Tangibles rise in value - morals decline in value!

Bernanke has spoken and has concluded to act responsibly until irresponsible politicians, running for office, force him to re-inflate. Physical assets rise in value while morals decline in value. Political whores will win in the end and they will not have to stick their hands under the bathroom stall to do so.

Is GW ready to defend Lebanon with military intervention? Seems so. (See 1 below.)

Jeff Emanuel chimes in on Iran and Ahmadinejad's expressed intentions. (See 2

below.)

Will Sderot's children become victims of Olmert's inaction as they are urged to return to school amidst continuing rocket attacks? (See 3 below.)

Caroline Glick asks whether, even in the face of Sarkozy's recent comments regarding Iran, the Europeans have learned the true lessons of WW 2. Certainly the NYTimes, the Far Left and Christopher Hitchens twist GW's comments, regarding the aftermath of Viet Nam, out of shape to suit their purposes.(See 4 below.)

Some European political extremes equate The Koran with Mein Kampf and would have it banned. (See 5 below.)

An Arab news jornalist reports what Arab leaders believe - Netanyahu is the answer to ultimate peace because their leaders believe The Israeli Right is more capable than The Israeli Left in bringing about conditions for peace. (See 6 below.)

Dick

1)USS Kearsarge Expeditionary Strike Group takes up position opposite Lebanese coast amid trepidation over September presidential election.


Sources report aboard the Kearsarge group’s vessels are members of the 22nds Marine special operations-capable Expeditionary Unit, ready to execute landings on Lebanese beaches.

Wednesday, Aug. 29, Adm. William Fallon, chief of US Central Command and the war on terror paid an unannounced visit to Beirut, although for years US generals have given the Lebanese capital a wide berth. He left after three hours, the longest time considered safe for him to stay. While there he reviewed with Lebanese leaders US preparations for military intervention should the September presidential election descend into civil violence or elicit an attempt by Iran, Syria or Hizballah to seize power by force. Such an attempt could leave Lebanon dangerously stranded between two rival administrations.

The Kearsage posting and a marine force within reach of Lebanese shores is intended as a deterrent and indicator of Washington’s willingness to send the military over to prevent Lebanon’s takeover by Iran or Syria.

Adm. Fallon also inspected the measures for protecting the lives of the anti-Syrian leaders prime minister Fouad Siniora, majority party head Saad Hariri and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, and the safety of US ambassador Jeffrey Felton, a key mover in charting US strategy for Lebanon, and the embassy staff.

Portents of coming unrest were seen last week in the hasty departure from Beirut of the Saudi and UAE ambassadors under threats to their lives. Most Arab and European missions have cut down staff in the Lebanese capital.

Lebanese police are investigating the re-appearance of a sick videogame in Beirut whose goal is the murder of the prime minister, cabinet members, Jumblatt and Maronite leader Samir Geagea, who are designated “thieves and traitors.” Its name, “The Battle of the Seraya,” refers to the government building. The game, which has been removed from stores in Beirut, depicts underground tunnels leading from the government building to the US embassy, echoing Hizballah’s reference to the Siniora government as “the Feltman Cabinet.”

The government building has been guarded by tanks and three army and police battalions since the Hizballah-led opposition occupied downtown Beirut earlier this year with the declared aim of toppling the government.

2) By Jeff Emanuel


Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Tuesday said "a huge power vacuum" was imminent in Iraq and promised Iran would be ready to fill it. This plainly-stated desire by the totalitarian regime in Tehran to overtly interfere in the affairs of a sovereign nation -- while simultaneously accusing the US of doing so, despite the fact that coalition forces are still present in Iraq at official invitation of that nation's sovereign government -- should come as no surprise to any who have followed the course of the Iraq war (and postwar) to this point.

From establishing training and base camps for both Shi'a and Sunni fighters (further proof - as if more was needed that sectarian lines are not an obstacle to cooperation if there is a common enemy to be fought), to funding and equipping insurgents within Iraq, Iran's ever-growing involvement in the fight against Iraq, and against the United States within that country, has been both real and pronounced for several years now. That involvement not only includes sending soldiers from the elite Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard across Iraq's eastern border, it also includes supplying terrorists in Iraq with rockets, assault weapons, and the materials necessary to assemble EFPs (explosively-formed penetrators -- an improvised explosive device which, in the past two years, has become the number one killer of American troops in Iraq).

