WSJ.com - High-Octane Amnesia

JERRY TAYLOR and PETER VAN DOREN write of the new coalition to encourage more energy independence through government intervention in the WSJ.com

The Energy Future Coalition -- the operation overseeing this campaign -- is really an 'Energy Past Coalition' that suffers from a severe case of amnesia. The stated policies that this crowd promotes -- sharply increased subsidies for domestic alternative-fuels industries and aggressive government-mandated conservation -- were textbook economic fiascos when adopted 30 years ago and will fare no better were we to enthusiastically re-embrace them again.

They go on to discuss the government sponsored Synthetic Fuels Corporation which ended up only building one goal gasification plant using $1.5 Billion in federally guaranteed loans and had to be sold for a mere $85 million after bankruptcy. Another example of how poorly government interferes in the energy market.

Government solutions just don't work to solve market problems.

Unfortunately, when it comes to government intervention in energy markets, past is prologue. Ethanol and other forms of biomass energy -- the modern iteration of the Synfuels program embraced by the Energy Future Coalition -- are an open joke among economists and generally opposed by environmentalists. Already on the receiving end of about $1 billion of federal largesse per year, ethanol requires more energy to produce than it yields upon combustion and produces more worrisome air pollution than even conventional gasoline. In the electricity sector, biomass fuels generate more pollutants than natural gas-fired electricity (the fuel that biomass would likely displace), according to a recent survey of the literature by economists Thomas Sundqvist and Patrik Soderholm.

They hit the proverbial homerun with their closing:

However one feels about foreign oil, the belief that government can intelligently pick winners in energy markets or promote conservation in an economically reasonable manner is belied by an avalanche of real-world evidence. The best way to weaken al Qaeda is by killing bin Laden and those who support him, not by subsidizing GM to make cars they wouldn't otherwise make.

State of the Union

DANIEL HANNAN is correct in his article in the WSJ about President Bush's wrong attitude toward the EU and its new constitution.

It is a paradox. George W. Bush, we are forever being told, is a conservative hard man, a scourge of international lawyers, a unilateralist. If he has one guiding principle in foreign affairs, it is a preference for national democracies over supranational bureaucracies. On such issues as Kyoto, the International Criminal Court or the United Nations, he takes the robust view that elected politicians are preferable to unaccountable functionaries. Yet, when it comes to the European Union, he is happy to support the Western world's most remote, backward and antidemocratic project.

European integration, he says, is a force for peace and freedom on Earth. Really? Where? In Iran, where the EU is cuddling up to murderous ayatollahs? In China, where it not only wants to lift the arms embargo but is collaborating with Beijing on the Galileo satellite system to challenge the 'technological imperialism' of America's GPS? In Cuba, where it refuses to back anti-Castro dissidents? Or perhaps within its own borders, where, through the proposed constitution, it plans to transfer yet more powers from elected national assemblies to unelected Brussels commissars?

...When it comes to the EU, though, Washington is still frozen in the Cold War, preferring to humor remote elites over encouraging democratization.

...Where the U.S. Constitution is chiefly concerned with the rights of the individual, the European Constitution is chiefly concerned with the powers of the state. Where the U.S. Constitution (in my version) is 11 pages long, the European Constitution runs to 438 pages. Where the U.S. Constitution restricts itself to delineating the authority of government and establishing a proper balance between federal and state jurisdictions, the EU Constitution busies itself with such minutiae as the rights of asylum seekers and the status of the disabled. Where the Declaration of Independence offers "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights guarantees the right to "strike action" and "affordable housing."

Perhaps President Bush takes the view that, if the Europeans want to lumber themselves with a top-heavy and illiberal system of governance, that is their business. He ought, though, ask himself whether the constitution is in the U.S. interest.

...Every superpower is resented, of course; but there is more to this than envy. Anti-Americanism in Europe has an ideological basis. Consider the areas where EU policy is most directly at odds with that of the U.S.: Iran, China, Cuba, Israel. There is a common theme linking these policy disputes: In each of them, the EU favors stability over democracy.

It is no surprise, then, that the EU should itself be at the point of adopting a constitution that strengthens the rulers at the expense of the ruled. When American critics accuse the EU of hypocrisy for cuddling up to tyrants, they are missing the point. Europe's apparatchiks have never been wild about democracy. When they get a result they dislike -- as when Danish and Irish voters rejected EU treaties, for example -- they simply ignore it. It is only natural that they should extend the same way of thinking to, say, Iraq or Palestine.

...Mr. Bush might glance at Article I-15 of the proposed constitution: "The Common Foreign and Security policy shall apply to all aspects of foreign policy and all questions relating to the Union's security. Member States shall support the Common Foreign and Security Policy actively and unreservedly in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity." It is worth asking whether, if this clause had already been in effect, Britain would have been allowed to join the Iraq war.

The residue of eventhink

Saul Singer writes in JPost about eventhink -- the notion that being evenhanded is more important than siding with right and justice.

It is time we junked eventhink, because it blinds us from seeing, let alone addressing, the root causes of the conflict.

To return to cops and robbers, an anti-crime policy that did not distinguish between criminals and their victims would obviously fail. Yet making such distinctions requires taking sides, and taking sides detracts from mediating, which makes agreements, and therefore peace, harder to reach, right?

Wrong. The disconnect is this: Peace does not come from agreements; lasting agreements come from changing the conditions that cause war.
In our case, war does not come from the lack of a Palestinian state, even if creating such a state were advisable. War comes from the Arab dream of destroying Israel. Anything that helps crush that dream advances peace; anything that encourages it drives peace further away.

We must be honest and recognize that what the current titular head of the PLO, Farouq Qaddumi, said openly on Iranian TV just four months ago is what much of the Arab world still believes: 'At this stage there will be two states. Many years from now there will be only one' (www.memri.org).

According to eventhink, this is not something to talk about in polite company, because it harms the prospects for agreement. But if peace, not just agreements, is the goal, the more the US exposes, condemns and rejects the Arab destructionist dream, the better.

Israel preparing Ashkelon for post-disengagement rocket attacks

IMRA carries the unsurprising story...

Israel Television Channel Two News reported this evening that Israel is preparing for the rocket attacks that are expected to hit Ashkelon after Israel withdraws from the Gaza Strip.

The radar system for tracking incoming rockets and loudspeaker system so that the public can be warned to take cover a few seconds before the rockets slam into the city are already being installed. In addition, the roofs of school buildings are being reinforced.

It was not clear from the report as to what measures will protect the strategic targets located in Ashkelon (tank farms, etc.).

It should be noted that the expectation of rocket attacks against Ashkelon after the withdrawal was presented in the same tone as a report on preparations for bad weather (inevitable).

New York Court Puts Tax Bite On Telecommuting

WSJ on the latest from Big Brother...

In a case that could have wide implications for the growing practice of telecommuting, New York's highest court ruled that a man who lives out of state and works by computer for a New York firm must pay New York state tax on his full income.

The New York Court of Appeals said computer programmer Thomas Huckaby, who lives in Nashville, Tenn., owed New York income tax for his full salary, not just the time he spent working at his employer's New York offices.

Mr. Huckaby, whose home state doesn't have an income tax, paid New York state tax on about 25% of his income over two years for the time he spent working there for the National Organization of Industrial Trade Unions.

The court upheld a state tax-department ruling that all his income should be taxed. That amounts to $4,387 plus interest. However, the ruling could lead to much greater income for the state as it is applied to the growing field of telecommuting.

...Marc Violette, spokesman for state Assistant Solicitor General Julie Mereson, said, "New York provides the job, New York provides the professional opportunity, and New York should be able to tax that income, even if the employee for his own convenience was working outside of New York state."

The issue split the court, and the majority acknowledged the decision could discourage telecommuting. [Oh, really...]

They Already Know the Disengagement Will Be a Failure

Arutz Sheva on what the IDF already knows will happen after the pre-emptive surrender.

Official IDF sources predict that the withdrawal from Gaza will lead to Palestinian terrorism and violence worse than the previous intifadas, writes Yediot Acharonot's senior military correspondent.

IDF sources predict that immediately after the disengagement, the ceasefire is expected to end with terrorist attacks in and from Judea and Samaria. Among the threats are mortar and Kassam rockets on Israel's new toll-way Highway 6, as well as other areas in the coastal plain and the Afula area. The "regular" ambush attacks on roads, as well as attacks on army bases and towns in Judea and Samaria, are also expected.

The IDF Central Command is already preparing for the next round of armed conflict, correspondent Alex Fishman writes. It is assumedthat it will begin in September. The preparations are mainly in the form of trying to stop the massive weapons smuggling from Egypt into Gaza, and from there to Judea/Samaria.

The Palestinian terrorists are heavily-armed, Fishman writes: "Despite the successes in discovering arms-smuggling tunnels [between Egypt and Gaza], in the battle between smuggling and thwarting smuggling, the smugglers have won."

According to army estimates, in the eight-month period between July 2004 and February 2005, over 3,000 assault rifles were smuggled into Gaza, as well as 400,000 bullets, 400 pistols, and 600 kilograms of explosives.

In addition, over 180 anti-tank rocket launchers and 5 anti-aircraft rockets are now in the possession of the Palestinian terrorists.

