The race begins

John McCain accepted the presidential nomination of the Republican Party last night in St. Paul, Minnesota. But it was Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor who came out of nowhere to become his vice presidential running mate, whose galvanizing speech was received on Wednesday with the kind of euphoria once reserved for Ronald Reagan.

Meticulously crafted, Palin's oration enchanted the delegates and reinvigorated the campaign. McCain might not be able to outtalk Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, but he now has someone on his team who has that potential.

Without overtly running against the incumbent of his own party, McCain wants voters to know he's no George W. Bush; that he'll rebrand the GOP and bring change - the catchphrase of the 2008 campaign - to Washington.

Party conventions were created to broaden political participation, even though traditionally the nominees were chosen by bosses in smoke-filled rooms. A series of reforms democratized the way in which delegates, committed to particular candidates, were selected. These days the nominee is known even before the convention. Still, to unite the party faithful and promote their candidate before the rest of America, the spectacle remains essential.

With both conventions over, there are now just eight weeks before Election Day. Strikingly, only 44 percent of Americans say they have been following news about the campaign - in what is shaping up to be a close race.

IT WOULD be sensible for Israelis to bear in mind that foreign policy does not drive American electoral politics. The big issue is the economy and jobs, with the war in Iraq a distant second. On that, Americans are evenly divided over who is "winning."

It is a salutary fact that the US-Israel relationship is rock-hard and bipartisan; that both Barack Obama and John McCain describe themselves as friends of Israel. Both party platforms are committed to maintaining Israel's qualitative military edge; both take cognizance of the danger a nuclear-armed Iran would pose, and both favor stronger diplomatic and financial sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Democrats and Republicans also agree that Jerusalem should remain the undivided capital of Israel.

But where the rubber hits the road is how these generalities are to be transformed operationally. It is worth reiterating that every Israeli government and every US administration have had disagreements. The interests of the Jewish state and those of the United States are not always in harmony.

Still, by urging Barack Obama and John McCain to move from sweeping statements to specifics, the pro-Israel community needs to assess which of the candidates is the better deal.


Iran: Which man best understands that this is not Israel's problem alone; that the mullahs threaten regional stability and even have imperial ambitions beyond the Mideast? Which one can best restore America's standing in the world and spearhead an accelerated drive to get Europe behind biting sanctions against Teheran? And which - if push came to shove - would be more likely to lead the free world against Iran, rather than wait for Israel to do the dirty work?

Peace: Which man best understands that Israel does not need to be "catalyzed" into peace-making, that it is Palestinian intransigence that has left the negotiations stalemated? Which one is likely to stand by Israel as it resists pressure to withdraw to the 1949 Armistice Lines? Support "1967-plus" - meaning the inclusion of strategic settlement blocs in any final peace deal? Call on Palestinian leaders to abandon demands for millions of Arab refugees and their descendants to "return" Israel proper? Which one will tell Syria to negotiate directly with Israel, without preconditions?

Islamism: Which man would defuse, where possible - but face down, where necessary - the Islamist threat to Western civilization? Which one best comprehends that Hizbullah, Hamas and al-Qaida are embarked on a winner-take-all jihad against freedom and tolerance - and that they must be routed?

For America, foremost, but also for all of us whose reality America so significantly influences, it would be well if, on November 3, Barack Obama and John McCain echoed the sentiments of Adlai Stevenson on the eve of Election Day, 1952: "Looking back, I am content. Win or lose, I have told you the truth as I see it. I have said what I meant, and meant what I said."

The Sarah Palin shocker

Wasn't it impressive how Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain was able to keep the selection of his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, 44, a secret until an hour before the official announcement last Friday?

Sen. Barack Obama had earlier done a good job of keeping the Democratic vice-presidential choice, Sen. Joseph Biden, a surprise.

It's reassuring that there are still some politicians who can keep a secret.

Less classy, however, was how Palin diverted attention - when she was introduced to the media - from the out-of-wedlock pregnancy of her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, by having the girl hold the governor's new baby. More on this later.

OBAMA'S CHOICE of Biden left me unmoved. Obama should have swallowed his pride and begged Hillary to be his running mate. She would have jumped at the chance - and old Bill could have been shut up with an appointment to the Supreme Court. An Obama-Clinton ticket would have been pretty unbeatable.

Biden first captured my attention in the 1970s because of the publicity he got over a series of partially successful hair transplants - let's just say it's an issue I track.

