Yes, it’s a bit early to start running videos that celebrate Israel’s independence - May 14 is the exact day - but I am totally taken by Ofra Haza’s rendition of Yerushalaim Shel Zahav, which I discovered by accident on YouTube last night. Ergo, I can't wait and share it now. It’s a mesmerizing performance, regardless of whether you like Israel or not:

This video dates back to 1998 when Ofra Haza was still in the prime of her life. She died two years later at the age of forty-two of AIDS related organ failure.

In a very worthwhile column about the Israeli angle:

Might it not be closer to the truth to say that Arab radicalism is the cause of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute – not the result of it? There is no peace because Israel’s neighbors – and too many of the world’s Muslims – cannot accept the right of a non-Arab, non-Muslim minority to live unsubjugated in the Middle East. That is the true “core” of the dispute, and it cannot be fixed by negotiation.

Well it can and should be fixed by a negotiation, eventually. But only one that has substantially different representatives from the Arab-Muslim world at the table than the ones we have become so used to. Frum's analysis drives home a crucial point: resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict hinges to a very large extent on a structural reform of Islam.

Contrary to expectations, the French courts have ruled against Philippe Karsenty. More details from Richard Landes and PJM.

UPDATE: Richard Landes fisks commentary form French weekly L'Express about the ruling. Key excerpt:

Note that L’Express didn’t cover this trial in September, hasn’t whispered a word of the issues in previous issues, but now shows it’s fully aware of the press coverage. Karsenty said to me that if he loses it will be all over the papers; if he wins it will be a paragraph on page 18.

Richard Landes is preparing himself for another trip to Paris where he will testify at one of the Al Durah trials. He has written a very useful primer for TNR about how French TV fudged Al Durah's death. It is a must-read as it not only summarizes the entire affair, it more importantly spells out how such media manipluation is hardly innocent and can have deadly consequences. And yes, the stage is Europe:

Three court trials, then--in which France2 seeks to bury any serious assessment of their coverage--are also trials of France's ability to defend her republican values against an Islamist onslaught that it seems ill-equipped to resist. And, as France goes, so goes Europe. (Would France have it any other way?)

Of course, I will link to the various updates that Richard will no doubt provide in the weeks ahead.

RELATED: A Reuters cameraman was arrested in Israel for inciting rock attacks.

... is Muslim.

(hat tip: Myrtus)

Here is more good news from Muslims who are willing to abandon the intolerant radicalism and embrace freedom and western values, and, empower women. Take a look at Al Qasemi College, which is the first institute of Islamic higher education in Israel:

Speaking at campuses, mosques, and the homes of Muslims, the Al Qasemi faculty said that it is time for Muslims to quit blaming others and examine their own responsibility for the troubles of Islamic civilization; time for Arab Israelis to call themselves Israelis, not Palestinians; and, above all, time for women to have full equality with men in the Muslim world.

So it is possible after all. (via Myrtus)

A difficult relationship continues, and continues to amaze:

European countries have been refusing to allow planes carrying IDF supplies to refuel at their airports, according to the El Al Pilots Union.

Italy, Britain, Portugal, Spain and Germany refuse to allow El Al cargo planes transporting US military equipment to Israel to land and refuel, El Al Pilots Union chairman Itai Regev wrote in a letter sent Sunday to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

He said El Al's 747 cargo planes frequently carry crucial military supplies to Israel, but European policy forces the planes to carry barely half of their 90-ton capacity because of the inability to refuel en route

Not sure if there is such a thing as a European policy on this, in fact I really doubt it, but it is odd to note that the aforementioned nations are apparently on the same page when it comes to hindering Israel. The Dutch have confirmed that they do not apply any restrictions on El Al cargo flights.

Via Michael Totten comes this nugget:

On the heels of what it views as a Hizbullah victory against the Jewish state, Syria is forming its own Hizbullah-like guerilla organization to fight Israel in hopes of "liberating" the Golan Heights, an official from Syrian President Bashar Assad's Ba'ath party told WorldNetDaily yesterday.

Well, let's see. As Leon de Winter comments these ventures do not exactly have a great track record:

Syria's latest addition to the world of terror is the Front for the Liberation of the Golan: "We know from history guerilla resistance works against Israel," commented a Baath party official. He couldn't be more wrong. Just look at how much the Palestinians have lost since they chose the path of armed resistance to Jewish settlement more than a hundred years ago: and each time the violence flares up they lose a little more.

To which I would add, be careful with experiments like these Bashar. They have a habit to turn against and replace their creator.

I have been remiss in giving you my take on the UN mandated ceasefire and it may be late now that everyone else has circulated his or her usually dire predictions. Yes, the pessimists are correct that this is nothing more than an intermission bound to get a bloody sequel, but that doesn’t mean it is necessarily bad that hostilities have been suspended for now. There are two key reasons for that.