The army recently intercepted a shipment of RPG anti-tank missile launchers at the Shoket Junction near Be'er Sheva, on their way to the Mt. Hevron region. Some 20 such launchers were recovered over the past year – as opposed to an unknown amount that have made their way in. Once the RPG rockets become a common weapon in Judea and Samaria, Fishman writes, "the IDF will no longer enjoy freedom of movement in its jeeps on the roadways, nor will it be able to use jeeps to pursue terrorists and make arrests in the cities... Is it conceivable that the army will only be able to use armed personnel carriers and tanks in Judea and Samaria? And what about the civilian traffic?"

In short, Fishman sums up, "stopping the smuggling has become a matter of national existence. It is liable to spell the difference between a diplomatic agreement and a comprehensive war against the Palestinians."

The Mossad, the police, the Shabak (General Security Service), government offices, and the army have all begun working in various ways to collect intelligence and try to thwart smugglings, and the work is being concentrated in the office of the Operations Commander in the IDF General Staff.

Fishman notes that three attempts have already been made in the Shomron to launch Kassam rockets. Arutz-7 reported that a plot to manufacture deadly Kassam rockets there was thwarted last week with the arrest of eight Islamic Jihad terrorist cell members in Jenin. Earlier in the month, the IDF discovered a Kassam rocket factory near Jenin.

The ammo railroad

JPost reports on how many weapons have made it into Gaza with the Israeli army pulling back and letting the PA police make an effort to control it. Note the lethality and scale of the weaponry.

What will happen when Israel pre-emptively surrenders and turns over the territory in its entirety to Egypt and PA police?

Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas have intensified their efforts to smuggle weapons from Egypt to cells operating in the territories, with the increasing involvement of Negev Beduin, according to details from an internal Shin Bet document obtained by The Jerusalem Post.

The document revealed that between July and February, 180 anti-tank rockets, five anti-aircraft missiles, 600 kilograms of explosives, 3,000 rifles, 400 handguns and 400,000 rounds of ammunition were smuggled from Egypt into the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

I'm sorry I have to laugh

Maybe people have had enough of treehugger protest tactics.

When 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail.

What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement.

"We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,"one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. "I've never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view."

Another said: "I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot." Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: "Sod off, Swampy."

Greenpeace had hoped to paralyse oil trading at the exchange in the City near Tower Bridge on the day that the Kyoto Protocol came into force. "The Kyoto Protocol has modest aims to improve the climate and we need huge aims," a spokesman said.

Protesters conceded that mounting the operation after lunch may not have been the best plan. "The violence was instant," Jon Beresford, 39, an electrical engineer from Nottingham, said.

"They grabbed us and started kicking and punching. Then when we were on the floor they tried to push huge filing cabinets on top of us to crush us. When a trader left the building shortly before 2pm, using a security swipe card, a protester dropped some coins on the floor and, as he bent down to pick them up, put his boot in the door to keep it open.

Two minutes later, three Greenpeace vans pulled up and another 30 protesters leapt out and were let in by the others.

They made their way to the trading floor, blowing whistles and sounding fog horns, encountering little resistance from security guards. Rape alarms were tied to helium balloons to float to the ceiling and create noise out of reach. The IPE conducts "open outcry" trading where deals are shouted across the pit. By making so much noise, the protesters hoped to paralyse trading.

But they were set upon by traders, most of whom were under the age of 25. They were kicking and punching men and women indiscriminately," a photographer said. "It was really ugly, but Greenpeace did not fight back."

Mr Beresford said: "They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement."

Last night Greenpeace said two protesters were in hospital, one with a suspected broken jaw, the other with concussion.

A spokeswoman from IPE said the trading floor reopened at 3.10pm. "The floor was invaded by a small group of protesters," she said. "Open outcry trading was suspended but electronic trading carried on."

Eighteen police vans and six police cars surrounded the exchange and at least 27 protesters were arrested. A small band blocked the entrance to the building for the rest of the evening.

Richard Ward, IPE's chief executive, said that the exchange would review security but denied that protesters had reached the trading floor. However, traders, protesters and press photographers confirmed to The Times that the trading floor had been breached.

Mr Ward would not discuss whether he would press charges, and said he would not know until this morning if there had been any financial loss.

Greenpeace later started a second protest at the annual dinner of the Institute of Petroleum at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane, in Central London. Greenpeace claimed that five campaigners had got into the Great Hall. About 30 protesters were outside the hotel, some blocking the front entrance by sitting down and locking themselves together, while others sounded klaxons and alarms. Climbers scaled scaffolding to unfurl a banner reading, "Climate change kills, oil industry parties". Copyright 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd.

Sharon's dictatorship

From Prof. Paul Eidelberg

For while Mr. [President George] Bush is committed to democratization of the Arab Middle East, his endorsement of [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon’s (politically divisive) withdrawal plan has prompted Israel’s ruthless prime minister to stifle all opposition to the plan’s implementation by measures which will gradually transform Israel, "the only democracy in the Middle East" into a military dictatorship.

Only a military martinet like Sharon summarily dismisses cabinet ministers merely because they disagree with him. Only a would-be dictator tells his cabinet, as Sharon did on February 13, 2005, "Anyone who speaks or writes against the Disengagement Plan is guilty of incitement"—a criminal offense involving administrative detention for up to six months. This was not an empty threat, especially with Labor entrenched in the government and with Shimon Peres, Oslo’s architect, serving as Israel’s vice premier.

As other writers have observed, here are some of the details of the emerging dictatorship:

Arrests of Jewish demonstrators

Beatings of Jewish protesters

Jail for Jewish demonstrators

Jail for Jews who refuse to be transferred

Jail without trial for vocal opponents of Sharon and his junta

Confiscation without compensation of Jewish homes of those Jews who refuse transfer, or will not voluntarily sign over their homes to the Sharon government, or will not quietly walk out the door the day of transfer

Demolition of Jewish homes, communities, hothouses, graveyards, synagogues in Jewish "settlements" [although Sharon is considering not demolishing them but giving the property as is to the Palestinian Authority because wealthy Arabs from Bahrain wish to pay billions to the PA for it].

Gush Katif will be a closed Military Zone, perhaps before Passover, thus preventing supporters from entering and making "settlers" subject to search and arrest for violation of curfew.

A Special Military Force made up of exclusively secular, non-Jewish IDF and Police is being trained to act solely against their fellow citizens to forcefully transfer them. There will be four Special Forces to every Jewish “settler” citizen.

Special caravans, remote holding areas, and jails previously used for Palestinian Arab terrorists are being set up to incarcerate Jewish demonstrators, and Jewish citizen "settlers" who refuse transfer.

Few people really understand the meaning and political consequences of Sharon’s retreat plan, notwithstanding the obvious significance of the "security fence." That retreat, which, to begin with, will take Israel back to its pre-1967 borders in stages, corresponds to the strategy of phases by which the PLO has ever conceived Israel’s demise.

In the process, Sharon’s phased truncation of Israel—an Israel increasingly vulnerable—will transform this country into a garrison state. The resulting cleavages, especially (but not exclusively) between religious and secular Jews, will tear this country apart and lead to a full-blown military dictatorship. This will be the irony and infamy of the Bush-Sharon Doctrine.

QOTD: Yitzhak Rabin

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin explained on May 6, 1976

There is room [in Israel] for a non-Jewish minority on condition that it accept the destiny of the State vis-à-vis the Jewish people, culture, tradition, and belief. The minority is entitled to equal rights as individuals with respect to their distinct religion and culture, but not more than that.

Solving a Riddle Written in Silver

John Noble Wilford reveals a new find in biblical archeology in the NYT.

The words are among the most familiar and ecumenical in the liturgies of Judaism and Christianity. At the close of a worship service, the rabbi, priest or pastor delivers, with only slight variations, the comforting and fortifying benediction:

"May the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; may the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and grant you peace."

An archaeological discovery in 1979 revealed that the Priestly Benediction, as the verse from Numbers 6:24-26 is called, appeared to be the earliest biblical passage ever found in ancient artifacts. Two tiny strips of silver, each wound tightly like a miniature scroll and bearing the inscribed words, were uncovered in a tomb outside Jerusalem and initially dated from the late seventh or early sixth century B.C. - some 400 years before the famous Dead Sea Scrolls.

But doubts persisted. The silver was cracked and corroded, and many words and not a few whole lines in the faintly scratched inscriptions were unreadable. Some critics contended that the artifacts were from the third or second century B.C., and thus of less importance in establishing the antiquity of religious concepts and language that became part of the Hebrew Bible.

So researchers at the University of Southern California have now re-examined the inscriptions using new photographic and computer imaging techniques. The words still do not exactly leap off the silver. But the researchers said they could finally be "read fully and analyzed with far greater precision," and that they were indeed the earliest.

In a scholarly report published this month, the research team concluded that the improved reading of the inscriptions confirmed their greater antiquity. The script, the team wrote, is indeed from the period just before the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. by Nebuchadnezzar and the subsequent exile of Israelites in Babylonia.

The researchers further reaffirmed that the scrolls "preserve the earliest known citations of texts also found in the Hebrew Bible and that they provide us with the earliest examples of confessional statements concerning Yahweh."

Some of the previously unreadable lines seemed to remove any doubt about the purpose of the silver scrolls: they were amulets. Unrolled, one amulet is nearly four inches long and an inch wide and the other an inch and a half long and about half an inch wide. The inscribed words, the researchers said, were "intended to provide a blessing that will be used to protect the wearer from some manner of evil forces."