Since 1988, Biden's been a perennial presidential candidate. He roots for Israel when we're under attack, but probably won't support Israel's quest for safer boundaries. He's long opposed the presence of Jews in Judea and Samaria. And it's unlikely he'll be leading the charge against keeping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Still, in picking another liberal senator, one with a strong Washington and foreign policy resume, Obama has done himself no harm.

WHEN YOU apply the "above all, do not harm" yardstick to McCain's selection, the results are far less straightforward. Sarah Palin's trajectory runs from her PTA to the Wasilla city council and mayoralty - Wasilla is 50 km. north of Anchorage - to, in December 2006, the governor's mansion.

John McCain reportedly met Palin just once, six months ago, before summoning her last week and offering her the job. She must have made a good first impression.

There's little question that in selecting Palin, McCain was focusing more on his electoral strategy than on what might happen after inauguration day. In that sense he reminds me of Ariel Sharon, who assumed he'd be around to manage politico-security affairs for years to come.

Politically, the choice of Palin seemed smart - at least until the story about Bristol's pregnancy broke.

McCain is distrusted by social conservatives. Palin's credentials as a reform-minded, pro-life, pro-gun, family values, frum Christian - someone who didn't hesitate to tax big oil or challenge the country-club wing of the Republican Party - certainly help shore up this important Republican constituency, which might otherwise have stayed home on election day.

Selecting what everyone assumed was a super-mom with charm - a mother of five, the youngest a Down syndrome child - has its appeal. Her main concerns, like those of most Americans, are domestic. If Biden tries to embarrass her in a debate by asking about the capital of Tajikistan (Dushanbe), he'll only make himself look smug. Most regular Americans don't know it, either.

At first the only controversy surrounding Palin involved her attempt to get her former brother-in-law fired from his job as a state trooper. She's said her sister's ex threatened to kill their father.

But Bristol's pregnancy generates lots of questions: How can we believe that McCain knew about the 17-year-old's condition yet still selected Palin? My bet is he didn't know. And if he didn't, what does that tell you about the people McCain turns to for advice?

On the other hand, more than a third of births in America are to unmarried mothers. In places like New York City, a majority are out of wedlock. It's not the pregnancy that's such a big deal, it's the sense that Palin is a hypocrite. But maybe that's not the way Christians will see it. After all, didn't Jesus teach: "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone..."

PALIN'S LACK of experience outside Alaska is very troubling. But I'm hoping that if he wins, McCain, 72, is going to be around long enough to mentor her.

In truth, as the Democrats correctly pointed out when Obama was being criticized for lack of experience, the Bush II administration was top-heavy with seasoned national security types: Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney - and they managed to lead America into a pointless war in Iraq.

Speaking of Iraq, let's pray that McCain will do an about-face, decide that the government of Iraq is "capable of governing itself" and honor Baghdad's request for a troop withdrawal by 2011. He'd also be wise to rethink his commitment to keep US troops on the ground until the first Jeffersonian democracy in the Arab world takes shape.

But what if Palin does have to become the commander-in-chief sooner rather than later?

The Obama campaign is dismissive: "John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency." I'm not going to make believe they don't have a point. But for me, the even bigger question is whether Palin has the temperament, judgment and wisdom to be president. She doesn't have much executive experience - Alaska has only 700,000 people. Obama, of course, has no executive experience at all.

It's OK with me if she believes God created the world, and that maybe the threat of global warming is not quite as dire as Al Gore would have us believe. I'm more concerned about her character. Can she keep an open mind, can she analyze situations on a case-by-case basis - or will theology and ideology predetermine her decisions? Can she - for example - accept that abortion is a personal choice and should not be criminalized?

As for the Jewish angle, I'm relieved that McCain passed over two Jewish politicians - Congressman Eric Cantor and Senator Joe Lieberman. He also passed over a Mormon, and you don't see them getting their knickers in a twist. I live in a country where practically the entire government is Jewish - and, let me tell you, I sometimes long for a sympathetic Alaskan or Mormon to set matters right.

Something also tells me that Palin will be a powerful voice for making the US less dependent on Arab oil.

Am I bothered that Palin - like a majority of US Jews - has never been to Israel?

