How could Iran retaliate for destruction of its nuclear facilities? It arms anti-Israeli forces in Lebanon and Palestine, anyway, and extends worthless protection to Syria. If Iran launches Zelzal-2 from Lebanon against Tel Aviv, Israel would again flatten Beirut; the missiles launched from Iran core are easy to intercept. At any rate, damage to Israel from the Iranian reprisals would be less than the danger posed by the Shiite nuclear weapons. In the best-case scenario, Iran will react hysterically with the campaign of international terrorism and prompt Western invasion.
For all the ensuing rhetoric, other Muslims will be happy to lose a nuclear neighbor. Failure to destroy Iranian nuclear program would prompt other Muslim regimes to acquire nuclear weapons to counterbalance Iran. Nuclear Iran means nuclear Middle East, especially after the West demonstrates its impotence in imposing the sanctions. A sight of the Muslims nuking each other out would be heart-warming if not for the fallout effect on Israel and deliveries of loose nuclear bombs to America, Spain, and Israel.
Cowards and leftists recall the reported spiraling of Iraqi nuclear program after Israel bombed Osiraq. That is hardly an option for Iran which already strained its resources in the extensive nuclear program. Iraq was years from the bomb, Iran - months.
Destruction of Iranian nuclear facilities could not make the situation worse for Israel. The Natanz site is too covered and dispersed for conventional bombing with limited number of aircraft. It should be attacked with nuclear weapons in order to contaminate the territory and equipment above the tolerable levels.

It is a truism that warfare develops in spirals of offensive – defensive capabilities. From 1950s to late 1960s, Israel possessed weapons superior to Arab enemies'. Soviet supplies of surface-to-air and anti-tank missiles to Egypt and Syria, along with other decent weaponry, changed the balance and pushed Israel on defensive or very careful offensive. Jews naturally outsmarted Arabs and countered their defenses, such as SAM's, with superior tactics. The equation has changed from the 1973. Israel relies on super-expensive tanks and American aircraft, while Arabs purchase cheap and very efficient Russian SAM's and anti-tank missiles. Arab quantitative advantage and the relative cheapness of their defenses would one day make impossible large-scale Israeli invasion of Egypt or Syria or even operation near their borders. Even now, such wars would be prohibitively expensive for Israel. The major lesson from the 1973 war is that Israeli stocks of many weapons were exhausted in two weeks. In the near future, Arabs won't be able to cover their entire territories with SAM's and would concentrate them in border areas. That leaves Israel with two options: deep penetrating strikes or total wars. In both cases, Israel has to abandon the absurd notions of not targeting enemy civilians.
The American Strategic Defense Initiative was criticized for provoking arms race and endangering civilians. Better defense leads an attacker to target less-defended areas, predominantly civilian. The declared policy of targeting civilian areas is an acceptable response to the build-up of enemy defense capabilities. Defense is not harmless, but upsets mutual balance of fear. Well-defended party could start offense without fearing great cost to its hinterland. That was the idea of Egypt in 1973: protect the Suez border with SAM's, and attack from there; sort of a limited liability. Syria bids for massive amount of Russian surface-to-air and anti-tank missiles in the apparent attempt to regain the Golans. Just like the Soviets did in response to the SDI, Israel has to publicly switch to the strategy of extreme devastation. Syrians won’t have enough SAM's to cover all the significant cities.
Russian newspapers were indignant at the Jewish attempts of "unlawful" self-defense during pogroms. Soviet newspapers scorned apologetic attempts of the Jews subjected to blood libel and intended for resettlement to Siberia, the place Nazi originally earmarked for us. Israel must stop playing the lamb of Isaiah with Russia. Respond to the SAM and AT missiles sales to Arabs with arms sales to Russian separatists and hostile neighbors, such as Georgia.