Major General Rick Lynch, commander of the Ft. Stewart, GA's 3rd Infantry Division (whose 3rd Brigade is one of the ‘Surge' Brigades), which is responsible for the area of Iran from Baghdad south to Salman Pak and the Tigris River Valley, publicly stated that his soldiers are currently "tracking about 50 members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps in [their] area," saying that, while none have been captured at this point, they "are being targeted" like any other insurgent fighters.

Recently, a Public Affairs officer within Multinational Force-Iraq privately expressed his concern to me that the media were spiking or deliberately misrepresenting reports made by the military about Iranian involvement and the capture of Persian fighters within Iraq.

"We would arrest three members of the al Quds force (part of the Revolutionary Guard), and the story that would come out in the papers the next day would be, ‘Three Iranian diplomats arrested from embassy.' I'd call the folks at the papers and say, ‘Look, these folks weren't diplomats, and they weren't at an embassy. They're Iranian soldiers and they were taken while fighting against the coalition in Iraq.' I'd say to them, ‘We have evidence - from weapons to ID cards to uniforms - that proves beyond a doubt who and what they are,' and I'd offer to bring them in and walk through each piece of evidence with them.

"They'd never take me up on it, and would never correct their stories."

Ahmadinejad declared that Iran would work with "neighbors and regional friends like Saudi Arabia" to replace the US in Iraq should a withdrawal take place. Saudi Arabia has, as yet, issued no response to this claim, although common sense would suggest that any dealings the Sunni state had with Shi'a Iran regarding the future of Iraq would be approached with the lessons learned from Russia's 1939 treaty with Hitler's Germany freshly borne in mind. Given the demographics of Iraq (overwhelmingly Shi'a, especially in that southern area closest to Saudi Arabia) and of Saudi itself, whose sizable Shi'a population (located in its eastern oil fields) revolted during the Iranian overthrowing of the Shah, as well as Iran's highly-publicized calls for the destruction of a fellow United Nations member country, it is difficult to imagine the Saudis entering into any agreement with the Persian state -- a natural rival well before the Iraq situation became what it is now - without fully acknowledging the likelihood of the latter violating that good faith.

Add to this Iran's war on the Kurds in its northwest reaches -- a battle which has crossed over into Iraq, and which has caused a number of Iraqi Kurds to flee their mountain homes in search of safety from Persian artillery. Then consider the Iranian funding and arming of terrorists, both Sunni and Shi'a, in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and in Syria and Lebanon, and the picture of the Middle East becomes one of several states and regions. All of these are being interfered with, influenced, or taken on militarily by Iran. Iran appears to have far greater imperialistic and hegemonic designs than most in the area, let alone in the generally-out-of-touch West, have ever dared to contemplate and would ever dare to admit.

Further threatening the region is Iran's blatant pursuit of nuclear weapons -- something which is untenable not only to the US and to Israel, but to Saudi Arabia, which has long depended on America's nuclear capability to act as its own deterrent. Should a rival state in such close proximity suddenly arm itself with nuclear weapons, the balance of power in the region would be even further skewed, resulting in (as the least of our worries) a new nuclear arms race among Muslim states.

This does not even take into account the crisis such a development would cause for Israel, as a nation whose leader has repeatedly and openly called for their destruction would be able to reach them with weapons capable of making that Muslim fantasy a devastating reality. The response by too many in the West to this last, of course, is at best to ignore it, and at worst to applaud the unspeakable barbarism required to commit such an act. In the end, those who swore to "never forget" Europe's own horrific crime against the Jews -- the Holocaust -- and who swore "never again" to allow such an act, are sitting idly by as the next one rapidly approaches.

Sadly, Tehran has chosen this course for itself, entirely independent of international action or of any need to do so. Their "foreign policy" of kidnapping soldiers, diplomats, and tourists for use as bargaining chips, of calling for the annihilation of fellow UN member states, and of sending money and materiel across their western border into a separate and sovereign nation, in hopes of killing as many American soldiers and Iraqi people as possible, is entirely -- and sickeningly -- self-directed.

No third parties or overly aggressive rivals are forcing them to act in such an overtly hostile manner not only toward their neighbors, but also toward the West. Iran has made every one of these choices on its own.