The report in The Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research was written by Dr. Gabriel Barkay, the archaeologist at Bar-Ilan University in Israel who discovered the artifacts, and collaborators associated with Southern California's West Semitic Research Project. The project leader is Dr. Bruce Zuckerman, a professor of Semitic languages at U.S.C., who worked with Dr. Marilyn J. Lundberg, a Hebrew Bible specialist with the project, and Dr. Andrew G. Vaughn, a biblical historian at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn.

A companion article for next month's issue of the magazine Near Eastern Archaeology describes the new technology used in the research. The article is by the same authors, as well as Kenneth Zuckerman, Dr. Zuckerman's brother and a specialist in photographing ancient documents.

Other scholars not affiliated with the research but familiar with it agreed with the group's conclusions.

They said it was a relief to have the antiquity and authenticity of the artifacts confirmed, considering that other inscriptions from biblical times have suffered from their uncertain provenance.

Scholars also noted that early Hebrew inscriptions were a rarity, and called the work on the amulets a significant contribution to an understanding of the history of religion in ancient Israel, particularly the time of the Judean Monarchy 2,600 years ago.


"These photographs are far superior to what you can see looking at the inscriptions with the naked eye," said Dr. Wayne Pitard, professor of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern religions at the University of Illinois.

Dr. Pitard said the evidence for the antiquity of the benediction was now compelling, although this did not necessarily mean that the Book of Numbers already existed at that time. Possibly it did, he added, but if not, at least some elements of the book were current before the Babylonian exile.

A part of the sacred Torah of Judaism (the first five books of the Bible), Numbers includes a narrative of the Israelite wanderings from Mount Sinai to the east side of the Jordan River. Some scholars think the Torah was compiled in the time of the exile. A number of other scholars, the so-called minimalists, who are influential mainly in Europe, argue that the Bible was a relatively recent invention by those who took control of Judea in the late fourth century B.C. In this view, the early books of the Bible were largely fictional to give the new rulers a place in the country's history and thus a claim to the land.

"The new research on the inscriptions suggests that that's not true," Dr. Pitard said. In fact, the research team noted in its journal report that the improved images showed the seventh-century lines of the benediction to be "actually closer to the biblical parallels than previously recognized."

Dr. P. Kyle McCarter of Johns Hopkins University, a specialist in ancient Semitic scripts, said the research should "settle any controversy over these inscriptions."

A close study, Dr. McCarter said, showed that the handwriting is an early style of Hebrew script and the letters are from an old Hebrew alphabet, which had all but ceased to be used after the destruction of Jerusalem. Later Hebrew writing usually adopted the Aramaic alphabet.

There was an exception in the time of Roman rule, around the first centuries B.C. and A.D. The archaic Hebrew script and letters were revived and used widely in documents. But Dr. McCarter noted telling attributes of the strokes of the letters and the spelling on the amulets that, he said, ruled out the more recent date for the inscriptions. Words in the revived Hebrew writing would have included letters indicating vowel sounds. The benediction, the scholar said, was written in words spelled entirely with consonants, the authentic archaic way.

The two silver scrolls were found in 1979 deep inside a burial cave in a hillside known as Ketef Hinnom, west of the Old City of Jerusalem. Dr. Barkay, documenting the context of the discovery, noted that the artifacts were at the back of the tomb embedded in pottery and other material from the seventh or sixth centuries B.C. Such caves were reused for burials over many centuries. Near this tomb's entrance were artifacts from the fourth century, but nothing so recent remains in the undisturbed recesses.

It took Dr. Barkay another seven years before he felt sure enough of what he had to announce details of the discovery. Even then, for all their microscopic examination of the inscriptions at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, scholars remained frustrated by the many unreadable words and lines.

About a decade ago, Dr. Barkay enlisted the help of Dr. Zuckerman, whose team had earned a reputation for achieving the near-impossible in photographing illegible ancient documents.

Working with scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Dr. Zuckerman's group used advanced infrared imagining systems enhanced by electronic cameras and computer image-processing technology to draw out previously invisible writing on a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The researchers also pioneered electronic techniques for reproducing missing pieces of letters on documents. By examining similar letters elsewhere in the text, they were able to recognize half of a letter and reconstruct the rest of it in a scribe's own peculiar style.

"We learned a lot from work on the Dead Sea Scrolls," Dr. Zuckerman said. "But at first a processing job like this would send your computers into cardiac arrest. We had to wait for computer technology to catch up with our needs."

As the researchers said in their magazine article, the only reasonably clear aspect of the inscriptions was the Priestly Benediction. Other lines preceding or following the prayer "could barely be seen."

To get higher-definition photographs of the inscriptions, Ken Zuckerman applied an old photographer's technique called "light painting," brought up to date by the use of fiber-optic technology. He used a hand-held light in an otherwise dark room to illuminate a spot on the artifact during a time exposure. In addition, he photographed the artifact at different angles, which made the scratched letters shine in stark relief.

The next step was to convert the pictures to digital form, making possible computer processing that brought out "the subtleties of the surface almost at the micron level." This analysis was particularly successful in joining a partial letter stroke on one side of a crack with the rest of the stroke on the other side. It also enabled the researchers to restore fragments of letters to full legibility by matching them with clear letters from elsewhere in the text.

In this way, the researchers filled in more of the letters and words of the benediction itself and for the first time deciphered meaningful words and phrases in the lines preceding the benediction.

Scholars were particularly intrigued by a statement on the smaller artifact. It reads: "May h[e]/sh[e] be blessed by YHWH, the warrior/helper, and the rebuker of Evil."

Referring to God, Yahweh, as the "rebuker of Evil" is similar to language used in the Bible and in various Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars said. The phraseology is also found in later incantations and amulets associated with Israel, evidence that these artifacts were also amulets, researchers concluded.

"In the ancient world, amulets were taken quite seriously," Dr. Zuckerman said. "There's evil out there, demons, and you need protection. Having this around your neck, you are involving God's presence and protection against harm."

Dr. Esther Eshel, a professor of the Bible at Bar-Ilan and an authority on Hebrew inscriptions, said this was the earliest example of amulets from Israel. But she noted that the language of the benediction was similar to a blessing ("May he bless you and keep you") found on a jar from the eighth century B.C.

If the new findings are correct, the people who wore these amulets may have died before they had to face the limitations of their efficacy. They might then have asked in uncomprehending despair, "Where was Yahweh when the Babylonians swooped down on Jerusalem?"

Other scholars, including those previously skeptical, will soon be analyzing the improved images. In a departure from usual practices, the researchers not only published their findings in a standard print version in a journal but also as an accompanying "digital article," a CD version of the article and the images to allow scholars to examine and manipulate the data themselves.

The research group said, "As far as we are aware, this is the first article to be done in this fashion, but it certainly will not be the last."

QOTD: Haim Harari

QOTD: Haim Harari, the former President of the Weizmann Institute in April 2004

Is the solution a democratic Arab world? If by democracy we mean free elections but also free press, free speech, a functioning judicial system, civil liberties, equality to women, free international travel, exposure to international media and ideas, laws against racial incitement and against defamation, and avoidance of lawless behavior regarding hospitals, places of worship and children, then yes, democracy is the solution. If democracy is just free elections, it is likely that the most fanatic regime will be elected, the one whose incitement and fabrications are the most inflammatory. We have seen it already in Algeria and, to a certain extent, in Turkey. It will happen again, if the ground is not prepared very carefully. On the other hand, a certain transition democracy, as in Jordan, may be a better temporary solution, paving the way for the real thing, perhaps in the same way that an immediate sudden democracy did not work in Russia and would not have worked in China.

Kerry in Summary

Andrew Sullivan, endorsing John Kerry, The New Republic, Oct. 26 via Best of the Web Today - October 27, 2004

"I know few people enthused about John Kerry. His record is undistinguished, and where it stands out, mainly regrettable. He intuitively believes that if a problem exists, it is the government's job to fix it. He has far too much faith in international institutions, like the corrupt and
feckless United Nations, in the tasks of global management. He got the Cold War
wrong. He got the first Gulf War wrong. His campaign's constant and excruciating
repositioning on the war against Saddam have been disconcerting, to say the
least. I completely understand those who look at this man's record and deduce
that he is simply unfit to fight a war for our survival. They have an important
point--about what we know historically of his character and his judgment when
this country has faced dire enemies. His scars from the Vietnam War lasted too
long and have gone too deep to believe that he has clearly overcome the syndrome that fears American power rather than understands how to wield it for good.

QOTD

QOTD Via Paul Eidelberg

What’s needed is wisdom … but there are no wise men in Israel.
Jonathan Netanyahu, May 11, 1975

War is not to be avoided but is only deferred to the advantage of others.
Machiavelli

It will always be found in the end that the only way to whip an army is to go out and fight it.
General Ulysses S Grant

I’ll tell you what war is about. You have got to kill people, and when you have killed enough of them they stop fighting.
General Curtis Lemay

The way to prevent the enemy from attacking you is to attack him and keep right on attacking him. This prevents him from getting set …
General George S. Patton

To base one’s conduct in an important undertaking on faith in the moderation of one of the contracting parties is asking for trouble … Any plan conceived in moderate terms must fail when the circumstances are set in the extreme. Hence, in any situation where each of the possible lines of action involves difficulty, the strongest line is the best.
Metternich

They [Israeli governments] should have responded to these terrorist acts long ago. The fact that they have waited this long, necessitates a reprisal action of major dimensions now. Any minor act after such an extended silence would not be appropriate and would miss the mark.
Jonathan Netanyahu, October 27, 1966

Compromise is the easy refuge of irresolute or unprincipled men.
Metternich

Any compromise [with our enemies] will simply hasten the end.
Jonathan Netanyahu, December 2, 1973

Weaker states can ill-afford merely to react to events; they must also try to initiate them.

