HERBERT ZWEIBON

On September 6 Israel launched a raid on Syria which is widely believed to have been directed against nuclear materials from North Korea if not an early-stage reactor. In Lebanon, a rearmed Hezbollah controls the south of the country even as the central government threatens to implode. Iran’s threats to annihilate Israel come with clockwork regularity. Hamas, in control of Gaza, rains rockets on southern Israel with impunity and has formally offered al Qaeda (already in residence) a home.

In short, Israel’s enemies are more threatening, more motivated, better armed and more confident than ever. The response of the United States? To further impair Israel’s ability to defend herself by inserting a Palestinian state into this cauldron. Secretary of State Rice is determined to force Israel to come up with enough concessions in advance to induce a variety of Israel’s Arab enemies (including Syria) to join a Mideast “peace” conference in Washington. Exuding domineering hubris, Rice seems unaware of the many administrations that have fallen on their face “solving” the Arab-Israel conflict.

What ever happened to that ringing declaration by the President: “Either you are with us or with the terrorists”? Whose side are we on? The “moderate” Fatah the administration seeks to reward continues its annual tradition of celebrating the anniversary of 9/11, this year with a cartoon in Al Hayat Al Jadida (controlled by Abbas’ office) showing Bin Laden smiling while making the V for victory sign with two fingers in the shape of the burning twin towers.

And what of the Israeli government? Like a drunken sailor, it flings away its most vital assets. Haaretz reports that Olmert’s lead negotiator with Fatah, Vice Premier Haim Ramon, has offered to redivide Jerusalem, to withdraw from Judea and Samaria (with any territorial changes compensated by the same amount of land within Israel) and to establish a land corridor so the new state of Palestine will not be divided (never mind that Israel will be cut in two.) Olmert defends his abandoning the long-standing Israeli position that Palestinian security compliance was a prerequisite to final status talks by arguing there is no time to waste waiting for compliance. Both Olmert and Peres have announced they are ready for peace talks with Syria (do they think the recent bombing of Syria cleared the air?). Peres announces “The nervousness in relations between ourselves and Syria is over.”

How can one account for such depths of folly? The Wall Street Journal (September 18) reports from Jerusalem that the sharp drop in suicide attacks and the rise in tourism is “providing political space and momentum for the negotiations.” The great Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky understood the pathological trait that led Jews to be swept up in hope and optimism by the most superficial improvement: he called it “impressionism.” Jabotinsky likened the Jewish penchant for ignoring underlying reality to the person who experiences in a cold January in Warsaw or New York a sudden warm day and concludes it is now spring, and you can put away the stove and pack away the fur coat. Jabotinsky recognized the inability to think beyond the events of yesterday and today as a lethal disease; indeed, he wrote, “it is worse than a disease, it is death.” By which he meant it could spell the death of the Zionist enterprise.

And so the folie a deux between the U.S. and Israel continues. Off in never never land Rice describes a Palestinian state that will “live side by side [with Israel] in peace and freedom.” At her side, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni declares that “the creation of a future Palestinian state is in our own interest.” Meanwhile, in the real world, between them, Israel and the United States bring ever closer the Middle Eastern chaos President Bush keeps proclaiming he is bending all his efforts to avoid.