Given this, it is of the utmost importance that the people of America and her fellow Western nations begin to pay attention to the aggression being demonstrated by a hostile Iran. It is time to choose to accept, rather than to obfuscate, through chosen ignorance or through media distortion, the indisputable fact that, whether we like it or not, Iran is not only at war with the sovereign state of Iraq, as well as with America. We must also acknowledge tjay Iran has designs much grander and much more terrible than simply being a force of influence in its neighbors' internal politics.

Iran, quite simply, seeks regional hegemony and their oft-stated second goal of the utter destruction of Israel, along with every one of its citizens.

Iraq is simply the first battleground in a much larger war not only for the Middle East, but for the West as well. Along with this larger war (as has been repeatedly promised by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad himself) a second Holocaust is coming.

To all of those who promised "never again": wake up now - it is coming. It has already begun in Iraq, and will only grow from there. It is not too late to stop it; however, if the West does not overcome its complacency in the very near future, then it may not be too long before it is in fact too late.

3) IDF Preparations for new school year in the Sderot area

The IDF is taking part in the preparations for the new school year in Sderot
and the surrounding communities, in order to help citizens cope with the
constant firing of Qassam rockets at their homes. Over 200 soldiers and
officers will accompany the students to schools as well as children to local
kindergartens, and will remain there during the day while educating and
instructing them on emergency procedures and behavior.

Approximately 300 projectile rockets were launched at Israel from the Gaza
Strip during the month of August. The IDF will continue to operate in order
to increase the security and sense of security among the residents of the
Sderot area.

4) The ghosts of wars lost
By Caroline B. Glick

French President Nicholas Sarkozy's statements Tuesday in support of stiffer sanctions against Iran for its pursuit of nuclear weapons were justifiably heartening to many. Sarkozy's remarks, like his Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner's trip last week to Iraq, marked a refreshing departure from his predecessor Jacques Chirac's knee-jerk anti-Americanism.

Yet while Sarkozy's open support for sanctions serves to distinguish him from Chirac, his justification of his position indicates that although much has changed, much has also remained the same in France. By Sarkozy's lights, "This [sanctions] initiative is the only one that can allow us to escape an alternative that I can only call catastrophic: an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran."

Praising Sarkozy on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal was quick to conflate his remarks with remarks made by Senator John McCain a few months ago about the prospect of a US military strike against Iran's nuclear installations. McCain said, "There's only one thing worse than the United States exercising the military option; that is a nuclear-armed Iran."

But these statements are not the same. A moral chasm divides them. Unlike McCain, Sarkozy makes no moral distinctions between a nuclear-armed Iran and a military strike aimed at preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power. For him, they are the same.

Sarkozy's moral blindness is rooted in post-World War II Europe's instrumental treatment of the legacy of that war. For the Europeans — and first and foremost for the Germans, and the Dutch, French and Belgians who collaborated with the Germans during the war — the main lesson of World War II was that militarism and nationalism are bad. This view informed post-war Europe's ideological embrace of pacifism and trans-nationalism.

But in truth, militarism and nationalism did not cause World War II. The true cause of that war was Germany's decision to embrace evil and depravity as its guiding philosophy and the willingness of the nations of Europe that collaborated with German authorities to also embrace this evil. That is, the real legacy of the war is a moral one and the real lesson to be learned from the war is not that nations must allow themselves to be gobbled up into trans-national entities or that they must eschew war at all costs. Rather, the true lesson of the war is that nations should embrace morality that sanctifies life and freedom and that holds men and women accountable for their choices.

Europe's refusal to reckon with this central truth is what brings leaders like Sarkozy today to ignore the real reason why Iran must not acquire nuclear weapons. As a regime that embraces evil and preaches genocide and global domination, Iran cannot be trusted with weapons of genocide and global domination. War waged to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power is preferable and less catastrophic than a war Iran would wage if it were to acquire nuclear weapons.

Europe is far from unique in its refusal to accept and contend with the true legacy of its wars. Humanity as a whole more often then not prefers to evade the difficult lessons of war — and especially of lost wars. We see this very clearly today in the Islamic world where the forces of global jihad base their efforts to destroy human freedom on their refusal to accept the reasons that Western nations, organized around the Judeo-Christian notion of human liberty, have defeated their forces in war for the past five hundred years.