We must rely for the execution of our plans on ourselves alone and on such means as we possess.
Metternich

Never take counsel of your fears. Pursue the enemy with the utmost audacity.
General George S. Patton

When called upon to handle important matters, the statesman must tackle them vigorously. For this to happen it is necessary that the course decided upon should not only be clear in the eyes of the Cabinet, but should also be made clear in the eyes of the public.
Metternich

I see with sorrow and great anger how a part of the people still clings to hopes of reaching a peaceful settlement with the Arabs. Common sense tells them, too, that the Arabs haven’t abandoned their basic aim of destroying the State; but the self-delusion and self-deception that have always plagued the Jews are at work again.
Jonathan Netanyahu, November 17, 1973

You ask what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny …. That is our policy. You ask: What is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.
Winston Churchill, May 10, 1940

I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and returned not until they were destroyed. I crushed them so that they are not able to rise; …. I pulverized them like dust in the face of the storm …
King David, Psalm 18:38-43

We have more oil than we can use?????

Boca Raton News carries this interesting article. Dubious?

Among many cultural truisms is that Mickey and Minnie have never slept together, that The Donald will get married again, and that oil is organic, resulting from the earth’s pressure compressing dinosaurs and dead plants.

Nobody believes the first, the jury is still out on the second, but there’s a growing body of thought and evidence that oil is not a "fossil fuel" – that it is, in fact, a renewable resource, one that is being renewed all the time.

"Eventually the world will run out of oil. That doesn’t mean we will all freeze to death in the dark. It simply means that we will pay a lot more for energy," said Dr. Michael K. Evans, president of the Evans Group, an economics-consulting firm in Boca Raton.

President Bush himself has said, "The end of the Oil Age is in sight, and what people need to hear loud and clear is that we’re running out of energy in America."

But what if oil were, in fact, a renewable energy resource? Can you say OPEC heart attack?

Conventional wisdom for three centuries holds that the world’s supply of oil is finite, and that it was deposited in horizontal reservoirs near the earth’s surface in a process that took millions of years.

The theory originated in Russia. Oil originates “as tiny bodies of animals buried in the sediments which, under the influence of increased temperature and pressure acting during an unimaginably long period of time, transform into rock oil,” said Mikhailo Lononosov in 1757. And with relatively little research beyond that thought-to-be common sense assertion, the fossil fuel theory has been parked in our garages ever since.

Enter the word “abiogenic” – defined as “not produced by living organisms”

For more than 50 years, Russian and Ukrainian scientists have been working on a theory that oil is continuously generated by natural processes in the earth’s magma. The theory was first articulated in the Western world following publication of Thomas Gold’s book “The Deep, Hot Biosphere” in 1999. Oil is a “renewable, primordial soup continually manufactured by the earth under ultra-hot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is attacked by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to the dinosaurs,” Gold wrote.

“It could be,” said Dr. Jean Whelan, a geochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. “Some sites, particularly where there is a lot of faulting in the rock, a reservoir from which oil is being pumped, might be a steady-state system – one that is replenished by deeper reserves as fast as oil is pumped out.”

Gulf Coast

Russian petroleum geologists say that the discovery of oil deep in the Baltic Shield points conclusively to an abiogenic origin of oil, according to Gold’s book. But you don’t have to go all the way to the Baltic Sea to witness this phenomenon. Just go to Eugene Island, a submerged mountain in the Gulf of Mexico about 80 miles off the Louisiana coast. In support of the many years of Russian and Ukrainian research, and of the conclusions reached in Gold’s book, one oil field there has increased its production dramatically.

Eugene Island 330 began producing about 15,000 barrels of oil per day in the early 1970s. By 1989, the flow had dropped to 4,000 barrels per day. Then, suddenly, production skyrocketed to 13,000 barrels. In addition, estimated reserves went from 60 to 400 million barrels.

But even more suggestive that the fossil fuel theory is incorrect was the discovery that the geological age of the most recent oil taken out of Eugene Island is radically different from the oil taken out 10 years ago. Similar results have been seen at other Gulf of Mexico oil wells, at oil fields in Alaska, and in Uzbekistan.

Continues

Not everyone agrees: “I have grave doubts” about an abiogenic origin for oil, said Stephan Richter, president of the Globalist Research Center.

And the current oil industry in general seems to believe that oil production has peaked, with some economists arguing that skyrocketing oil prices signify the industry getting as much as it can while it can.

Other energy experts say oil’s decline will mean that coal will make a comeback and that the process by which the Nazis turned coal into gasoline to keep its Panzers running during WW II might arise again. And others argue that nuclear power will be rolled out again, and despite the protests, will go online as necessity overrides environmentalist opposition.

“The only real opponents to this story (of abiogenic origin) are in Western Europe and in the United States, and they are the professional petroleum geologists,” said Dr. Gold, a retired Cornell University professor. The debate continues.

Do Animals have rights? Not in the Bible nor in Judaism, they don't!

Do Animals have rights? Not in the Bible nor in Judaism, they don't! by Steven Plaut

Recent years have seen the growth at the margins of the Jewish community of the United States a number of "Judaism and Animal Rights" groups. They are groups allied to the more general "animal rights" movement, but these are claiming that Judaism and the Bible are themselves authoritative ethical sources for the claim that animals have "rights". A number of books have been published promoting the claim that animal rights have firm foundations in traditional Judaism.

Animal rights have been an ongoing "cause" and banner for the so-called "Eco-Judaism" fringe cult groups and their Tikkun Magazine gurus, including "Rabbi" Michael Lerner (who has no rabbinical ordination from any rabbinic seminary).These are people far more concerned about protecting squirrels than protecting Jews from Islamofascist terror and anti-Semitism, far more worried about the annihilation of whales than about the annihilation of Israel.

Several groups of radical Jewish environmentalists and militant Jewish vegetarians have been promoting the doctrine of "the Jewish foundations" for animal "rights". There have even emerged several "animal rights" groups in Israel, and, in between their vandalizing university laboratories in which animal testing takes place, they have also taken to claiming that animal rights have traditional Biblical and Jewish roots and. Animal rights have shown up in the list of causes promoted by the Reform synagogue movement in the US, and here and there among individual Conservative and other synagogue "social action" committee causes as well.

At the same time, the "animal rights" militant groups have long targeted Jews with special vengeance and ferocity. Kosher slaughtering has long been the target of the animal rights lobbies, which claim that Jewish traditional slaughtering practices are inhumane. Curiously, these same groups generally have NOT targeted Moslem religious slaughter practices, especially in Europe, where they fear antagonizing the large Moslem minorities there. As a result of their lobbying against the "inhumanity" of kosher slaughtering, a growing number of European countries have banned kosher slaughter altogether, creating enormous hardships for Jews in those countries seeking to live a traditional lifestyle.

Meanwhile, PETA, the main animal rights lobby in the US (PETA stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but I have argued for years that it really should call itself People for the Equitable Treatment of Animals ) has not only denounced kosher slaughter practices but has outraged Jewish groups repeatedly by comparing the eating of meat to the Holocaust of Jews, most notably with its recent scurrilous "Holocaust on your Plate" campaign. (Interestingly, a number of neonazi and Holocaust Denial web sites have picked up on the PETA campaign against kosher practices to denounce Jews and Judaism in general.

A few years back, one of PETA's sister groups in Los Angeles called itself "JIHAD", for Justice through Insurrection by Humans for Animal Defense. These "Jihadniks" were upset at the Carl's Jr. fast food chain because it was running ads for its greasy burgers as part of its "Eat Meat" campaign, which mocked vegetarians. "The vegetarians will get over it," taunted one ad. "Don't let them make you feel guilty, ok?"Deliciously, some Los Angeles area Islamic groups, including the Orange County Islamic Society, led by Haitham Bundaki, were upset with the use of the term "jihad" by the animal rights nuts."Jihad," they insisted, is a term that should be reserved only for the random murder of Jewish children, not for animal rights wackiness.

Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder and vice-president of PETA has stated: "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy," and so, it thus follows, "Medical research is immoral even if it's essential. Even if animal testing produced a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it." And best of all: "Six million people died in concentration camps," she told the Washington Post, "but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses." A new counter-PETA group, by the way, is now available on the internet, also calling itself PETA, but this counter-PETA stands for People for Eating Tasty Animals.

While PETA and its sister animalist lobbies are generally dismissed by all non-institutionalized people as little more than crackpots and fruitcakes, what are we to make of those Jewish "animal rights" groups claiming that Biblical and traditional Jewish sources confer "rights" on animals? Is there any basis to these claims?

The simple answer to the question is that animals have no "rights" at all in Judaism and the Bible, and those claiming to confer such "rights" on the basis of Biblical or Talmudic sources are charlatans at best, and pagan-polytheists trying to invent "souls" for animals at worst.