If only visiting here inoculated politicians from leaning on Israel to make dangerous concessions. Sometimes it does work out that way. But while Jimmy Carter could draw a topographical map of Israel blindfold, he's become an apologist for Arab intransigence. Bill Clinton was no stranger here, and yet he helped bring about Oslo.

Still, it's too bad that Palin was not on the radar of any major pro-Israel group, and that we know little about her attitude toward Israel, except that she has a tiny Israeli flag in her office.

OF COURSE, Israel isn't at the top of the agenda for most US Jews either. If it were, they'd be pressing Obama-Biden and McCain-Palin to oppose an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice Lines; to support the inclusion of strategic settlement blocs in any final peace deal. US Jews would be demanding that the candidates denounce Mahmoud Abbas every time he openly demands the "right of return" for millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to Israel proper; and they'd want the candidates to say whether they consider the Jerusalem neighborhoods of East Talpiot, Pisgat Ze'ev and Har Homa to be part of Israel's capital or not.

PALIN reportedly wore a "Pat Buchanan in 2000" button. She claims she really didn't endorse the affable anti-Semite. Whatever. I doubt she has a clue about Buchanan's attitude toward Jews. No one has suggested that her brief encounter with Buchanan is akin to Obama's long-term relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Like I said, most Jews won't be voting on the basis of what's best for Israel. And the last time I checked, Moses hadn't returned to say that Judaism and the liberalism of West Side Manhattan were one and the same. So it's outrageous to discount Palin because, in the words of one Jewish political operative quoted in the Post, "There is no Jew outside of Alaska who has had a relationship with her."

Excuse me? We're going to demonize Palin because she doesn't know from knishes?

Palin's husband, Todd, is part-Eskimo. I'd venture to say that, outside Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union, few liberal Jews have met many Eskimos. That's probably because for all these folks' cosmopolitan pretenses, if you don't shop at Zabar's, you don't count. Talk about being parochial.

THE PALIN pregnancy business erupted as I was writing this column - the latest twist in an extraordinary campaign. It's shaping up to be the most fascinating presidential race since I moved to Israel - and stopped voting in US elections.

Protecting Israel's home front

Unlike apartment buildings in New York, London or Melbourne, most homes in Israel come equipped with bomb shelters. Newer dwellings have reinforced concrete "safe rooms," while older buildings rely on communal shelters.

Though they are ubiquitous, Israelis seldom give shelters much thought. Maybe we ought to - given recent statements by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that in any future war, life will not go on as usual. The next conflagration could well "reach the cities and homes of Israeli citizens."

Some, including former defense minister Moshe Arens, argue that such talk moves Israel perilously close to accepting the proposition that nothing can be done to protect the home front. In an interview with the Post, he decried what he sees as the abandonment of Israel's long-standing determination to make the protection of its civilian population the highest imperative.

THE HOME front first came under assault in the 1948 War of Independence, when the Egyptian air force bombed Tel Aviv. Once the IAF came into its own, the skies above were secured and the main threat facing civilians stemmed from terrorism.

Israeli strategists emphasized engaging the enemy on its territory. But, unfortunately, as the instruments of war available to our foes became more varied, shielding the home front wasn't always possible.

In the 1981 Gulf War, 39 crude (in terms of accuracy) SCUD missiles launched by Saddam Hussein's Iraq exploded in metropolitan Tel Aviv, causing damage but relatively little loss of life.

In May 1982 Palestinian terrorists, who then reigned supreme in south Lebanon, unleashed a barrage of 100 Katyushas on northern Galilee. Then, on June 3, Israel's ambassador in Britain, Shlomo Argov, was gravely wounded in an assassination attempt. Israel responded to these Palestinian provocations by launching Operation Peace for Galilee, whose immediate goal was to remove the rocket threat.

On average, two IDF soldiers lost their lives each month in the buffer zone Israel subsequently established in south Lebanon to protect the home front. Yet Israel's new enemy, Hizbullah, nevertheless managed - in April 1996 for example - to send rockets our way. While Israel's tough retaliation helped deliver a period of relative quiet to the civilian population, its stationing of troops on Lebanese soil proved unpopular. It was also a militarily dubious approach, prime minister Ehud Barak claimed.

Barak's abrupt pullout from Lebanon in 2000 allowed Hizbullah to set up shop flush against the border with Israel.