Rav Kahane warned about open anti-Semitism of Russian immigrants in Israel years ago, and the situation only worsens. Almost 200,000 Israelis identify themselves as Slavs, the archetype of anti-Semites. Many Russians are very decent people and good citizens of Israel, in fact more pro-Israeli and anti-Arab than the Jewish leftists. But Slavs are less than ointment, and anti-Semites among them carry more weight than a fly.
A Jew could be religious or not. Even a secular Jew knows he has a problem with anti-Semites. Slavs who marry Jews often do not fear anti-Semitism due to distinctive facial features. A lot of Slavs married Jews as migration vehicles to leave the Russian economic dead-end for any other country including Israel.
Flag burning, a non-violent act is condemned in all countries and usually criminalized. Israel has a symbol more potent than the dubious flag – a Jew. Everyday anti-Semitism is heinous desecration of the ultimate symbol of the State of Israel.
A rare Gentile could comprehend the mortal frustration of Jews who escaped from Russia and its environs only to encounter similar unbridled anti-Semitism in Israel. Impunity is the key to anti-Semitism in Israel as elsewhere. Impunity means hopeless frustration for the Jews and encouragement of Slavic anti-Semites. In Russia, it is unthinkable for a Jew to publicly offend Slavic nationhood. In Israel, police consider ok similar actions by Russian immigrants. Though technically a crime of racism, anti-Semitism goes unpunished. Police have an astonishingly illegal policy of filing criminal charges in racism cases only with prior approval of the Justice Ministry which is never forthcoming. Apparently, anti-Semitism in Israel is just. Police enters the scene when a Jew hits or otherwise shuts down anti-Semite scum, or slaps Slavic anti-Semitic youngster who insults his Jewish classmates – in the Jewish state of Israel!
The Jews who ignore their Jewishness to the point of marrying unconverted Gentiles should not be allowed into Israel. A Gentile, married or not, who was ever overheard offending the Jewish nation, should be stripped of Israeli citizenship and deported on the grounds that he faked loyalty to the state when applying for citizenship. Beating a person for anti-Semitic pronouncements should be reduced to misdemeanor punishable by minor fine.

Well-wishers are hazardous. For all its friendship and Carteresque moralizing, America consistently fans Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not that Israel acts reasonably.
Palestinians cannot survive on sustenance agriculture and are not suited to any kind of modern economic activity. They are sustained by money from the two sources: Israel (employment, tax transfers) and America and Western Europe (UN refugee payments and direct assistance to the Palestinian government). Had it not been for Israel and America, the Palestinian problem would long have gone, along with the Palestinians. They would die out, breed less, or emigrate. Israel would have to deal with paltry network of Arab villages rather than the bulging state burning with hatred.
Palestinian refugee camps are the unique formations. In no other country are the refugees almost forcibly kept for three generations in the camps, unemployed, on the UN welfare, allowed great leisure to develop hatred and tactical capabilities.
The way to stop the war with Palestinians is simple: stop financing it.

Condoleezza Rice showed sensitivity gap and her usual political blindness when took Olmert and Abbas onto the balcony overlooking Jerusalem' Old City. Olmert showed his usual subservience to the paying parties when followed Rice. That's besides the political blunder: the Prime Minister of Israel conducts negotiations with a sworn enemy in the capital of the Jewish State – in a hotel room, as a traveling salesman.
Rice need not look on the Old City, nor show it to Abbas in the implicit promise. Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, not subject to negotiations. That's not a thorny issue, disputed city or whatever other euphemism the liberals attach to it. The Jews don't have to justify holding on to Jerusalem with religious or historical claims. We will hold the city because, of all nations, only we prayed for two thousand years, "Next year – in Jerusalem!"
Israeli government betrays human dignity of the Jews, the lives of the fallen Jewish soldiers and the Jews who suffered and died to make Israel happen when acquiesce to the other nations' settling the fate of Israel. Watch the Quartet. The US embargoed weapons shipments to Israel during the War of Independence, and kept Israel from preempting in 1967 (unsuccessfully) and 1973 (successfully). The US arms Egypt and provides assistance to Palestine. Russia and the Europeans, hereditary anti-Semites. The UN, a conference of Muslims and barbarians. Israeli rulers who submit to the Quartet must have lost every bit of brain and respect for the Jews.
The besieged Israeli society is convulsed. Everything crumbles: faith and ideology from within, security and borders from without. From the ultimate hope of reestablishing the Jewish state in 1947 to almost fulfillment in 1967 to the Mideast ghetto in 2005. Countries that fall down search for culprits and sublimate their discontent, raging on unrelated subjects. Thus Israel engages in the cleansing campaigns against president, top military officials, police, government, and courts. It's time to blot out the ruling clique.