The total absence of any "rights" for animals in Jewish sources should not be confused with any approval of wanton sadism or unnecessary cruelty towards animals.The rule regarding animals is as simple as could be. It is spelled out in the Talmud in the Avoda Zara Tractate (Yud-Alef). "The mistreatment or cruelty towards animals is prohibited ONLY when there is no profit or utility therefrom."

Nothing could be simpler. Cruelty towards animals that does not serve any human purpose, cruelty for its own sake, is prohibited. Cruelty required to serve any human need or desire or benefit is justified, although not mandatory.

Let us be even more clear about this. According to Jewish tradition, we are not talking about restricting cruelty towards animals when it is necessary to save a human life, even in a probabilistic sense, such as in medical experimentation (which the animal rights kooks insist cannot possibly produce any cures for human ailments, dozens of counter-proofs not withstanding).We are talking about any use of animals to serve ANY human desires other than senseless sadism. Period.

In the Bible, animals are part of the bounty of the earth put here by God for humans to enjoy, like trees and rocks. Humans may enjoy these, should they choose, in nature preserves and parks, or they may enjoy them by eating them, turning them into shoes and belts or fur coats, doing medical experiments upon them, keeping them in zoos, or in any other use.

There is absolutely no religious compulsion in Judaism to forgo eating meat or living as vegetarians. In fact, at least once a year vegetarianism is outright prohibited. Refusing to eat the meat in the Passover sacrifice out of concern for the "rights" of animals would have been grounds for expulsion from the Jewish people when the Temple was functioning. While vegetarianism is not explicitly prohibited the rest of the year, it is looked down upon, just like those who foreswear wine are considered to be senseless recluses, upon whose behavior the Bible frowns. Sabbath pleasure and holiday festivals are thought to require the eating of meat, except where it cannot be afforded in terms of budget constraints (see the Shulkhan Arukh).

None of this precludes giving up meat eating for health reasons, for those who believe it is unhealthy. But such Jewish vegetarianism has nothing to do with any imagined "rights" for the animal. Where health requires it, the same Jew would be expected to give up salads, eggs, or spices, things obviously not having any "rights". In other words, the fact that animals and fish might or might not feel pain has absolutely no bearing in the general Jewish traditional affirmation for eating meat and poultry and fish.

Meat eating is nearly everywhere celebrated by Biblical stories and heroes. Among the only cases of Biblical vegetarianism is Daniel, and he gives up meat because he has no access to kosher-slaughtering facilities. Moses, David, Jacob and many others worked as herders of animals, and the animals they raised were for the purpose of being eaten. Animals were eaten in the Temple as party of its daily ritual. Animals were also killed for purposes other than ritual, such as for signing treaties or for establishing a covenant with God. Jewish tradition has long held that the world will dine on whale meat when the Messiah comes.

Animals are killed in the Bible not only for purposes of food and eating. The Children of Israel are explicitly ordered to wrap the holy utensils of the Tabernacle in animal furs when moving from camp to camp; these were furs of animals that were unclean for purposes of eating, which is essentially equivalent to saying they were hunted for their pelts, not killed for food with the fur simply put aside. Animals could be used cruelly for frivolous purposes as well, such as Samson tying torches to the fox tails and setting them loose in the fields of the Philistines. And they could be mass exterminated just to make a point, such as when Moses asks God to exterminate the frogs of Egypt, heaping them in rotting piles, as part of the ongoing negotiations with Pharaoh over the freeing of the Israelite slaves. God chooses to drown all of Egypt's horses and kill the livestock of the Egyptians as part of His plan to liberate the Israelites. Nothing was stopping Him from selecting an alternative plan that did not involve violating the "rights" of these animals.

There is some debate in Judaism over hunting. It is clear that the legitimate killing of animals is NOT restricted in the Bible or in other Jewish sources to purposes of eating, as noted above regarding the use of fur pelts to wrap the Tabernacle utensils.An animal killed by a hunter may not be eaten because its killing was not according to the slaughtering rules needed for the food to be kosher. But its carcass can be used for other purposes, such as making clothing or killing to protect other farm animals or fields, and there is no prohibition on wearing fur. Some Jewish sources frown upon hunting if its only purpose is the sheer enjoyment of the hunt, that is, if the animal is not being hunted for some other use. But decorating a wall with a moose or deer's head, or simply human enjoyment from the hunt itself, could arguably be claimed to be legitimate human purposes, and so one could make a plausible argument in their favor, even though most Rabbinic sources discussing hunting do not go that far.

Any Biblical prohibitions on mistreating animals refer to situations where the mistreatment serves no utilitarian purpose. Maimonides traces the Jewish compassion for animals to the story of Bil?am and his donkey (Numbers 22, 32) and any Jews coming across a talking donkey would be well-advised to treat the beast with respect. The Book of Proverbs says that evil people mistreat animals wantonly (chapter 12, verse 10).Animals rest on the sabbath, but so do machines, so this cannot be considered to be any acknowledgement of an animal's "rights", merely a part of the sabbath shutting down all creative activity for all property owned by a Jew. Fields, unlike animals, get one year "off" out of seven for a sabbatical. There is no prohibition on keeping pets or zoos, although deliberate neutering of animals is often regarded as a violation of one of the commands from God for animals to be fruitful and multiply. None of this contradicts the clear Biblical case for human domination and exploitation of animals and nature.

But when serving a human need, such as medical research, there is no basis whatsoever for hesitation in using animals, even mistreating them if this is what is necessary for the research. An authoritative rabbinic ruling on this was Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg in his book "Seridei Esh". There he states explicitly: the only proper role for compassion is to avoid needless suffering of the animal when the suffering serves no human purpose or benefit.

Traditional kosher slaughtering is explicitly designed for the purpose of minimizing unnecessary animal suffering. Traditional Jewish butchers must kill the animal with a razor sharp knife so that the animal feels no pain. Animals killed with a knife with a dent or chink may not be eaten; having suffered unnecessarily, a Jew may not eat the meat, although it may be sold to any non-Jews less concerned with the suffering of the animal who wish to buy it. The intense concern with avoiding pain in kosher-slaughtered animals makes a mockery out of the campaigns by PETA and its sister activist groups against "inhumane" kosher butcher practices. Indeed it reveals these for what they really are - anti-Jewish propaganda campaigns, not very different from those campaigns by neonazis and other anti-Semites who noisily claim that gentiles are being "exploited" by being "coerced" into paying for kosher inspections of food products with kosher certification symbols upon them. (As a side note, some Israeli anti-religious leftists have expressed similar "outrage" to being "coerced" into paying for kosher inspections.) In reality, the presence of so many kosher products on the shelves everywhere is simply a marketing response to the fact that it is profitable for many manufacturers and marketers to sell kosher products sought out by many Jews and non-Jews, and has nothing to do with any "coercion".

There is absolutely no basis in Judaism for arguing that vegetarianism makes people more humane, and there is plenty of counter-evidence, such as the famous concern for animal "rights" by the Nazi German leadership. Ecological concern is alright in Judaism, as long as protecting the environment and endangered species is being done as part of servicing human needs, pleasures, and desires. If it is done for the sake of the animals' "rights", it is nothing better than paganism and is an abomination.

The environmentalist extremists and animalist kooks within the Jewish community tend to emerge close to the Jewish "New Year of the Trees" named Tu B'shvat. They have attempted to hijack the day and turn it into one in which environmentalist extremism is misrepresented as Biblical ethics. There is nothing in the day and nothing in the Bible that can be seen as conferring "rights" on animals. Enjoy your burgers, fish to your heart's content, wear a fur coat and leather shoes with pride! It is what the Bible wants you to do!

Head in the Sand

Ehud Olmert has his head in the sand and ignores realities for the sake of political expediency.

Vice PM Ehud Olmert says that Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon is a model that could apply to Gaza and Samaria - adding that he doesn't want to talk about the dozens of attacks from Lebanon.

Olmert recently told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations that Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon should serve "as a model that Israel would apply to Gaza and Samaria." Olmert (pictured above) said that even though Hizbullah terrorists in southern Lebanon have accumulated 15,000 missiles and mortars, "they have never, never, never used missiles against Israel on the northern border since Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in May, 2000."

Several days later, writes journalist David Bedein in an Arutz-7 op-ed appearing today, an Israel Resource News Agency reporter showed Olmert a declassified IDF situation report from June 8th, 2004 that showed otherwise:

"In the four years since the IDF unilaterally redeployed its troops from Lebanon," the report reads, "the following attacks on Israel took place from the north: 34 attacks with mortar shells and anti-tank missiles into northern Israel; 7 shooting attacks with light arms fire into northern Israel; 8 roadside bombs that were planted in northern Israel; 127 times when anti-aircraft missiles were fired into northern Israel; 5 Katyusha rocket attacks into northern Israel; 10 infiltrations into northern Israel; 11 soldiers killed in northern Israel, while three IDF troops were kidnapped and murdered; 50 soldiers were wounded in northern Israel; 14 civilians were killed in northern Israel."

Olmert's response, Bedein writes, was to walk away, saying he did not want to discuss it.

Bedein concludes that the Israeli government strategy is to promote the alleged "quiet" on the northern front as a sign of how Gaza and Samaria will look following the disengagement. "Hardly anyone in Israel or abroad is aware of the arms buildup in southern Lebanon," Bedein writes, "and they are even more unaware of the attacks from the north, and how Israel's hasty withdrawal from southern Lebanon has left Israel vulnerable to attacks from the north... The Sharon Plan... will allow the PLO free reign in Gaza and northern Samaria, placing all of Israel in rocket range of Arab terrorists."