First, the Israelis desperately needed a break as it had become next to impossible for Ehud Olmert to align his cabinet and his troops to carry out a cohesive and decisive battlefield plan. The break now offered by the ceasefire will allow the Israelis to look inward for whatever time they’re allowed to, and maybe test the correctness of letting an untested leader with a one-issue political mandate decide its fate. Yes, I did applaud Kadima at one point, and like many others neglected to acknowledge that its platform and success was almost entirely based on the reputation and credibility of just one man, Ariel Sharon. In the hands of his successor it proved to be a dangerous gamble that many Israelis surely would not want to replicate at this juncture.

The second reason really is focused on Lebanon and the international community and can be construed as a sort of last chance for both. Deliver us Hezbollah, deploy a strong multinational force bearing in mind that the both the Lebanese and others failed in the implementation of UN resolution 1559. It’s a gauntlet and if no one picks it up the Israelis will be fully justified to move into its northern neighbor with a decisive and lethal new plan, if the prerequisite political parameters are in place for that.

Based on these two points I can’t really deplore the ceasefire, the way some others do. Nor can I comprehend the theory that this resolution is the equivalent of Munich 1938, which is a ludicrous comparison that doesn’t even merit serious consideration. Yet, I do agree with the pessimists that this round of fighting has put Israel - and by extension its immediate allies - in a difficult spot. Both need to recalibrate and get ready for the next round, taking account of the reinvigorated engine in Tehran which is now driving the process. None of that will be easy, but both will be very necessary.

The pressure is now on Olmert to deliver and he has just given the go ahead for an expanded ground offensive. Timely as always, Michael Totten is on the scene at the Israel-Lebanon border, so do listen to an exclusive interview with him at Politics Central.

UPDATE: With the passing of the UN resolution it now seems that Olmert's belated grand offensive has only a few days left to run, on Saturday the Lebanese government will vote on it and on Sunday it's the Israeli cabinet that will cast a ballot. No word on Hezbollah, but one can assume that Nabih Berri will have a busy weekend acting as interlocutor between Nasrallah and Siniora. Ed Morrissey has a good analysis of the situation and proclaims the UN Resolution to be a 'mixed bag' with good and bad elements. He's right, but by moving more troops into Lebanon and creating a stage for major operations, Ehud Olmert has ensured that he will be able to effectively manage a number of different post-resolution scenarios. Stay tuned, this weekend is going to be very interesting.

This is ominous:

As the pendulum swung Friday towards the prospect of a diplomatic end to the current Israel-Hezbollah conflict, rather than the military push that earlier appeared likely, commentators in Israel were scrutinizing the implications that the crisis, and any international deal to end it, may have for the future.

Some are already whetting their knives for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. An opinion in the Israeli daily Haaretz on Friday, which likened acceptance of the latest UN ceasefire proposal to 'unconditional ceasefire to Hezbollah,' said Olmert 'cannot remain in the prime minister's office.'

'You cannot lead an entire nation to war promising victory, produce humiliating defeat and remain in power,' the paper thundered.

Although Haaretz's tone may represent the more hawkish view, questions are being widely asked regarding the government's handling of the crisis.

A poll in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper Friday showed 37 per cent of the 500 people questioned believed Israel would cripple Hezbollah, compared with 40 per cent in a previous survey.

Public support remains high at 66 per cent among those polled for the government's management of the crisis - apart from heavy criticism of how the 'home front' issue has been handled - but the growing media calls for the prime minister's head may represent the first signs of a turn in opinion that may will make the premier a casualty of the war.

We may start thinking in terms of new elections following the implementation of a UN resolution.

Richard Landes was one of the first to meticulously analyze media bias and manipulation and he has just written a comprehensive and must read essay-post on this week’s Reutersgate. It needs to be read in its entirety to be really appreciated, but as a teaser here is one of the better excerpts which essentially explains why Pallywood is, well, Pallywood:

The media and the liberal establishment more broadly, have taken even-handedness to an extreme. If you criticize one side, you criticize the other; if you talk about Muslim religious extremism, you talk about Jewish religious extremism. This attitude is widespread among liberal Zionists, whose almost totemic phrase is, “we too…” Again, such an approach is generous and can lead to reconciliation. But if it doesn’t work that way, it’s important to call a moratorium on such moral pretenses: Jewish religious extremism is not in the same league, nay the same universe as that of Islamic Jihad.

Even-handedness plays a big role in the shutting down of information favorable to the Israelis. One of the more common refrains I heard for MSM folks when I offered them Pallywood and al Durah: “We couldn’t do it just on that.” “Why not?” “We’d have to do something on ways the Israelis manipulate the news.” People often urge me to put up something about Israelis doing some Pallywood-like stunts as a way to show “objectivity and balance” at Second Draft. My answer: When I have a real example.

And while we are at it, more real-life examples come pouring in, here is the most recent one.

Ever since the Van Gogh murder I have been hammering on the fact that the conflict with radical Islam is one of religion, where religion is the cohesive and ideological gel that fuels and sustains jihad. Any attempt to give the conflict a political or economic flavor is - while understandable in our very secular and wealth driven world – a totally inadequate explanation. Even the territorial arguments over Palestine are almost irrelevant to the core objectives as defined by the radical strains that have now hijacked Islam.

