Lieberman advocates aid to Palestinians | Jerusalem Post

Keep an eye on Lieberman. While he seduces Washington by sounding reasonable(Lieberman advocates aid to Palestinians | Jerusalem Post), these soundbites represent only part of his much better grasp of the mindset of Israel's enemies than that of the polished idiot politicians currently running Israel (led by the prime idiot, Olmert, who deserves to be shot for treason or idiocy for his latest statement regarding Israel's nuclear status).

Israel and the West are losing to or being outflanked by Islamist extremists in one battle after another. If you are the Iranians, you can taste the victory and be intoxicated by your success. This can lead to tragic miscalculation. In Afganistan, Iraq and Lebanon the winning cards have just been falling into the Iranians' hands, as if from Allah himself. This may be the most dangerous time for Israel since the second or third day of hte Yom Kippur War -- existentially dangerous. while Israel's economy soars, too many of its elite are simply not focussed on how dangerous it is to let their country be led by Olmert at a time like this. The West and the US is preparing itself to get accustomed to a nuclear Iran, which pronounces daily, for all to hear, that Israel has no future. Increasingly, Western diplomats consider the alternative of a world where Israel at some point ceases to exist (I have heard several market players say this, including the venerable Henry Kissinger). Israel will most probably have to go it alone on Iran. This coming Summer Israeli intelligence expects a new Hezbullah onslaught, coupled with a takeover by them of Lebanon and perhaps a Syrian attempt to retake the Golan Heights, or at least to support Hezbulah with missile fire. Of course, Iran is behind all of this, to take everyone's attention off of their nuclear arms pursuit (like last summer) and to further burnish their reputation as the slayer of the Israeli giant. Forget about what Lieberman says in Washington -- read what he says in Israel about what Israel has to do to stem this tide -- shed its Western liberal ambivalence, act like the Soviets in Chechnya and absolutely brutalize their enemy, without regard to the political consequences, by making the enemy bleed one thousand times over for its attacks on Israel, to truly deter the other side and send a strong message, while offering a hardnosed solution to the base problem (i.e., population and land swap -- or "ethnic cleansing" to those without the intellect to weigh competing ills). North Korea and Iran have gained much by acting extreme, unpredictable and somewhat unbalanced. Is it time for Israel to show a bit of the same behavior to get its way? Isn't this the best way to get the West to fight its fight in Iran, not by acting "reasonable" and standing behind multilateral (non)actions?

This is the missing piece of deterrence in today's Israel. Iran may be right about Israel's future -- unless Israel re-obtains the political resolve necessary to do some pretty nasty things on its own in the next year (and that includes attacking Iran's leadership and/or its nuclear capabilities), Israel may indeed not have much of a future 20 years from now, something unimaginable but increasingly real. Israel's fate is in the hands of the Israeli public, and Lieberman, a boorish, hamfisted, presumably tough Russian, may represent the beginning of the road back from the brink.