be prepared to consider… if only Hamas would stop reminding us - as Haniyeh did at yesterday's rally - that "the liberation of the Strip is just a step to liberating all of Palestine."

Just War Theory & Flirting with Treason

[Obama in Oslo. A disturbing aside about Israel.]



The real price tag


The motive behind the torching of a West Bank mosque early Friday morning was, as the graffiti left behind attested, "To exact a price."

But the vandals who targeted the house of worship in Yasuf struck simultaneously at the sovereign authority of the state. The Netanyahu government's imperfections notwithstanding, the establishment of the Third Commonwealth in 1948 created an overarching Zionist authority. Those who reject it and turn to violence are flirting with treason.

The assailants took it upon themselves to decide when and under what circumstances "the Arabs won't have quiet." To our fanatics, not only do the ends justify the means, but we suspect the means deliver a sick sense of primitive gratification. They have no compunctions about igniting a third intifada - or worse - in order to derail the settlement freeze. Their apocalyptic theology and political hubris tempts them to force the hand of God.

They are men without doubts.

As you would expect, Israeli politicians and clergy from across the political spectrum, including settler leaders, have denounced the attack. Yesterday, a group of religious kibbutz movement rabbis sought to reach the scene of the outrage to express remorse, as did middle-of-the-road settlers from Efrat.

Yet there were also those who either refused to condemn the attack or did so with the kind of equivocation and verbal acrobatics we've come to expect from Palestinian "moderates" reacting to attacks on Jews.

We want to hear more settler leaders and rabbis say - plainly, explicitly and without prevarication - that the Yasuf attack, and the perfidious disregard it symbolizes for the authority of Israel's democratic government, is despicable. Let settler spiritual leaders acknowledge that such vandalism amounts to a desecration of God's name and ostracize those who propagate ideas that encourage such behavior.

IT'S A safe bet that those who perpetuated the mosque attack have little tolerance for anything US President Barack Obama says or does. They've written him off as an enemy of Israel, and the members of Israel's security cabinet as his stooges. The mosque assailants were probably savoring - clandestinely - their moment in the limelight as Obama was delivering his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo's City Hall on Friday.

An eloquent address by an eloquent man is easily taken for granted. It was delivered just as Israelis were ushering in Shabbat, so not many here heard the president outline his worldview. That's too bad, because the speech grappled with how a country can wield power without being corrupted by it; how human behavior can be elevated while accepting the reality of human nature.

Obama drew no applause when he declared that evil was real and pacifism was not the way to confront it. He resurrected a Kennedy-esque Democratic defense of the use of force, making no apologies for US behavior.

He declared that Islam had been defiled by those who kill innocents in the name of God. Adding, "No Holy War can ever be a just war. For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint."

We found ourselves thinking how tragic it would be if Jews fell into the trap that has ensnared Muslims and if ours became a mirror image of violence-ridden Palestinian society.

Obama took his European audience to task for

rejecting the use of force under virtually any circumstances. He discussed the theory of just war, summarizing it as "waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence."

Except for the doctrine of proportionality, which may make sense for a global superpower but could bleed our small country to death, the other principles seem worthy. He also said that America reserved the right to act unilaterally - also a tenet of Israel's security doctrine.

We were discomfited by the president's oblique implication, in referencing the Arab-Israel conflict, that Jews and Arabs fell back in the same manner on "tribe" and "religion" in confronting modernity. That's patently not true.

Yet every time extremist settlers behave badly, the real price tag is that it becomes harder to make the case that the Jewish state is a beacon of enlightenment in a benighted Middle East.