And so it has been with Hezbollah which prompted Andrew Sullivan yesterday to remark quite convincingly:

This is what happens when religion takes over politics. Rational negotiation becomes impossible; victory becomes a theological mandate; no end becomes feasible except conflict; and in this case, some of the actors actually want that conflict to be apocalyptic. We have to understand the fundamentalist mindset we are grappling with. It is not rational in worldly terms. It is other-worldly - and rational only under those theological constructs. For those reasons, it is the biggest threat to Western freedom since the totalitarianisms of the last century; and easily the most mortal threat to Israel since its founding. It cannot be disarmed or reasoned with; it can only be defeated.

It is therefore that a ceasefire is nothing more than a weak and temporary fix that will neither give Israel the security it needs, nor give Lebanon the peace that it craves. It is another variety of the soft doctors make stinky wounds routine which may reduce the immediate number of casualties, but potentially sets the stage for far larger numbers down the road. The religious-fundamentalist take also makes it abundantly clear why claims that Hezbollah is a participant in Lebanon’s democratic process and a representative of a large part of the Lebanese population are rather problematic. The veil of respectability that Sheik Nasrallah has claimed over the past decade combined with the status accorded to him by his fearful Lebanese counterparts and overseas governments can not exonerate Hezbollah from its true and utterly destructive nature. The subsidiarity of any worldly principles combined with an arms cache that puts the average European nation to shame is aimed at not only the destruction of Israel, it is potent enough to subvert the rather laughable but still viable attempt at fostering democracy in Lebanon.

The other suggestion bandied around was that if we do not negotiate with Hezbollah (and this equally applies to Hamas) and find common ground now, then real chaos and potentially further radicalization will be our and Israel’s due. To that I ask: how much further can things radicalize from here? Is there really any ideology that can trump the religious fanaticism that we are witnessing today?

Most likely it is not the already present ideology, but technology that is the missing part that will complete the journey from Arab nationalism to Baathism to al-Fatah style terror to al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah. If the world fails to confront the stateless religious fanaticism that is now enveloping the Middle East (and Europe) we may find ourselves in a far needier spot down the road. And no, I am not advocating an attack on Syria or Iran, but the least we can do now is to ensure the total failure of the grand designs of Hezbollah. Given the group’s ideological potency and unwarranted respectability that will be a hard enough assignment for the free world.

Not really, according to Caroline Glick who is a far better judge than I am when it comes to Israeli domestic policies.

More here.

Or rather the shifting plates of the political power game and how Israel becomes a vehicle for change. Note what happened last week and which is highly significant:

Liberal power couple Heather Reisman and Gerry Schwartz have publicly broken with the Liberal Party line on the Middle East crisis and are turning to Prime Minister Stephen Harper because of his support of Israel.

Mr. Schwartz, a confidante of former prime minister Paul Martin and one of Canada's most influential businessmen as the head of Onex Corp., is one of the eight signatories of an advertisement placed in a newspaper in Cornwall, Ont., where the Conservatives are holding caucus meetings.

The ad welcomes the caucus to Cornwall and expresses appreciation to Mr. Harper, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay and Conservative MPs for "standing by" Israel. It also lauds other G8 leaders and Australian Prime Minister John Howard for their stands on the war.

And Ms. Reisman is not without influence either as she has a virtual monopoly on book sales in Canada through the Chapters, Indigo and Coles bookstores which she controls. The first thing you have to do when you walk into one of them is to avoid the table with 'Heather’s Picks' which given her political interests I have always looked on with a fair degree of caution. Not sure if we can find Alan Dershowitz on that table now that Reisman has moved along the political spectrum, but you never know.

In any case, it was both encouraging and refreshing to hear that Harper was standing by Israel while his Foreign Affairs minister, Peter McKay, went as far a describing Hezbollah as ‘a cancer’. Even more interesting was the deep confusion that had somehow grasped Canada’s Liberal Party where the current interim-leader preached desperately for Canada to remain neutral, while the various leadership contenders wandered off in all sorts of directions in order to balance a clear moral stand with getting sufficient interest on the left-of-center flank. Notably the purported frontrunner, Michael Ignatieff who was twisting in all directions without staking out a very credible position, something he was so capable of before he moved back to Canada:

Saying nothing is no answer, either. On holiday in Europe, Ignatieff, who is supported by many of the party's pro-Israel activists, remained silent for two weeks before finally taking a stand criticized as too late, too problematic and too impersonal.

This Middle East mess is, of course, the last thing the presumed Liberal front-runner needs. It sucks attention back to his controversial support for the Iraq war, his tortured arguments on torture and his ivory tower background.

Harper will mark six months in office this month and his poll ratings were solidly in positive territory as he moved fast and decisively on a mildly conservative domestic agenda. It is ironically a foreign affairs issue that has now put a few dents into that positive track record as not all Canadians yet fully grasp the essence of what is going on between Israel and Hezbollah. That is most notably the case in notably in the province of Quebec where Harper in the end needs to make inroads to win an outright majority.