QOTD: Natan Sharansky

QOTD:Natan Sharansky

"Israel must immediately demand of the PA that it stop the planned execution of suspected collaborators," he wrote. "It is unacceptable that the PA demands the release of terrorists from our jails, and we respond affirmatively because of the hope for an opening to peace, while at the very same time the PA is about to commit state executions of people accused of helping Israel thwart terror."

..."It is impossible to build a peace process based on blood. Such a process can only be based on the goodwill of both sides.

The cold-blooded execution of those individuals accused of cooperating to deflect terror directly contradicts the gestures demanded of Israel, tramples human rights, and with it any spark of hope for a better future in the Middle East," Sharansky wrote.

Iran Says It Will Never Scrap Nuke Program

QOTD: Ali Agha Mohammadi, spokesman of Iran's powerful Supreme National Security Council

Iran will never scrap its nuclear program, and talks with Europeans are intended to protect the country's nuclear achievements, not negotiate an end to them, an Iranian official said Wednesday.

A Democratic PA?

Carolyn Glick writes about Sharon's and Peres's views of a democratic PA.

[Natan] Sharansky wrote in his book [on democracy as a driver of freedom and reduction of the urge for terrorism] that when he presented his ideas to [Ariel] Sharon, the prime minister told him that they "have no place in the Middle East." One of Sharon's advisers reportedly said that Sharon "views Sharansky's ideas with scorn." Peres, the father of the idea of replacing Israel's Civil Administration in the territories with a PLO dictatorship imported from Tunis, has spoken vacuously of the need to build an "economic democracy" — rather than a political democracy — among the Palestinians.

Stat of the Day

Stat of the Day:Carolyn Glick

In a recent poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 74 percent of Palestinians said that they see Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to destroy the Israeli communities in Gaza and northern Samaria as a vindication of terrorism as a national strategy.

Whoops!!!

IMRA carries an interview with Giora Eiland on how to tell if the Palestinians are serious about peace.

Giora Eiland, the head of the National Security Council, told Israel Radio
this morning in a live interview that the test of the sincerity of the
Palestinian Authority is how they deal with those involved in last week's
terrorist attack in Tel Aviv if and when they detain them. If the PA is
serious, Eiland noted, they will charge them with murder and apply their
punishments for murder. If they aren't serious they will charge them, as
they charged terrorists in the past, with "damaging Palestinian interests."

From an interview with Mahmoud Abbas, newly elected head of the PA.

As for the suicide bombing last Friday, such actions will not be tolerated by us as they are against the Palestinian interests.

Ten things Christian Zionists ask about Jews and Israel

Gavriel Sanders tells us ten things Christian Zionists ask him about Jews and Israel.

As I've traveled the country this last year, I've had numerous conversations with pro-Israel evangelicals, commonly known as Christian Zionists. They have many questions about how the Jewish community works, how Israel functions as a society, and how Jews around the world see themselves in relation to God, the Torah, Jewish values, and Jewish influence. Here is a distilled list of commonly heard questions.

1. How is it that the people that gave the world the Bible live more like the world than the Bible?

2. I thought Israel was to be a light unto the nations. Why are they trying so hard to be like and liked by the nations?

3. If, after 2000 years of dispersion and prayer for restoration, Jews finally have a homeland: Why don't more Jews go home? Why are they giving away the land?

4. It the title deed for the Temple Mount, Joseph's Tomb, and the Cave of the Patriarchs is contained in the Jewish Bible, how can the Israeli government give away these treasures of heritage to an enemy?

5. If pidyon shuvyim (ransom of a captive Jew) is a priority amongst Jewish values, why isn't there a greater outcry to free Jonathan Pollard? After his unfair sentencing and 20-year imprisonment, isn't he as much a prisoner of Zion as was Natan Sharansky?

6. In a 'land for peace' exchange, the Jews give up tangible turf that can't be returned for an intangible pledge that can't be guaranteed. Why?

7. If Jews are so committed to saving Jewish lives, why have more than two million Jewish babies been aborted in Israel since 1948? How does that square with replacing the 1.5 million children lost in the Holocaust?

8. Why do liberal Jews insist on making peace with an enemy that has not renounced its commitment to the destruction of the Jewish state? America would never do this. Is the "New Israel Fund" really a "No Israel Fund"?

9. Why do so many Jews insist on bending the Torah to fit their cultural preferences rather than adjust their lives to live by the Torah? Isn't God's will more important than a Saturday golf game? Isn't preserving faith and family more important than eating seafood?

10. Why does it seem that so many Jews hate their own religion or have so little knowledge of their own Bible? Most evangelicals know the Jewish scriptures better than most Jews.

QOTD: Paul Johnson

QOTD:Paul Johnson

Democracy has many enemies, and the terrorist is only one of them. It also has many hypocritical and humbugging pseudosupporters, which is one of numerous lessons to be drawn from the situation in Iraq.

A free PA?

Jerusalem Post brings hope to the current "peace" process. A nod to BOTW.

In the first decision of its kind since he succeeded Yasser Arafat, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has ratified death sentences against three Palestinians found guilty of 'collaboration' with Israel.

It is not clear when the three men, whose identities were not revealed, will be executed by firing squad.

However, senior PA officials told The Jerusalem Post that the three were Gaza Strip residents who had been convicted of 'high treason' for tipping off Israeli security forces about the whereabouts of wanted gunmen.

Bureaucracy at Work, Protecting the Skies

Bruce Schneier's CRYPTO-GRAM from 2/15/05.

As I wrote last month, I am participating in a working group to study
the security and privacy of Secure Flight, the U.S. government's
program to match airline passengers with a terrorist watch list. In the
end, I signed the NDA allowing me access to SSI (Sensitive Security
Information) documents, but managed to avoid filling out the paperwork
for a SECRET security clearance.

Last month the group had its second meeting.

At this point, I have four general conclusions. One, assuming that we
need to implement a program of matching airline passengers with names
on terrorism watch lists, Secure Flight is a major improvement -- in
almost every way -- over what is currently in place. (And by this I
mean the matching program, not any potential uses of commercial or
other third-party data.)

Two, the security system surrounding Secure Flight is riddled with
security holes. There are security problems with false IDs, ID
verification, the ability to fly on someone else's ticket, airline
procedures, etc. There are so many ways for a terrorist to get around
the system that it doesn't provide much security.

Three, the urge to use this system for other things will be
irresistible. It's just too easy to say: "As long as you've got this
system that watches out for terrorists, how about also looking for this
list of drug dealers...and by the way, we've got the Super Bowl to
worry about too." Once Secure Flight gets built, all it'll take is a
new law and we'll have a nationwide security checkpoint system.

And four, a program of matching airline passengers with names on
terrorism watch lists is not making us appreciably safer, and is a
lousy way to spend our security dollars.

Unfortunately, Congress has mandated that Secure Flight be implemented,
so it is unlikely that the program will be killed. And analyzing the
effectiveness of the program in general, potential mission creep, and
whether the general idea is a worthwhile one, is beyond the scope of
the working group. In other words, my first conclusion is basically all
that they're interested in hearing.

But that means I can write about everything else.

To speak to my fourth conclusion: Imagine for a minute that Secure
Flight is perfect. That is, we can ensure that no one can fly under a
false identity, that the watch lists have perfect identity information,
and that Secure Flight can perfectly determine if a passenger is on the
watch list: no false positives and no false negatives. Even if we could
do all that, Secure Flight wouldn't be worth it.

Secure Flight is a passive system. It waits for the bad guys to buy an
airplane ticket and try to board. If the bad guys don't fly, it's a
waste of money. If the bad guys try to blow up shopping malls instead
of airplanes, it's a waste of money.

If I had some millions of dollars to spend on terrorism security, and I
had a watch list of potential terrorists, I would spend that money
investigating those people. I would try to determine whether or not
they were a terrorism threat before they got to the airport, or even if
they had no intention of visiting an airport. I would try to prevent
their plot regardless of whether it involved airplanes. I would clear
the innocent people, and I would go after the guilty. I wouldn't build
a complex computerized infrastructure and wait until one of them
happened to wander into an airport. It just doesn't make security sense.

That's my usual metric when I think about a terrorism security measure:
Would it be more effective than taking that money and funding
intelligence, investigation, or emergency response -- things that
protect us regardless of what the terrorists are planning next. Money
spent on security measures that only work against a particular
terrorist tactic, forgetting that terrorists are adaptable, is largely
wasted.

QOTD: Melanie Phillips

Melanie Phillips's Diary: The Middle East's dance of death
The uncomfortable reality is that, while it is possible that Abbas will turn out to be a world-class statesman, what looks rather more likely is that he is instead a world-class tactician, who will be able to pose with ostensibly clean hands -- and the approval of the gullible, Israel-hating west -- disclaiming the murderous terrorism that Hamas and co will continue to inflict upon Israel, thus forcing Israel to react and casting it even more decisively as the regional bully. If this is so, then Israel is in even more danger now than it was in before -- the danger of being trapped inside a far shrewder and more sophisticated dance of death.

DISENGAGEMENT or DISASTER?