The refusal to reckon with the lessons of war is also the central unifying characteristic of Israel's political and intellectual establishment. The Israeli establishment's denials of the lessons of its military history began at the end of the Yom Kippur War, and extend to the 1982 Lebanon War, the Palestinian uprising in the late 1980s, the Oslo Process, the 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon, the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, and the war in Lebanon last summer.

In the midst of all this evasion, something refreshing, and indeed, inspiring is happening today in America. There, a debate about the legacy of an unpopular lost war has recently begun in earnest. That war, of course is the Vietnam War.

Last Wednesday, US President George W. Bush gave a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars where he discussed the consequences of America's defeat in Vietnam. Bush did not speak of the war itself. He did not connect then-president Lyndon Johnson's failure to explain the war to the American people to the US media's decision, made around 1967, to actively sue for American defeat at the hands of the Soviet and Chinese-backed Communists in North Vietnam. He did not discuss the defeat of the members of the American establishment at the hands of their children.

Bush made no mention of the fact that Congress's refusal to provide military assistance to the South Vietnamese made their loss of independence and freedom a foregone conclusion. He didn't discuss how then-president Gerald Ford's betrayed South Vietnam when he refused to provide air and naval support to South Vietnam when the North Vietnamese invaded in 1975.

Bush did not discuss the reasons the US was defeated at all. He limited his remarks to the consequences of that defeat on Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and on the US's position in the world to this very day. He noted that some two million Cambodians died at the hands of Pol Pot's murderous Communist regime which rose to power after South Vietnam was overrun. He recalled the hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese who were imprisoned in concentration camps, the tens of thousands who were killed and the hundreds of thousands who took to sea in rickety boats in a desperate bid to find freedom in the America that had just abandoned them. He noted statements by Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri asserting the US defeat in Vietnam as proof that the US can and will be defeated by Islam.

The US mass media reacted to Bush's speech with fits of hysterical rage. The New York Times, which together with CBS News led the media war against the US defense of South Vietnam, dismissed the President's remarks as "bizarre." Major newspapers and television networks excoriated Bush for remembering the heavy and abiding toll of that lost war and for warning against repeating the mistake of embracing defeat in Iraq.

Christopher Hitchens' response to Bush's speech in the Observer was emblematic of the Left's condemnations. Hitchens wrote, "If one question is rightly settled in the American and, indeed, the international memory, it is that the Vietnam War was at best a titanic blunder and at worst a campaign of atrocity and aggression."

But contrary to the claims of Hitchens and his comrades, the question of America's memory of Vietnam was never settled. They never managed to successfully dictate America's national memory, even as they succeeded in squelching popular debate of history.

This week, author Robert Kaplan published an article in The Atlantic Monthly pointing out the unbridgeable gap between popular histories of the Vietnam War, which are largely based on the views of that war espoused by Hitchens and the New York Times, and the literature of the war read by the American military. Entitled "Re-reading Vietnam," Kaplan gives an overview of that literature, which in comparison to the Left's bestsellers, has generally been published by boutique presses.

These books tell the stories of the warriors who fought in Vietnam. They discuss the stoic heroism of the American POWs who were subjected to years physical torture and unrelenting psychological abuse during their captivity in North Vietnamese prison camps. They describe the counter-insurgency tactics employed by forces in Vietnam that by 1970 had succeeded in politically defeating of the Viet Cong in ninety percent of South Vietnam.

As Kaplan notes, in recent years, these books have been supplemented by new histories, like Lewis Sorley's A Better War, which examine the strategic success of the American and South Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam in the war's later years after General Creighton Abrams took command from General William Westmoreland in 1968.

After the September 11 attacks, the American public began expressing a willingness to reassess Vietnam. This newfound openness to the war was manifested in the public's belated embrace of Vietnam veterans who were shunned and silenced upon their return home.

The force of that embrace was felt strongly in the 2004 presidential elections.

Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry had built his political career on his public condemnations of his brothers in arms when he joined the anti-war movement after being released from the Navy in 1970. The veterans banded together and with massive public support launched a successful campaign against him.