Given these dynamics, the opposition is struggling hard to find the right note as they know full well that taking a firm position on Israel and the Middle East is not without risk. But with influential and moneyed forces shifting their interests – and I somehow suspect it is not all about Israel for Schwartz and Reisman - it looks as if a less ambiguous position about the Middle East is now enabled to get more traction in Canada.

UPDATE: More here:

Senator Jerry Grafstein said he has a big problem with Liberals who suggest that Canada has a history of neutrality when it comes to dealing with aggressors such as Hezbollah, and he will encourage those vying to lead his party to clarify their positions and make the war a bigger issue.

“I have a lot of problems with Bill Graham's position and some of the leadership candidates,” he said during an interview about the interim Liberal leader. “We've never been neutralist.”

More or less related
The Dutch and Israel

Greg Djerejian (whose blog is a must read in order to get a feeling for a less conventional right-of-centre blog view of the Israel-Hizbollah war) has kindly made an NYT column by Ethan Bronner available that accurately discusses the differences between Sharon and Olmert. As I hinted at last week in Ehud’s War, the current prime minister needs to exert his iron fist in order to withstand any unfavorable comparisons to his immediate predecessor and extend his still relatively young political life. However, I don’t think Olmert overreacted or that Sharon would currently disapprove of his actions, the old master himself however would have handled things differently had he still been around.

Some useful comments from the Somali-Dutch dissident, and fresh AEI employee here.

Thanks for those who commented on my assessment of changed Dutch-Israeli relations, and it seems there are two more reasons that I probably forgot to mention. One is deep guilt according to one reader:

You left out one reason which afflicts all Western societies. Guilt. The West has been fed a steady diet of guilt for the last couple of decades. Guilt over colonialism, guilt over the West’s support for Israel, guilt of the economic successes the West enjoys. Knowing the Netherlands as well as I do, guilt is certainly a motivating factor in the Dutch psyche.

Yes. The danger of this phenomenon is of course that if feelings of guilt start to affect a clear moral choice – such as supporting Israel – then the chances of moral certainty to overcome evil in this world are decreasing at an alarming rate as there is probably quite a bit to feel guilty about.

The other reason is of course plain old anti-Semitism, one of Europe’s key export products the market for which has surged over the past few weeks. A good example today was discovered by Andrew Sullivan in one of Norway’s leading newspapers which basically argues that it is time to pull the plug on Israel.

Pamela of Atlas Shrugs - who is in Israel at the moment - interviews Caroline Glick, Deputy Managing Editor of the Jerusalem Post over at Politics Central. It is interesting, for some potentially a little too rich in neocon assertiveness, but Glick makes a few very important and original points about the potential for a multinational force, the Shebaa farms and what I would call the Olmert challenge. Moreover, she is more than happy to ditch Bush, not to move to the left, but to stay firmly on the right. Listen to the whole thing.

Radio Netherlands has kindly made available some numbers on the Dutch attitudes towards Israel and Hezbollah. As expected, there is a slight tilt in favor of Israel, but a 35% number saying it can understand Israel’s position is underwhelming, to say the least. Especially if you note that 18% “understands” Hezbollah. I am not sure how to interpret the latter, but I guess it is not meant to represent an objective understanding of how terrorist organizations operate.

Anyway, longtime readers know that the Dutch were once one of the staunchest supporters of the Jewish state and I have to say my current stance is in no small part influenced by the blue and white hallelujah atmosphere of the 1970s. Things like that tend to impress the young.

So what has changed since those halcyon days? What has prompted the Dutch to abandon their solid support for Israel and instead opt for a more ambivalent attitude? There are a few things at work here and I would mark the 1980s as a turning point:

(1) Holocaust - The deep guilt over the deportation and murder of about 85% of the Dutch-Jewish population during World War II - which fueled the strong support for the young state - started to wear off after some forty years;

(2) Domestic Polics - At the height of the Dutch-Israeli love fest in the mid-1970s both countries were governed by Labor and that in no small part facilitated forging strong and deep ties. Likud, the dominant player in Israeli politics during the 1980s was not easily and automatically aligned with the left-of-center tilt that characterizes Dutch politics;

(3) Lebanon 1982 - The invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was not interpreted to be an act of self-defence and was carried out by Likud, a party that as noted above could not count on automatic popularity in The Netherlands;

(4) The Underdog - The love for the underdog – a feeling ironically in part crafted by the holocaust – could no longer realistically be applied to Israel from 1982 onwards. The Palestinians had successfully claimed the underdog mantle and leveraged that position skillfully – think media campaigns – until this very day.

(5) Muslim Immigration - A growing Muslim population in The Netherlands may have contributed to the factors 1 to 4 listed above, although I would be reluctant to make any claim that Dutch-Muslim organizations were able to hijack the debate to their advantage. One can’t deny however that a sizeable Muslim contingent which also benefits from the ‘underdog’ and ‘multicultural’ attitudes was and is in a far better position to make its case than the diminished pro-Israel crowd.