Rape allegations against Iraqi police are nothing unusual. Police in many countries, including Western Europe, employed that method to terrify insurgents. Rape, however, is absolutely inconsistent with Islam. No cleric ever justified rape, and unregulated rape is prohibited in regard to enemies.
Forget Iraqi Shiite police of dubious religious credentials; Afghani mujahedeen of fundamentalist factions, such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's made rape into tactics and sort of wage benefit. Staunch Islamic fighters want indulgence. That's the West's chance. No amount of rational discourse would discredit Islam in fanatics' eyes. They don't distinguish Islam from AK-47: both form the one source of their power, strength in the crumbling paternalistic order and hopeless economy. Coca-cola and jeans did a tremendous job of destroying the communist empire whose economic deficiency failed to meet consumerist demands. In Islamic societies which depend on imports, Coke and jeans are not symbolic of the free world. Porn is.
There is two forces able to destroy any religion or ideology in the short run, fission and fusion weapons of ideological war: money and sex. Muslim fanatics cannot get money because they utterly lack economic skills. But sex – they could have an illusion of it. Instead of the bombs and food packages, drop porn magazines and DVD's on Afghanistan. Broadcast porn from satellites and distribute free satellite dishes. Open adult shops in prominent locations, even if guarded by US Army platoons. The war with Islamic insurgents is not decided by weapons. Rather, the West must deprive Muslims of their best weapon: a soldier who isn't afraid to die, a supporter who wants to die a suicide bomber. Fighting the Muslims' bodies doesn't help: unless beaten into panic, they do want to die, and with one and a half billion Muslims around, enough recruits would flow to insurgents. Fight their souls, destroy their commitment, offer them the pleasures of paradise – here and now. Take a free porn magazine, pal, and enjoy it without waiting for heavenly houri. Hollywood is better than heavens. Muslims would prefer Hollywood.

America is inconsistent. Rice assures the Russians that missile defense in Poland and Czechoslovakia is intended against Iranian ballistic missiles. Why not station it in Negev, Israel, then? At the same time, the US fakes a tough stand against Iranian nuclear program. Can't lie both ways. If America is determined to disallow nuclear weapons to Iran, then there's no need for missile defense. Rice is correct that ten interceptors in Poland is merely a gesture, unable to counter the monstrous Russian arsenal of ballistic missiles. Like much else that America does in the area of foreign relations, missile base in Poland and radar base in Czech is PR. In this case, a languid attempt to irritate Moscow. The current Russian leadership is way smarter than the Soviet gerontocracy. Russia won't answer in kind, with hyper-expensive ballistic missile defense of its own, but step on peripheral conflicts with America, such as Iranian nuclear build-up. Ideally, the ballistic bases in Eastern Europe are intended as a trade-off, to be cancelled in exchange for the Russian acquiescence to sanctions against Iran. If so, that might work. Neither sanctions, nor Russian pressure would, however, distract Iran from its very feasible nuclear path.
Iran offered the world an interesting chance: mutual freezing of nuclear programs. Israel failed to act on similar offer from Egypt to ensure nuclear-free Middle East, stock her existing weapons and continue clandestine production. The US has enough nuclear weapons. It makes sense to stop. The current situation of the nuclear club prohibiting new contenders is not sustainable. The examples of India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, and scores of other countries on the verge of nuclear technology show that the whole world would soon go nuclear – unless the world agrees to freeze nuclear development. America has advanced conventional weapons capable of defeating any enemy in short war, and could produce enough low-tech weapons to sustain protracted war. It's time to concentrate on the ways, acceptable to other countries, to end nuclear proliferation – even if reciprocally.

Idealists often urge Israel to be nice to Palestinians and help them develop. Today, the opposite notion, namely that goodness doesn't pay, was reinforced. Minuscule nation of Lithuania whose only historic achievement was the enthusiastic slaughter of Jews during the Holocaust, probed American reaction for withdrawal of its token contingent from Iraq, ridiculous 53 troops. Decades ago, the US, virtually alone, refused to recognize Soviet annexation of the Baltic states, and allowed unhindered operation of independent consulates. America unflinchingly supported the worthless Baltic states against the giant Russia – contrary to the US' rational interests. The Lithuanians deem a symbolic gesture of 53-strong force too much for the American help. That's very human: by the time immediate threat or hardship passes, beneficiaries hate their helpers.
The US fought essentially for Britain in WWII, the European war of no particular interest to America. Hitler, if anything, praised America for successful racial segregation. Germany economically cooperated with America and provided bulwark against communism better than any Latin American dictatorship the US courted after the war. Still, the US entered the war on Britain's side. Now the UK pulls its troops out of Iraq – admittedly, a lost venture, but a venture with the best partner Britain could get. Instead of slapping the UK with revocation of its status of "America's man in Europe," the United States government welcomes the British move as a sign of successful pacification of Iraq. Who is expected to buy that lie?
The politically correct American empire shies from demanding loyalty, and receives none.

