| January 21, 2007 ... A war on too many fronts. Even with an Israeli withdrawal to 1967 borders, the leaders of the Palestinian's Hamas have made it abundantly clear that they have no intention of recognising Israel as a state with the right to exist and to defend itself within its own borders. Whilst the Palestinian threat is a clearly stated and unambiguous threat, there is also the more ambiguous threat from the democratic process which underpins the Israeli government and its defence and intelligence institutions. As a consequence of public panic, and the subsequent rapid response from the Israeli government at the beginning of last summer's Lebanon crisis , Danny Halutz has had to resign and Ehud Olmert is in grave danger of having to resign, too, with the likelihood of another general election having to be called.
Danny Halutz is a commander with decades worth of noteworthy experience. And Ehud Olmert--although not a military commander--has sufficient experience as a politician and lawyer to be a capable prime minister. But no prime minister or military commander can function effectively if they have to fight a war on more than one front. The first thing that Israelis voters must understand is that the Palestinians and their advocates and associates can take as long as they like to undermine the Israeli state. This is simply because they are not responsible to anything beyond their twisted ideology. Nor do they have to account for lives and property lost and destroyed. The Lebanon crisis clearly demonstrated that the enemies of Israel are always in a win-win situation. And as the Lebanon crisis also demonstrated, the Israelis are nearly always in a lose-lose situation from home and abroad. No matter who is the leadership of Israel's government and military and intelligence institutions, they will be crippled in their ability to act effectively and properly if they do not have strong and patient support from the a focused Israeli electorate. And that focus must be centred on the existence of the Israeli state within the borders deemed proper by Israelis for the meaningful existence of Israel. In the middle-east, Israel is the only democratic state based on the virtue of western values. It cannot let democracy also be its undoing in the face of mindless aggression from those who see democracy as the means to destroy Israel and western values in the middle east and elsewhere. 'Democracy is like a streetcar. You ride it until you arrive at your destination and then you step off....'. Tayyip Erdogan.
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