(6) European Integration - Yes, each EU member carries out its own foreign policy, but throughout the 1980s and 90s there has been a strong tendency to align or form a joint EU foreign policy which has – for a variety of other reasons – not exactly been overtly pro-Israel and that is of course an understatement.

(7) Naiveté - Of course the 'peace process' proved to be a defining factor in shaping perceptions and that brings me back to the Radio Netherlands report:

Lack of understanding can easily lead to impatience, and without the respondents showing any outspoken sympathy for either of the warring parties or any true understanding of what lies at the heart of the conflict, it seems there's just one thing they clearly want: for it all to end as quickly as possible.

Of course, war is unpleasant and forces a moral choice and both concepts do not fit into the culture of self-gratification and peace of mind. All western societies are prone to that, but the Dutch have turned it into an art.

NOTE: Here is an idea of how things are being considered by the Dutch’s neighbors, Germany.

Via Normblog comes this interesting interview with three Israeli mothers who at one point were part of an anti-war action group. Yet, attitudes have shifted:

"Today I know what will happen: there will be a slaughter here. We will not be in the sea, because we will simply be slaughtered. Not one person from the nation of Israel will remain. If the IDF comes down with a virus, no one will defend us, including our friends in the United States. So I feel that despite the terrible pain, this war is just and necessary to protect our lives. And I think that even when we remove hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in Lebanon, that is not only right, it is also moral. Because I do not want them to be killed in our shelling. But we have to shell. And we have to fight. Because this time, it's not over the security zone [in southern Lebanon], this time it is over our lives"

You may want to read the entire piece, it is quite revealing.

So after some three weeks and on a day where Hezbollah somehow managed to rain a record number of rockets on Israel, it may be worthwhile to recapture the dilemmas of Israel’s new and untested leader.

Firstly, his response. Above all I have to say that it is Ehud Olmert who had no other option than to brandish his reputation as a reliable enforcer as opposed to his predecessor who had somehow passed that stage and was ready to polish his record for posterity. Any ceasefire or other diplomatic solution that leaves even a residual amount of firepower in Nasrallah’s hands will set the stage for Olmert’s rapid political demise. It would open the door for Kadima being written off as a failed experiment and possibly a dramatic return of a more traditional hardliner such as Bibi Nethanyahu. It seems to me that if there is any resignation internationally over a prolonged war – despite outward diplomatic moves and dramatic statements – that it is a clear realization that Olmert needs some capital to work with. No one in his right mind would force this man to accept a solution that would end his career and create yet more uncertainty in and for Israel itself.

What raises the eyebrow is why Olmert misread the first week of operations and why he apparently opted for a response that – while in the eyes of the rest of world 'disproportionate' – was in fact pretty lame. It may have been Arik’s shadow that forewarned him against a bloody incursion deep into Lebanon, or it may even have been a gambit to placate the outside world and avoid massive international outrage over a full scale invasion. Hard to say, but the first case would support my theory that Olmert is not as crude as Sharon in his prime, the second case seems odd as even Olmert must have known that Israel can’t and should never play in the court of world opinion: its loss is guaranteed beforehand.

So, the likelihood of a military miscalculation combined with some Olmertesque trepidation have left us in a situation where in week four the IDF will have to go full force in order to get a favorable hand once the diplomatic game swings into full gear. It is for this reason only why any calls for an immediate ceasefire – and there have been quite a few – are to the detriment of Israel and why this site rejects them, wholeheartedly. The key motivations in favor of stopping the fight, the deep human suffering in various parts of Lebanon and, the intractable outcome if a bloodied but newly popular Hezbollah is able to pick up support from otherwise unpoliticized Lebanese are noted. The fear that has gripped many is that any continuation of violence increases both variables considerably and unacceptably. I’d argue Ehud’s likely stand and would consider both to be risks that are manageable. Qana served as a reminder to be careful indeed, and a radicalized and divided neighbor is nothing Israel hasn’t handled before.

Israel’s self-preservation is intertwined with Ehud’s political sustainability and after the setbacks of the first few weeks there will be little that can set either off course. And although Lebanon bloodied his reputation to some extent, I believe the man on the empty chair would nod approvingly if asked about Ehud moving deeper into the north.

As I didn’t really fancy leaving my car with my laptop behind for more than a little while, I decided to skip attending the pro-Israel rally here in Vancouver last night. The turn-out it appears was solid. What’s more, there were quite a few cars sporting the Israeli flag driving around on Oak Street in a valiant display of support for the embattled state. One driver actually pushed the envelope by having both the American and the Israeli flags mounted on his SUV which in a city like Vancouver can only be explained as gutsy. Or a sign of changing times. But most likely both.

David Frum once more explains, cogently, the Iran angle and why Hezbollah’s destruction is of paramount importance.