Israeli government's attitude to Jewish sacred places is driven by clinical hatred toward religious and nationalist Jews. Olmert allowed construction of the fifth minaret on the Temple Mount. The place, Haram ash-Sharif, is unimportant in Islamic worldview. No considerable number of pilgrims visited the place while it was under the Turkish, British, or Jordanian rule. Muslims from Egypt, Jordan, or Western countries don't flock to the Aqsa. Any Muslim interest in the place is purely political and, therefore, Israel concedes to the enemies, not to respectable Islamic religion.
Capitol Hill is not central to American national mentality, yet the Americans would accept no money or offer of friendship in exchange for that place. The Kremlin is a recent structure which wasn't the government's seat during the Russia's two best centuries. Yet the Russians laid down untold numbers of soldiers to prevent Nazis from entering Moscow. Temple Mount was the central place in Jewish consciousness for two thousand years, the pinnacle of Jerusalem which we prayed to return to. Arabs prohibited us from praying at the Western Wall. Jewish soldiers who took the Temple Mount in 1967 wept with happiness. Only to have Moshe Dayan say that he doesn't want another Vatican – and give the Temple Mount to Arabs.
Fearful, faithless Jews scream that we cannot destroy the Muslim shrines to clear the place for the Third Temple. We're not barbarians, religious extremists, but ethnic-blind liberals. At least, they are rational. Wrong, but rational. The government's actions are only rational if it aims at annihilating Judaism. Suppose, we don't destroy Islamic artifacts which were specifically built over the remains of our Temple. Though every other nation would have cleansed its holy places of the enemy's structures. But adding to those humiliating structures? Israeli government is not that ethnic-blind: a while ago, it refused a request to build synagogue in the same place. Israeli government is not ethnic-blind, but anti-Jewish.
Israeli Temple Mount policy is politically dangerous. Israeli government allowed Jordan virtual autonomy on the Temple Mount. The government ignored the fact that Jordan banned Jews from the Temple Mount before 1967. Oh, Israeli government also bans the Jews from the Temple site – now, after we have conquered and annexed the place. Hostile Israeli Arabs formally control the Temple Mount and collaborate with Israeli foreign enemies in various projects. Israel appointed Turkey as construction supervisor for the Temple Mount works. That didn't placate the Arabs because they dislike Turks, but gave boost to Turkish Islamists. Olmert likewise sued for increased Russian influence in Jerusalem. The holy city of Judaism is earmarked to become a serpentarium of anti-Semitic powers.
Hate knows no borders. Israeli government policies which stem from hatred toward religious and nationalist Jews, ultimately weaken the state vis-à-vis its Arab enemies.

The Law School of Tel Aviv University held a conference welcoming Palestinian terrorists as political prisoners (formally, they are). In another happening, Israeli leftists who vociferously urged the destruction of Gush Katif and repressions against its defenders scorned Israeli government for failing on its promises of resettling the evictees. Two superficially opposite incidents share a common cause: intelligentsia loves to be independent, thus anti-establishment, insofar as the establishment continues to finance it.
Nineteenth-century liberal opponents of Russian monarchy wrote fiery articles in narrowly circulating press, and proudly went into resort-like exile. Famed Soviet intelligentsia blasted the communist leaders at kitchen meetings and enthusiastically lauded them in public. It's so good to be a progressive, brave contrarian when your income is safe. Cynical Soviet leadership recognized the moral poverty of intelligentsia. Several small publications were allowed whopping political incorrectness nearing the freedom of speech. Intelligentsia was happy and all the more supported the government which so generously dispersed liberties. Soviet government played its part and lavished wages, bonuses, and coveted vacation packages on intelligentsia.
Intelligentsia is generally apprehensive of state powers: government giveth, government taketh away. Intelligentsia is apt at producing irrelevant papers which don't increase knowledge; at publishing subsidized books no one reads; at writing theses condemned to the dust of archives. In many cases, government is their only customer. They despise stupid bureaucrats and politicians, and marvel at their own smartness, but in the end line up to subserviently receive their wages. Truly progressive social thinkers rarely served the governments. Modern intelligentsia lack marketable skills, and cannot afford to yelp too loud at the government tree.
But yelping it likes, preferably down wind. Conservative Jews could prove themselves strong and mobilize the spineless intelligentsia against the treacherous government, or continue their post-Gush Katif lamentations and see the Jewish intelligentsia aligning with Palestinian strongmen.