Although the Left has denounced Bush for his use of Vietnam as a warning for what will occur if the US is defeated in Iraq, the war's opponents have made near obsessive use of the Vietnam War as a means of convincing the American public that the war in Iraq is unwinnable. Just a week after the initial US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, some major media outlets were already invoking Vietnam and warning that "a Vietnam-like quagmire" was ensuing in Iraq.

In a recently released study of the US media's treatment of the war in Iraq, the Internet weblog "Media Busters" noted that a document search showed that since March 2003, The New York Times has published some 2,500 articles that make mention of both Vietnam and Iraq. CNN has run more than 3,000 stories that discuss the wars side by side. And always, the message is the same: As then, so today, the US cannot win, and so every American life sacrificed in Iraq is sacrificed in vain.

Bush's challenge to the received popular wisdom about the Vietnam War came then against the backdrop of these cultural crosscurrents that also inform the current debate on the war in Iraq and the war against Islamic fascism in general. Bush is to be applauded for raising the story Vietnam's legacy. His entrance into the debate will no doubt speed up the long-delayed moral reckoning with the legacy of Vietnam — of America's betrayal of its South Vietnamese allies, and of the consequences of that betrayal on America's international standing and its own self-assessment.

Hopefully, America's newfound readiness to reckon with the lessons of Vietnam will bring about a renewed and realistic American assessment and discussion of the current war against Islamic fascism. Then too, perhaps America's willingness to examine the demons of its past will prompt Europe and Israel and perhaps one day even the Islamic world, to honestly study their military pasts. For until we recognize the causes of our previous failures, we will be doomed to repeat them, time after time after time.

5) Ban Islam?
by Daniel Pipes



Non-Muslims occasionally raise the idea of banning the Koran, Islam, and Muslims. Examples this month include calls by a political leader in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, to ban the Koran — which he compares to Hitler's Mein Kampf — and two Australian politicians, Pauline Hanson and Paul Green, demanding a moratorium on Muslim immigration.

What is one to make of these initiatives? First, some history. Precedents exist from an earlier era, when intolerant Christian governments forced Muslims to convert, notably in 16th-century Spain, and others strongly encouraged conversions, especially of the elite, as in 16th- and 17th-century Russia. In modern times, however, with freedom of expression and religion established as basic human rights, efforts to protect against intolerance by banning the Koran, Islam, or Muslims have failed.

In perhaps the most serious contemporary attempt to ban the Koran, a Hindu group argued in 1984–85 that the Islamic scriptures contain "numerous sayings, repeated in the book over and over again, which on grounds of religion promote disharmony, feeling of enmity, hatred and ill-will between different religious communities and incite people to commit violence and disturb public tranquility."

The taking of this demand, known as "The Calcutta Quran Petition," to court prompted riots and deaths in Bangladesh. The case so alarmed New Delhi that the attorney general of India himself took part in the proceedings to oppose the petition, which, not surprisingly, was dismissed.



Pim Fortuyn (1948-2002) led the most consequential effort so far to end Muslim emigration, in his case, to the Netherlands.

This early petition set the standard in terms of collecting objectionable Koranic verses. Other efforts have been more rhetorical and less operational. The most consequential was by Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands to end Muslim immigration. Had he not been assassinated in 2002, he might have ridden his issue to the prime ministry.

The coordinator of Italy's Northern League, Roberto Calderoli, wrote in 2005: "Islam has to be declared illegal until Islamists are prepared to renounce those parts of their pseudo political and religious doctrine glorifying violence and the oppression of other cultures and religions."

A British member of Parliament, Boris Johnson, pointed out in 2005 that passing a Racial and Religious Hatred Bill "must mean banning the reading — in public or private — of a great many passages of the Koran itself." His observation prompted a Muslim delegation to seek assurances, which it received, from the Home Office that no such ban would occur. Patrick Sookhdeo of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity in 2006 called for prohibiting one translation of the Koran, The Noble Koran: A New Rendering of its Meaning in English, because "it sets out a strategy for killing the infidels and for warfare against them."

Other Western countries witnessed lesser efforts: Norway's Kristiansand Progress Party sought to ban Islam in 2004 and Germany's Bundesverband der Bürgerbewegungen sought to prohibit the Koran in 2006, arguing for its incompatibility with the German constitution. "Stop the Islamification of Denmark" demanded in early 2007 the prohibition of parts of the Koran and all mosques, calling them unconstitutional. Australia's Catch the Fire Ministries argued in 2004 that because "The Koran contradicts Christian doctrine in a number of places and, under the blasphemy law, [it] is therefore illegal."