During the Second Lebanon War in summer 2006, Hizbullah's onslaught of 4,000 rockets and mortars reached practically as far south as Netanya, forcing a third of the population into shelters. Forty-three citizens were killed, including seven children. Hundreds were wounded.

In the south, meanwhile, following Israel's 1994 post-Oslo withdrawal from Gaza's Palestinian population centers, terrorists launched thousands of rockets and mortars against Israeli civilians. The situation deteriorated further after disengagement in 2005, when all Israeli citizens and soldiers pulled out of Gaza entirely.

The temporary cease-fire now in place, episodically violated by the Palestinians, is likely to end in grief.

The threats facing Israel's population from enemy projectiles - short- and long-range - are daunting: Iran has recently provided Hizbullah with missiles capable of hitting just about every part of Israel, reports say.

The strategic threats emanating from the arsenals of Iran and Syria, and the more tactical menace posed by Hizbullah and Hamas, demand individual assessment and appropriate counter-measures.

AS RECENTLY enunciated by Olmert, Israel's war strategy is "to bring about a quick victory at minimum cost" without conquering enemy territory yet without showing the kind of restraint the IDF manifested in Lebanon.

For Arens, the failure to conquer and hold enemy territory to put the guns out of range is anathema. He would employ ground action to promptly "eliminate" the "insufferable" threat of rockets in Gaza. He'd do the same with regard to short-range Hizbullah rockets, employing the IAF to handle their longer-range weaponry.

Jews did not return to Zion to sit in shelters, he says.

We urge current policymakers - whatever their chosen strategy - to discard any approach that embraces the irresponsible proposition that Israel's population cannot be protected. The mistakes of the Second Lebanon War must not be repeated, on any front.

Ramadan, 1429

From Granada in Spain and Aubervilliers in France, to Cairo and Jakarta, more than a billion Muslims are this month marking the "handing down" of the Koran. Through daytime fasting, Ramadan, which this year falls September 1-30, is a time to subjugate the body to the spirit.

The advent of Ramadan, which most Westerners would hardly have noticed a decade ago, now merits coverage in such disparate media as the Dallas News and London's Times.

In a passage that Jews who observe communal and personal fast days can identify with, a Muslim contributor to the Times explained that "The late afternoon is always the hardest part of the fast." The Los Angeles Daily News tells its readers that the fast is over only when the "crescent of the moon has been sighted," while The Iowa City Press Citizen empathizes with how difficult it must be to keep the holiday in a place where Muslims are a small minority.

This is also the period when the faithful try to resolve their differences peaceably.

The Pakistani military said it would suspend offensive operations against the Taliban.

As a Ramadan goodwill gesture, Egypt opened the Rafah crossing between Sinai and Gaza.

And Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement announced it is committed to negotiating with Hamas rather than fighting - even though the two sides can't even agree on the time of day. Daylight Savings Time in Gaza ended Saturday, but will last for several more days in the West Bank. Also in Gaza, thousands of government employees, among them teachers and medical workers associated with Fatah, are on strike against the Hamas government.

Curiously, this is also a time when some non-Muslims are prone to blame anyone but Muslims for the violence and frustration so prevalent in Islamic civilization.

For instance, an Agence France-Presse dispatch begins: "As most of the rest of the Islamic world welcomes Ramadan... Palestinians in the Gaza Strip warily brace for another holiday under a crippling [Israeli] blockade."

No mention is made of Hamas's adamant refusal to recognize previous Palestinian agreements, end violence against non-combatants, or even accept the right of the Jewish state to exist. There's nothing about Gilad Schalit; or about tons of humanitarian aid Israel has allowed in; or about the 200 Hamas-authorized (and revenue-producing) tunnels between Sinai and Gaza which funnel, among other commodities, arms, missiles and explosives; or about concerted preparations for further aggression. AFP notes only that "Israel has kept the sanctions in place despite a two-month-old truce with Palestinian militants which has mostly halted rocket fire on southern Israel."

DESPITE the fact that the second intifada was launched from the Temple Mount in September 2000, Israel is going to great lengths to accommodate Muslims from Judea and Samaria who wish to attend Friday prayers on the Mount. Married men between 45 and 50 and married women 30-45 can request entry permission, with the expectation that it will be granted. Men over 50 and women over 45 can enter freely.

In addition, for this month the opening hours of checkpoints between the West Bank and Israel proper are being extended. Palestinian inmates in Israeli prisons will be allowed to receive special Ramadan packages from their loved ones. And Arab citizens of Israel will be permitted to enter PA-controlled Area A, from where all Israeli citizens are normally barred.