Conrad Black is putting the time he’s out on bail to good use with regular columns in the National Post, last Saturday’s (behind a subscriber wall) highlighted a theme that has made a compelling comeback over the past few weeks:

“ This is war-making, but it is executed crisply, that is often the only method of peacekeeping ”

Of course, his reflection refers to the Israel-Hezbollah war and Victor Davis Hanson was kind enough to – not for the first time – explore why old fashioned peacekeeping hasn’t helped in resolving that particular conflict:

Syria and Iran have never been more isolated; neither was isolated when Bill Clinton praised the “democracy” in Tehran or when an American secretary of State sat on the tarmac in Damascus for hours to pay homage to Syria ’s gangsters. Israel is at last being given an opportunity to unload on jihadists; that was impossible during the Arafat fraud that grew out of the Oslo debacle.

Only a decisive war can create the conditions for the establishment of a lasting peace and only the destruction of the radical zealots who initiated this war in the first place can bring this about. That is, if a viable democratic and open society can be nurtured on the rubble that decades of jihadist deceit and western acquiescence have created.

What is interesting to me is how for instance in Europe deep misconceptions continue to exist by separating warmaking and peacekeeping and how these two are considered to be very different approaches to a problem. Of course, this separation has in no small part contributed to the rather absurd overreaction to Israel’s actions by some European leaders and notably by a number of UN officials. Past missions by both - the former Yugoslavia being a case in point - indicate that reliance on peace and reconstruction doesn’t necessarily end a conflict or war.

Thankfully there is always a live example to illustrate the point and some of you may remember the deep rift in Dutch politics over the deployment of Dutch troops in Afghanistan earlier this year. The mission got a parliamentary go ahead only on the government accepting the condition that it was to be a peacekeeping and reconstruction exercise only, fighting terrorists it was felt was best delegated to American troops in the region. Well, in order to start that reconstruction effort the Dutch had to wage a bit of war last week on locally active Taliban groups:

Dutch commandos killed 18 enemy fighters who set up positions in rugged hills overlooking a Dutch camp in southern Afghanistan, the country's military chief said Friday. There were no Dutch casualties during a 10-day mission.

Hopefully this experience will help redefine the traditional interpretation of peacekeeping and merge it with warmaking, giving the peace effort that what it has always lacked: teeth.

UPDATE: Some good comments from Michael Barone.

The Dutch will go to the polls for a general election later this year – November to be precise - and one party in particular is projected to do well, namely the Socialist Party, a more radical and doctrinaire Labour Party offshoot. Its leader, Jan Marijnissen, made headlines last week by comparing jihadist terrorism to the Dutch resistance during World War II:

" Terrorism is a recurring thing throughout history and often has the intention to make life for an occupying power as difficult as possible. The Dutch have, during the Second World War here blown up city halls in order to disrupt Nazi Germany’s machine of destruction – most city halls kept registries with names of Jewish citizens. In the Middle East, things are not that different. Islamic fundamentalism, including its terrorist subsidiary, is a reaction to the occupation of Palestine by Israel, the American presence in the Middle East and the support of undemocratic regimes in the Middle East by the west "

Not only a false and to some highly insulting analogy, Marijnissen also fails to note that radical Islam is driven by religion and not by politics, a point that is not often understood in Europe's secular circles. As we have seen over the past few weeks, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is merely a useful conduit to expand the radical Islamic franchise as is so eloquently explained by Amir Taheri in the Times today:

The problem is that since the Iranian regime is Shi’ite it would not be easy to sell it to most Arabs, who are Sunni. To overcome that hurdle, it is necessary to persuade the Arabs that only Iran is sincere in its desire and capacity to wipe Israel off the map. Once that claim is sold to the Arabs, so Ahmadinejad hopes, they would rally behind his vision of the Middle East instead of the “American vision”.

The jury is out on whether the Palestinians would really enjoy life under Ahmadinejad’s Shi’ite umbrella, but that’s a topic for a very different discussion.

In the meantime Marijnissen has hurried to tone down his original comment on his own weblog as Dutch pollsters predict that he will pick up some 10% of the vote if an election were held today. If he does indeed manage that in November, the Socialist Party may become a player in parliament, possibly holding the balance of power. I will leave it to your imagination as to how that would affect the Dutch, and to some extent the European, debate over waging war on terror.

Pajamas Media has been on top of Middle East events and commentary over the past few weeks, here is the latest. Co-founder Roger Simon makes an important point in a PJ news release:

"We are increasing our podcast program overall," states Simon. "We had recently published podcast interviews focusing on US issues with Senator Rick Santorum and through Instapundit's Glenn and Helen Show, with Senator John McCain. When the Middle East conflict started to expand we wanted to get access to an Israeli official. We weren't sure we could, but we tried and were able to land an interview with the Israeli US Ambassador Daniel Ayalon. Our interview lasted 14 minutes compared to cable news organizations of perhaps 3- 4 minutes. This flexible timeframe is one of our advantages compared to the more sound bite oriented mainstream media approach"

Personally, I believe that mainstream cable news coverage of the conflict has become totally unwatchable. In the past week most Canadian news outlets have started their top-of-the-hour news reports with endless and meaningless updates of the evacuations of foreigners from Lebanon’s shores as if it were a crucial and defining issue, a feat enthusiastically replicated over at CNN. Some of that coverage approached Katrinaesque levels of hysteria while the key purpose of tuning in - at least for me - was to get some solid battlefront coverage and possibly updates from the diplomatic front. None of that, and if you got it was often highly biased and devoid of any direct relevance. News and commentary, including raw footage are now sourced almost exclusively on the net.