In DISENGAGEMENT or DISASTER?, Serena Weil gives an eye-opening account of the real facts in the Middle East.

Israel is presently grappling with a heart rending, soul-searching dilemma. Some call it disengagement, redeployment, resettlement; others call it evacuation, withdrawal, retreat. Living as we do in a mire of misinformation, we are inundated with a never-ending tsunami of words and images. At best, they portray the "news" — bits and pieces of information — but they rarely present the entire picture in intelligent context; at worst, they distort reality to the point where the consumer of all this news cannot possibly differentiate between truth and falsehood. And when the stakes are as high as they are in Israel today, the lack of dependable information to inform public opinion is downright frightening.

Recently, in the Israeli paper Hatzofeh, Boaz Haetzni enumerated a number of unpopular, seldom reported facts. They are worth repeating together with the disturbing questions they engender.

1. GAZA vs. KATIF: A Clearer picture. Historically, the city of Gaza (and its surroundings) is part of Biblical Israel, included in G-d's divine promise to the Jewish People. Jews have resided in Gaza from Biblical times until 1948 when, as the result of Arab violence, they were forced to leave. The city contains ruins of synagogues, a Jewish cemetery, and archeological finds of Jewish origin. A Jewish presence in the Gaza area (known as the Gaza Strip) was re-established in the wake of the Six Day War after 1967. Known as Gush Katif (the Katif Block), it comprises 22 communities and numbers 8,500 inhabitants and comprises only 12% of the Gaza Strip.

2. CAN THE IDF LEAVE GAZA? The IDF already left the Gaza Strip (!) eleven years ago as part of the Oslo agreements. Since then the Strip has been governed by the Palestinian Authority (under Arafat). Israel remained in Gush Katif. The IDF manned points of entry into Katif and at the border-like road blocks. They enter Gaza itself only when terrorist activity makes their entry necessary. Meanwhile, a monstrous terror network of worldwide proportions has surfaced in Gaza. Constant shelling of nearby Israeli settlements and cities, suicide bombers, shootings, and mines have become daily fare. (Many, thank G-d, miss their mark.) The media barely mentions them before going on to more "interesting" news.

Retreating from Katif would bring the cities of Ashkelon, Netivot, and Ofakim into the range of Arab missiles in the south. As it did in Lebanon, the Hezbollah terrorist organization intends to bring thousands of missiles into Gaza as well. The highly successful results of the terrorist organizations in the recent Palestinian Authority elections in Gaza do not bode well for peaceful intentions or resolutions. With additional, far ranging weapons in Gaza, the long arm of Hezbollah will bringing not only Ashkelon, but the port of Ashdod, Beersheva and the nuclear reactor in Dimona within firing range. Israel has to be utterly insane to allow this to happen.

3. WHOSE WATER IS TASTIER? Israel is presently supplying Gaza with water. After Oslo and the Israeli retreat from Gaza, as a result of total Arab/ Palestinian Authority mismanagement and greed, vast amounts of water were pumped from the wells in the area, the salt level rose drastically, and the water is no longer potable. Humane Israel, unwilling to deny water to thirsty Arabs, now provides for their needs from its own water supply. The IDF also forces the Arabs to treat their sewage and refrain from pouring it into the sea. In addition to severe pollution, the sewage destroys the filters from a large purification plant in nearby Ashkelon.

Sharon speaks of further withdrawals in northern Samaria which sits atop one of Israel's largest aquifers and main sources of water. Once in Arab hands, it is expected that the Arabs will, as they have done throughout the rest of Judea and Samaria, pump water without plan or thought for the future, thus endangering vital water sources in the Jezreel Valley. The oft-bandied solution of treating sea water would cost billions of dollars. Can Israel afford to place her precious and limited water supply in the hands of her Arab neighbors?

4. DEMOGRAPHY & GEOGRAPHY and other fraudulent claims: Gaza, we are told, is the most crowded place in the world. The Arabs, they say, need land, living space! Well, so does Tel Aviv. The population density in the city of Tel Aviv is eleven times higher than in Gaza!

Not only that. The much maligned Katif area, on only twelve percent of the Gaza Strip, covers approximately ninety square miles! Does anyone really think that giving this pittance of the Strip as a gift to the Arabs will solve their demographic problems? (It is highly suggested that the reader open a map of the Middle East to verify the size of Israel, of the Gaza Strip and of Katif. If Israel is infinitesimal, then Katif is infinitely more so!)

Perhaps Egypt, a huge country, would like to contribute a portion of its vast holdings in Sinai to its fellow Arabs. Sinai was never officially part of Egypt (just as Judea and Samaria were never officially part of Jordan). It is devoid of settlements — absolutely empty except for several tourist locations (originally built and set up by Israel) and best of all, it borders Gaza. Could there be a more perfect, fitting, humane solution to lessen the population density in Gaza?

Gush Katif was built on virgin sand dunes which even the Arabs had never exploited. The constantly attacked and bombarded community of Kfar Darom was built on swampy land which was purchased at full price by Jews during the time of the British Mandate. The Jews have turned the entire Katif area into a mini Garden of Eden. Eleven percent of all Israeli agricultural exports come from this tiny spot on the map. No wonder the Arabs living in their squalid cities nearby have dreams of inheriting it!

5. ECONOMICS — What's the Price? According to government assessments, direct costs for disengagement will be upwards of six billion NIS (one and one half billion U.S. dollars). Since this figure was released, the Knesset upped it by offering larger restitution to the settlers. (The previous amounts were rather parsimonious and it was felt that a bit more generosity would make things easier for all concerned.) Add to this related expenses such as additional security for settlements within the Green Line which will now be within Gaza's firing range; unemployment for the several thousand evacuated families; establishing new communities, new schools or classrooms for the thousands of Katif children who will be evacuated; new social services; and the necessary psychological counseling and help for those evacuated (this promises to be a highly traumatic experience, to put it mildly), Etc., etc.

No country, and surely not the U.N. or the E.U., is offering to reimburse or assist Israel with disengagement. The Israeli taxpayer will be expected to foot the entire bill. All the advances Israel has so painfully made in the past ten years on the economic front will be wiped out. And the price of real estate all along the shrunken new border will fall drastically. (Who will want to live next to Gaza?) Disengagement promises to be an economic disaster.

6. THE ARMY — What affect will disengagement have on it? Is the Israel Defense Force here to evacuate Jews from their homes, or to protect them from their enemies? Discomfort at the idea of the army forcefully evacuating peaceful citizens is widespread. So much so that the government changed gears and decided the police would be given the job while the army stood guard to make sure the Arabs don't take advantage of the evacuation and aim their missiles in the direction of the evacuees.

There is also the well founded fear that a large number of soldiers and police will refuse to take part in the disengagement. And if nonetheless it does take place, it is feared that tens of thousands of young people across the country will be so disillusioned that many of them will refuse to serve when they are called up. Huge numbers of youngsters from youth movements and yeshivas, the ones you see at the demonstrations and on street corners passing out flyers, are passionately anti-disengagement. These youths tend to be some of our best soldiers and a high percentage, out of all proportion to their numbers, of officers. Which is why the government is taking such a hard stand against conscientious objectors whom they view as a "threat to democracy". Many older people will refuse to continue to serve in the Reserves as well.

7. DEMOCRACY or DICTATORSHIP? Sharon ran for office on a platform diametrically opposed to this plan. His own Likkud party overwhelmingly rejected the proposal in an internal Likkud referendum. After much political wrangling and the firing of two cabinet ministers, Sharon finally managed to obtain Knesset approval for his plan although the law approving the financial restitution has not yet been passed.

No legitimate government, however, has the right to oust people from their legal homes by means of a highly questionable order and without recourse to due process of law. No government has the moral right to make historic changes and cede parts of its historic homeland with only a slim majority and a highly unstable minority coalition. Just as no government, even with a large majority, has the moral right to legitimize murder, rape or robbery. Years ago, Yossi Sarid, one of Israel's extreme, leading Leftists, proclaimed: The day that an order is given to transfer [Arabs] from their homes, an order which is patently illegal and immoral, will be the Day of Refusing Orders. … We will not fulfill an order to transfer [Arabs], nor will our children or our students fulfill such an order. How, then, can he legitimize transferring Jews?

Democracy does not mean the dictatorship of the many over the few. Democracy is built on a shared set of values; its laws are supposed to give form to these values. Destroying the basic values underpinning democracy, and ripping apart the social fabric and shared values of a nation destroys democracy itself.

Where might all this lead? The papers are rife with reports of detention centers being set up for reluctant settlers, their wives and children; of special, speedy courts of "justice" to deal with resisters; with special police training courses hastily organized to program the police to deal with the expected, traumatic expulsion. (All this while it was just announced that over nine hundred convicted terrorists will be released from Israeli jails as a sign of Israel's "good will").

Remember, we are not speaking of evacuating an enemy. We are speaking of 8,500 Israeli citizens who settled an empty, new area with full government approval and are now being ousted after thirty years because a prime minister, without the necessary democratic sanctions, has decided they must leave.

8. DID YOU SAY DISENGAGEMENT? From what? According to the government's own declarations, Israel will continue to supply the Palestinian Authority in Gaza with 1) water; 2) electricity; 3) communications (a telephone system); 4) food, medical and other supplies, just as we do now. Oh yes, and also employment in Israel. No one expects Gaza to support itself or provide employment for its people. Everyone - the entire world - expects Israel to help the new "fledgling state" along. Israel assumes she will fill all these needs although she insists that in case of trouble or terrorist activity, she will feel free to re-enter Gaza whenever necessary. (Just imagine the world's reaction to that!)