To sensitize Israeli soldiers who come into contact with Palestinian Arab civilians during the holiday, the Civil Administration has distributed leaflets explaining the times, dates and customs of Ramadan: "Soldiers [are] directed to show consideration for the population and instructed to avoid eating, drinking and smoking in populated areas, with an emphasis on the crossing points."

RAMADAN may be an appropriate time for Muslims to reflect on the challenges of faith and modernity. Much of the bloodletting in the Mideast and other Muslim population centers takes place among believers themselves - between those who appear ascendant, who want to return Islam to its most bellicose and imperialistic path, and those who seek coexistence with the "other."

Only when Muslims who aspire to live in harmony with those who do not share their faith are able to triumph over the fanatics will peace between civilizations become a reality.

For this, we too pray.

From Humphrey to Obama

On this day 40 years ago, Hubert H. Humphrey accepted the nomination of the Democratic Party for the presidency of the United States. As rioting raged outside the Chicago convention hall, he began his stirring oratory by citing St. Francis of Assisi: "Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light."

Humphrey, who ultimately lost to Richard M. Nixon, may have been the last instinctive friend of Israel to seek the presidency. It was uncomplicated to be a friend of Israel in 1968, even though Robert F. Kennedy had been assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian Arab, only weeks earlier.

It was clear in those days that Israel faced an Arab world that refused to accept a Jewish state anywhere in the Middle East; that whatever its blunders, Israel was fundamentally in the right; that Arab diplomacy from the 1917 Balfour Declaration through to the 1967 Arab Summit in Khartoum was nothing but a litany of rejectionism.

On the night Humphrey accepted the nomination, Barack Obama, born August 4, 1961, was seven years old. For Obama's generation, and even more for the ones following it, political, moral or theological certainties about Israel - or about anything else - are passé.

LAST NIGHT, as this newspaper was going to press, it was Obama's turn to accept the Democratic presidential nomination in Denver. Delegates had decamped to the Invesco Field at Mile High stadium so that Obama could speak in front of 75,000 enthusiastic supporters. Sen. Hillary Clinton had earlier moved that the nomination be offered to Obama by acclimation.

In the course of the convention, delegates heard vice presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden declare that the Bush administration had failed to defeat al-Qaida and the Taliban, "the people who actually attacked us on 9/11," while getting bogged down in the war in Iraq.

They applauded as Bill Clinton declared: "Hillary told us in no uncertain terms that she'll do everything she can to elect Barack Obama. That makes two of us."

The Obama-McCain campaign kicks off in earnest after next week's Republican National Convention, and Israelis have been watching the presidential race with fascination. While the Israel-America relationship is fundamentally solid and bipartisan, Washington and Jerusalem have had their ups and downs in every administration from Harry S Truman to George W. Bush.

We do not take it for granted that both candidates define themselves as friends of Israel - yet friendship has to be backed by substance.

• On Iran, Obama says he does not want Israel to feel as if its "back is against the wall," and wants America "to act much more forcefully." Yet he would also try to talk the mullahs into being better global citizens. What specific steps on Iran would an Obama-Biden administration take in its first six weeks?

• On borders and settlements, this is what Obama told the Post in a July interview here: "Israel may seek '67-plus' and justify it in terms of the buffer that they need for security purposes. They've got to consider whether getting that buffer is worth the antagonism of the other party."

Biden once warned premier Menachem Begin that if Israel did not cease settlement in Judea and Samaria, the US would have to cut economic aid to Israel.

Do Obama and Biden think it is possible to be "pro-Israel" in 2008 while being sanguine over an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice Lines? Where does the campaign stand on strategic settlement blocs and a Jewish presence in such Jerusalem neighborhoods as Gilo, East Talpiot and Har Homa?

• On Palestinian refugees, Mahmoud Abbas has called for the "right of return" to Israel proper for the refugees and their descendents. What's the campaign's position?

IT MAY be unrealistic for Israelis to expect that an administration taking office in January 2009 will empathize with Israel the way a 1969 Humphrey White House might have.

But what the Obama-Biden ticket needs to demonstrate is that backing for a secure Israel living within defensible boundaries is as integral to Democrats today as it was when Hubert Humphrey was their standard-bearer.