Another interesting development is that blogs are proving to be an incredibly useful tool to go beyond enemy lines and try to forge relationships where they previously had been impossible. My friends at Augean Stables have been in a lengthy discussion with Omar, a Palestinian based in Jordan, and Lisa Goldman notes the following remarkable thing:

The internet has also been offering some surreal experiences, like the ability to have a Beirut-Tel Aviv online IM chat in real time while the missiles are falling. That's what happened to me and this blogger a few nights ago. We chatted while he was sitting on the roof of his apartment building in Beirut, watching missiles from Israeli planes fall on his city and describing it to me. He was carrying on an online conversation with another Israeli at the same time. And he was able to describe his feelings and the atmosphere in a human, personal way that no newspaper article or television news segment could achieve.

Extraordinary.

With Israeli forces close to launching a major incursion into Lebanese territory I was reminded of this classic Reagan anecdote, when Israel made its first call to the gates of Beirut in 1982. Former NSC staffer Geoffrey Kemp recalls as follows:

“Menachem, this is a holocaust” Reagan said.

“Mr. President, I think I know what a holocaust is” Begin replied, in a voice that Kemp would recall as “dripping with sarcasm”. According to Deaver, Reagan continued “in the plainest of language” to tell Begin what he thought about the bombing of Beirut, concluding by saying, “It has gone too far. You must stop it”.

Twenty-minutes later Begin called back and said he had issued the order to Sharon to stop the bombings. After he had hung up the phone Reagan said to Deaver, “I didn’t know I had that kind of power”.

(from Lou Cannon’s President Reagan, The Role of a Lifetime)

This snippet from the past is instructive on many levels, especially Reagan’s insistence combined with his astonishment over Begin’s prompt response. The reason I reprint it is not so much to suggest that George should treat Olmert in exactly the same manner, but we should be very aware that there still isn’t that much that a US president needs to do in order to direct Israeli actions. And Menachem was made of sterner stuff than Olmert, I believe.

"I took a few minutes to read some Lebanese blogs, too. And I saw that, for many, the hate is taking over. That fragile dialogue between Israeli and Lebanese bloggers has been undermined by that nutty, fanatical, hate-filled man with the turban. Hang on, wasn't our abhorrence of him one of the things we had in common just one week ago?"

Lisa Goldman on her blog which I consider to be a must-read, crisis or no crisis.

"We slept very well, but around 6 AM my wife, our daughter and I woke up to the sound of sirens. After that we heard some muffled bangs. We waited for about twenty minutes, listened to the radio to make sure nothing unusual landed, and then we all went to have a pee. Except for our three-year-old son, he was still sleeping"

"Twenty minutes ago we heard several loud bangs and booms. I went down to the security room and closed the window and the iron door that covers it. Before I closed them I was able to see the places where the missiles ( one blogger correctly pointed out that we are not talking about rockets ) fell. We live on a mountain between Haifa University and the Technion, overlooking large parts of the Haifa Bay and the road to Acre. More bangs were heard. I called my wife, who went with our children to her parents' house one street below ours. They were fine, they also entered the security room"

This as well as great anecdotes and analysis, some of it in Dutch unfortunately, over at Bert de Bruin's Dutchblog Israel which I check out more than a few times a day now.

Addressing proportionality and the role of Lebanon, Israel's ambassador to the US, Daniel Ayalon speaks to Pajamas Media's Roger Simon. Similar and equally useful points are made by Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman.

Last Friday Warren Buffett's Berkshire-Hathaway announced a major acquisition, but it was one of my readers who alerted me to the fact that it was one in Israel, and, Buffett's first outside the US. Of course, we can intepret the 80% purchase of family-owned Iscar as a vote of confidence at a critical juncture:

"This is a moment for Israel's economic standing and ability when a global investor guru such as Warren Buffett decides to make this crucial investment in Israel following the rise of the Hamas government," Shlomo Maoz, chief economist at Excellence Nessuah, told The Jerusalem Post. "It represents a high vote of confidence which will boost Israel's status in the world and attract other foreign investors to follow Buffett's lead."

The Tel Aviv 100 Index rose to record levels today. Good news, sure, but if I were living in Israel I would look very closely at how the Wertheimer family will re-invest the 4 billion they have just pocketed. That will be the real confidence test for Israel's economy.