What then will be different? What exactly is being "disengaged"? Only one thing. Jewish communities in one small corner of the Gaza Strip. They are being evacuated, transferred, "resettled" — all the things Israel would never allow to be done to its Arab citizens or neighbors. Judenrein at the hands of the Israeli government.

9. WHAT IS SHARON THINKING? No one seems to know. If the above is an accurate description of the situation, based on true, objective facts (and it is), how could any normal, intelligent person choose this path?

Sharon has led us to a Palestinian state. He gave his approval to the Road Map whose cease-fire cost scores of Jewish lives. He approved the infamous prisoner swaps which put an end to hope for finding or releasing Ron Arad, the missing Israeli pilot. And now he is taking us further along the road to destruction with his new plan. Why?

While there are a few souls who feel that Sharon is taking a brave step forward and has the best interests of the country at heart, there are many more who are doubtful. The rumors are that he is depressed, demented, or wants to go do down in history as the great Man of Peace after having been demonized as Israel's worst war-monger. There are other, even more disturbing theories at large.

Zvi Handel a Knesset member from Gush Katif, and a former friend of Sharon who spent years working in close contact with the Prime Minister, has an different explanation. Both of Sharon's sons were involved in highly publicized, highly questionable, extremely lucrative, international business transactions. There was grave evidence of illegalities and the country was waiting for a judicial decision to indict. Suddenly, when things became exceedingly uncomfortable, Sharon dropped a bombshell and announced his disengagement plan. It immediately replaced the stories of his sons in all the media and has kept them out of the public eye. The indictments are also still on hold.

It is believed by many that this sudden bombastic political decision, which ran counter to Sharon's entire history and career (he was called the "Father of the Settlement Movement" and was a close and constant advocate of settlement activity), which conflicted with all his previous statements, promises and campaign platform, was a way of turning the public attention away from his private troubles. If the settlers had to be the sacrificial lamb, so be it. Better them than Sharon's sons.

Handel's accusations were made publicly and were detailed. The media made mention but chose not to dwell on them and they were "lost" in the governmental tsunami of determination for the disengagement plan.


10. WHAT ELSE IS LOST? Much has been "lost" in the media reports. Not only the legalities of the Sharon family affairs, but many of the above uncomfortable facts and observations. The settlements in Gaza have existed for more than thirty years. Families have four generations in the area. There is rarely a family in Israel which doesn't haveIsraelis all over the country have a a relative, a neighbor's relative or a friend in Katif. Most of the population - truly a silent majority — is distinctly uncomfortable with disengagement although they have few public avenues open to express their discomfort. (The media gives expression primarily to the left.) The more active and vocal section of the populace that supports Katif and the settlements and is thoroughly opposed to "disengaging" is dubbed "the extreme right" by the media. There is never — or very rarely — an "extreme" left. Disengagement ("evacuation" is a more accurate term) of Jews from the area — is not a simple, administrative decision. It is truly a moment of crisis for Israel.

Nor is disengagement a legitimate legal, democratic decision. Sharon consistently refuses to consider either a referendum on disengagement or new elections, even though two years after the elections he still does not have a stable, dependable coalition to pass . Nor has he been successful in passing the annual budget (which is why he is turning somersaults to put a coalition together. Without an approved budget, new elections are in the offing whether he wants them or not.)which he needs in order to assure funds for the evacuation of Katif. Yet he has engaged the country in a disastrous process. Anti-democratic, anti-Zionistic, militarily and economically incomprehensible.

Add that to the national, emotional and religious issues which have been stirred up and you wonder if the man has not gone mad?

PA TV Sermon

Palestinian Media Watch/IMRA carried the following from PA TV:

"On Feb. 4, 2005, senior Palestinian religious figure Ibrahim Mudyris delivered the official Friday sermon broadcast on PA television:
'We tell you Palestine, we shall return to you, by Allah's will, we shall return to every village, every town....Our willingness to return to the 1967 borders does not mean that we have given up on the land of Palestine. No!'
'We shall return to the 1967 borders, but it does not mean that we have given up on Jerusalem and Haifa, Jaffa, Lod, Ramla, Netanya [Al-Zuhour], and Tel Aviv [Tel Al-Rabia]. Never.'
'Our approval to return to the 1967 borders is not a concession for our other rights. No!'
'This generation might not achieve this stage, but generations will come, and the land of Palestine...will demand that the Palestinians will return the way Muhammad returned there, as a conqueror.' "

The roadmap is similar to the definition of remarriage -- it is the triumph of hope over experience -- but with deadlier consequences.

QOTD: Condi's final solution

QOTD: Jack Engelhard on forced evacuations of Jews from the Disputed Territories.

As proof that we learn from the past, we merely need to update the agenda of Wannsee [the Nazi conference that implemented the Final Solution], item two, wherein we deduce, as policy being acted upon today by governments in both the United States and Israel, that 'Jews must be expunged from the living space of the Arab people.' [Emphasis mine]

Who Would Have Thought?

JPost reveals that working for the PA Security Forces has its benefits...

At least 600 members of various Palestinian Authority security services have been killed since the beginning of the intifada more than four years ago, most of them while participating in violence against Israel, a senior PA security official revealed Sunday.

...Most of these men doubled as security officers and members of armed groups," the official admitted. "The fact that they had received paramilitary training as policemen was an asset because they were able to implement the tactics they learned in the fighting with the Israeli army."

Many PA policemen and security agents were trained by Egyptian, Jordanian and American security experts; others had attended military academies in former Eastern Bloc countries and the former Soviet Union before and after the signing of the Oslo Accords.

The policemen who also "moonlighted" as militiamen came mainly from the General Intelligence Force, the Preventative Security Service and the National Security Force.

The True Colors of Ariel Sharon

Michael Oren writes in The New Republic about the true nature of Ariel Sharon. Seems to be right on the money. Ignore his conclusions about where the peace process should go, however.

Sharon's transformation from warrior to peacemaker, making the Gaza withdrawal his personal crusade, has shocked the Israeli left, but many right-wing Israelis long anticipated that change. Raised in a secular Labor environment, Sharon was never nurtured on religious or conservative ideology, and, for all his opposition to a return to Israel's pre-1967 borders, he repeatedly conceded territories captured in the Six Day War. And, when his policies no longer enjoy public support, Sharon, unlike true rightists, pays no mind to the will of the people--a tendency historically displayed by members of Israel's socialist left. Sharon, rightists insist, is actually a Mapainik.

Mapai is a Hebrew acronym for the Israel Workers Party, the dominant Zionist movement in pre-Israel Palestine and the ruling political party for the first decades after Israel's independence.

...Sharon formed his own party, Shlomtzion, in 1977, and personally drafted its platform. Not only would Israel forfeit territories in order to achieve peace, Sharon wrote, but it would also negotiate with any Palestinian organization--presumably including the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)--willing to recognize the Jewish state. Sharon later said he formed his own party, rather than simply joining Labor, the successor to Mapai, because he was disgusted with the cronyism in Labor. Still, following his pragmatic Mapai instincts, Sharon initially tried to have Shlomtzion form a joint list with Labor. After Labor refused, Sharon approached the centrist Shinui. When they, too, refused, Sharon revised his platform along more right-wing principles, declared his admiration for Begin's commitment to Greater Israel, and approached Herut. Begin embraced Sharon and, together with other factions, they formed the Likud, which then dealt Labor its first national defeat.

...By talking right but acting pragmatically, Sharon was adhering to the classic Mapainik tradition. Yet, in addition to its distinctive stands on territorial and security issues, that heritage also had a peculiar relationship with democracy. In contrast to Revisionists and Likudniks, who traced their intellectual roots back to nineteenth-century Central European liberalism, Mapai's founders came from the revolutionary turmoil of turn-of-the-century Russia, with its preference for proletarian dictatorships. In Israel, the nonreligious right has always been the champion of individual freedoms and the rule of law, while leftist leaders were notorious for pushing through their personal agendas, irrespective of democratic norms. The young Ben-Gurion, who modeled himself on Lenin, rejected the liberal constitution proposed by Herut shortly after independence. He waged a war against Egypt in 1956 without so much as informing the Knesset.

In his disavowal of democratic institutions, Sharon is much less a Likudnik than a Mapainik. Several ministers insinuated that he executed Israel's ill-fated 1982 invasion of Lebanon almost unilaterally, without fully consulting the cabinet. Similarly, Sharon was accused of singlehandedly allocating vast sums for the construction of roads and settlements in the territories. And today, Sharon is once again revealing his Mapainik relationship with democracy. His decision to disengage from Gaza is based on the practical realization that the majority of Israelis are no longer willing to defend the settlements there and that Israel's occupation of the Strip only strengthens Palestinian demands for the creation of a binational Arab-Jewish state. Evacuating Gaza also enables Sharon to test the willingness and ability of Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to crack down on terrorism before Israel proceeds to negotiate the future of the West Bank and Jerusalem--all policies unacceptable to true Likudniks like Begin and Benjamin Netanyahu, who could be pragmatic under U.S. pressure but would never give up on the idea of a Greater Israel.