Elsewhere, writers have made the same demands. Switzerland's Alain Jean-Mairet is the strategist of a two-part plan, popular and juridical, with the goal that "all the Islamic projects in Switzerland will prove impossible to fulfill." In France, an anonymous writer at the Liberty Vox Web site wishes to ban Islam, as does Warner Todd Huston in the United States.

The 2006 movie V for Vendetta portrays a future Britain in which the Koran is banned.

My take? I understand the security-based urge to exclude the Koran, Islam, and Muslims, but these efforts are too broad, sweeping up inspirational passages with objectionable ones, reformers with extremists, friends with foes. Also, they ignore the possibility of positive change.

More practical and focused would be to reduce the threats of jihad and Shariah by banning Islamist interpretations of the Koran, as well as Islamism and Islamists. Precedents exist. A Saudi-sponsored Koran was pulled from school libraries. Preachers have gone to jail for their interpretation of the Koran. Extreme versions of Islam are criminally prosecuted. Organizations are outlawed. Politicians have called for Islamists to leave their countries.

Islam is not the enemy, but Islamism is. Tolerate moderate Islam, but eradicate its radical variants.

6) Arabs waiting for Bibi
by Majdi Halabi

Palestinians, Arab leaders believe that only Israel’s right-wing camp can bring peace.

The Israeli Right and part of the center of Israel’s political map are not the only ones waiting for Benjamin Netanyahu. The Palestinians are also waiting for Bibi. This impression comes from conversations with senior Palestinian officials and key figures within Palestinian society.


The Palestinians are convinced that Benjamin Netanyahu can undertake diplomatic moves more easily than Ehud Olmert and his government which, despite possessing a solid and broad coalition base, loses its majority once withdrawals or outpost evacuations are brought up for discussion.


The analysis offered by the Palestinians is very interesting. They say that the Right is better for peace than the Left and bring up many examples to back this up, ranging from the peace treaty with Egypt signed by the government of the late Menachem Begin to the Hebron deal signed by Netanyahu and the Gaza withdrawal carried out by Ariel Sharon, who the Palestinians viewed as a strong rightist.


The Right is good for peace and the Left is good for war – this is the way the Israeli political map is perceived in the eyes of the Palestinian neighbors and Arab leaders. Their analysis is simple. When the Left wishes to pursue peace moves, that is, withdrawals, it is curbed by the Right and religious parties, and at times even the Arab Knesset members’ bloc is not enough to help the Left secure the needed majority.


Yet when the Left wishes to undertake a military move, it always enjoys right-wing support that guarantees a majority for such moves. This was particularly noticeable in all the military moves, wars, and campaigns led by leftist and centrist governments, such as the Grapes of Wrath campaign in 1996 and the Second Lebanon War in 2006.



Left is good for talking

On the other hand, say the Palestinians and analysts of Israeli policy in the Arab world, when the Right is in power it is easier to reach agreements because the Right is consistent and honors its pledges. Moreover, it will automatically enjoy the support of the entire leftist bloc the moment it decides on a withdrawal, evacuation, or any other regional peace agreement.


Benjamin Netanyahu is viewed in a more credible light by regional Arab leaders than the way he has been portrayed in the media and wide sectors within the Israeli public and political arena. A senior aide for one of the most important regional leaders told me that many of them expect to meet Netanyahu and hear about his plans and the moves he wishes to undertake if and when he is elected prime minister.


The aide even expressed an interest in the possibility of meeting Netanyahu, even though there has been no announcement of new general elections at this time.


As it turns out, the Arab world views a right-wing ascendancy to power as an opportunity to advance the diplomatic process. This contradicts the common perception that Arab leaders prefer a leftist Israeli government.


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The Left is good for talking and the planning of agreements, the Arabs say, but the Right is the address for signing agreements as it is the only element that can secure a Jewish majority.


It appears that the Arabs are well familiar with the secrets of Israeli politics and it is possible that teams on behalf of Netanyahu and the Right are already talking with the Arab and Palestinian side and attempting to initiate moves on the Palestinian, Syrian and even Lebanese front.


The writer is a journalist for Arab news network al-Hurra