The new Israeli coalition government is taking shape with prime minister Ehud Olmert today ensuring Labor's participation in the new team. Is Israel now drifting to the left? Michael Totten is in Israel and his latest dispatch can help in understanding the situation on the ground better:

I wouldn’t say Israel has since swung hard to the left. But the Labor Party did receive one and a half times as many votes as Likud in the general election last month. Wielding a big fist no longer seems necessary whether it actually was in the first place or not. The intifada is more or less over. Brutal Israeli crackdowns in the territories are likewise more or less over. That may not be enough to feel hope, but it’s something.

Seeing Israel and Palestine for myself as they really are makes me slightly more hopeful than I was before I got there. The standard narrative of the conflict is a cartoon. Upon closer inspection, it’s a lot more complicated. And it’s a lot more interesting, too.

Read the whole fascinating report.

The first government to cut financial aid to the Palestinian Authority following Hamas taking the reigns of power: Canada.

When the exit polls were released yesterday there appeared to be some upbeat mood about a Kadima win and the likely ease of cobbling together a Kadima-Labor coalition. Having the digested the final numbers, we need to temper such enthusiasm just a bit. Kadima ended up with 28 seats which is not even a quarter of the Knesset and together with Labor a coalition would be far short of a necessary parliamentary majority. Ergo, Olmert needs help from the smaller parties and that could potentially affect the effectiveness of Kadima’s tentative win.

Israel’s electoral system is almost identical to the Dutch one, a form of proportional representation where the tinier and less relevant special interest groups have a very decent shot at earning seats, to the detriment of the larger parties. It may be time for Israel to follow Germany’s example where a 5% threshold is required before a party can get any representation in parliament. That would prevent entities like for instance Hadash and Meretz getting in and would drastically reduce the seat count of the Pensioners party which did well last night.

Above all, Israel needs a broad national consensus to give effect to Ariel Sharon’s vision and while Ehud Olmert can probably make things work, there will always be a risk that such a fragile coalition may fall apart at a critical juncture. And that makes governing Israel, not an easy task to begin with, a highly challenging undertaking.

Other Reactions:

Dutchblog Israel argues that the low voter turn-out affected Kadima and Labor.

Allison Kaplan Sommer on Kadima: “A key strategic error in the campaign -- they acted like confident front-runners, so even those who really wanted them at the helm felt free to vote their social issues and support smaller parties”. Exactly the phenomenon I described above, call it a frivolous vote with a disastrous result.

John Podhoretz - via Hugh Hewitt - expects it will be a short-lived government and another call to the polls soon, Roger Simon doesn’t think so.

Ed Morrissey rightfully attributes the Kadima win to Ariel Sharon: “The lower turnout underscores the grim decision that faces their country, but the result confirms the wisdom and brilliance of the first of the hard-liners who dared to imagine another path to security”

Israpundit has a round-up of reactions too and is not very optimistic about the outcome.

However tentative the mandate, it is a new beginning and there is merit for ending on a positive note. Jonathan Edelstein points out that Olmert can build a coalition with the help of the smaller parties and says “We have just witnessed the beginning of the end of the occupation, and the continuation of Israel's journey back to itself. Ladies and gentlemen, the good guys won” Let’s hope he’s right.

Richard Landes and Pedro Zúquete of the inimitable Augean Stables blog have a question for us that they would like to get answered: Can we compare the Irgun - a militant Jewish group which eventually became the Likud party - to Hamas?

Of course, I will give my answer and on the face of it is not as straightforward as one might think as there are many similarities between both groups. The main reason is that both Hamas and Irgun emerged at a point in history when the founders of both groups had become hugely dissatisfied with the course taken by the main groups (Hagana and Fatah) that respectively represented the Palestinian and Jewish causes. And both have the blood of numerous innocent bystanders on their hands. Still I believe that both diverge on the following key points:

Religion - Hamas is based on religious principles and even though their emergence as a force in a multi-party democratic system gives it a ‘benefit of the doubt aura’, there is ample reason to distrust their ultimate motives and goals. Initial reports of Sharia implementation and other socially conservative measures, support the concern that any separation between church and state in a Hamas led polity would prove to be rather elusive.

Indiscriminate Terror - Hamas deliberately targets civilians, without any proper warning. And while Irgun’s record isn’t exactly clean, historical evidence points to the group being far more considerate in trying to limit its victims to legitimate, military, targets. Even the British occupiers of Palestine were warned that their headquarters at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem would be blown to smithereens.

International Context - Irgun operated in the vacuum of the emerging Jewish state, to the outside world they were a largely irrelevant group when Israel became independent. Hamas on the contrary does not operate in such a vacuum. They come to power at a point in time when radical Islam is resurgent and growing in influence globally. Hamas appears to have veritable partners with agendas similar to its own in other Arab and Muslim nations. One could even argue that their behavior as a visionary in transforming Arab governments might prompt them to become more rather than less radical.

Moderate Establishment Player - When Likud emerged as a political force (mid 1970s) they had long abandoned warfare as a means to further the group’s interests. They had become part of the Israeli democratic establishment and carefully managed the nation’s external diplomatic relationships. If we look at Hamas we discover something very different. The group is coming to power in a