Part one of Israeli's political action consists simply of using that old standby debate-suppressor, the four-letter word "Nazi." Newspapers in Israel, of course, have long used the word to describe Israel's Muslim enemies. Recently, for example, the Jerusalem Post ran an article in which al-Qaeda is described as "yet another Nazi knockoff." This sort of language is the stuff of Israeli journalism, and not of much concern to Americans. If the Israeli press wants to teach their readers to underestimate the Islamist threat, so be it.

But now the word "Nazi" is being gradually fed to Americans as a scientific definition of our Islamist enemies. Headlines such as "Hamas Uber Alles," "Hitler's Heirs in Damascus," and "The Nazi Correction to Islamic Terror" are increasingly common in U.S. media publications found in the news files Googled daily by Americans. U.S. politicians, too, are eager to jump on the call-them-Nazis bandwagon, with Secretary Rumsfeld recently saying that leaving Iraq early would be like returning postwar Germany to the Nazis, and Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) comparing the attack on the Shia shrine in Samarra to the burning of the Reichstag by the Nazis.

The goal of using the Nazi analogy is to suppress any realistic debate about the pluses and minuses of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and to make sure any American raising questions about U.S. support for Israel is seen as siding with the "Islamofascists," the heirs of Nazism. Any person who knows the least bit about Islam - and the Israelis know a great deal - knows it is not Nazism, yet the Internet is rife with such titles as "A Manifesto Against Islamofascism" and "Islamofascism's Creeping Coup in Turkey." The best capsule description of the threat posed by Islamofascists is provided by Frank Gaffney in a recent issue of The Intelligencer, the journal of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. Listen to Mr. Gaffney, and you will almost hear Muslim jackboots striking the pavement.

"We are engaged in nothing less than a War for the Free World. This is a fight to the death with Islamofascists, Muslim extremists driven by a totalitarian political ideology that, like Nazism and Communism before it, is determined to destroy freedom and the people who love it."

The drive to make Islamofascist the term of choice in describing America's Muslim enemies is meant to still U.S. debate about Israel and, indeed, to limit questions about any aspect of U.S. foreign policy toward the Islamic world. After all, why would anyone in their right mind care what people think, unless they are blindly and unthinkingly opposed to Islamofascism?

The second part of any nation's covert political action plan is to be ready to exploit or redress unexpected developments within the target society. Last month, Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt provided such an environment when they published a lengthy study showing the strong influence the Israeli lobby has on the crafting and application of U.S. foreign policy toward the Islamic world. If American society had its head screwed on right, the collective response of the citizenry would have been, "DUH!" - signifying that the near-determinative nature of Israeli influence is so clear that no academic analysis of that fact is necessary.

Instead, the reaction from American elites has been that of Captain Renault in Casablanca - they are shocked, shocked, that anyone could even think that there is such a thing as an Israeli lobby. The elites demand that Americans believe there are no such things as Israel-suborned American-citizen spies stealing U.S. national security secrets, pro-Israel U.S. media publications routinely savaging any American questioning the perfect and eternal mesh of U.S. and Israeli interests, and U.S. politicians from Pelosi to McCain to DeLay to Rice groveling at AIPAC's annual conference, each willing to compromise U.S. security if they can garner pro-Israel votes and pockets stuffed with cash from pro-Israel contributions.

In the specific case of the Mearsheimer-Walt paper, prominent pro-Israel Americans have been quick off the mark to limit the damage caused to Israel's interests caused by the paper's candor and truthfulness. From Marvin Kalb to David Gergen to Max Boot to Alan Dershowitz, these folks have brazenly defied reality by insisting there is no "Israeli Lobby" and that Mearsheimer and Walt are dead wrong, poor scholars, paranoid conspiracy peddlers, or reborn Elders of Zion. Eliot Cohen's essay in the Washington Post epitomizes the Israel-Firsters' goal of defaming Mearsheimer and Walt to convince the citizenry that they are crazy and ranting anti-Semites.

The attacks on Walt and Mearsheimer are the stuff that the dreams of political action planners are made of: The apparently spontaneous response by target-country citizens voicing all-out support for the covert-action-sponsoring country. Such a response deep-sixes any chance for a substantive debate on the issue at hand, and submerges it in a blizzard of hate speech directed at the authors from prominent Israel-Firsters, those paragons of virtue who are the chief proponents of First-Amendment-destroying laws against hate speech.

So at day's end, one can only say: Astoundingly well done, Israel, good for you! The impact of your covert political action activities in America are all that you could have hoped for: Truth is negated, dissent is suppressed, and opponents are intimidated and defamed, and all this is done by prominent U.S. citizens. The only competitor you have is the Saudi lobby, an organization just as damaging as yours to genuine U.S. national interests, a reality you and we would see if the bloodied but hopefully unbowed Mearsheimer-Walt team decides to analyze the corrupt and corrupting Saudi lobby.

Finally, I forgot to mention at the start that covert political action campaigns are almost always directed by one nation against another nation that it considers an enemy or whose leaders it judges to be gullible, venal, none too bright, unreliable, or all four. That surely gives one pause for thought, but it truly is the way the world works.

At the same time, the United States said it would redirect some of that money to humanitarian projects for impoverished Palestinians. Humanitarian aid will rise by 57 percent to $287 million over several years, the department said.

Another $13 million will go for new safeguarding procedures, including a special inspector-general, to ensure that even humanitarian aid funneled through the UN Relief Works Agency and approved charities does not end up in Hamas' hands, the department said.

The money being cut or suspended includes funds for public works construction, training public officials and revitalizing the economy. Of the $411 million, $165 million is under review by US officials.

The United States began a review of its aid package to the Palestinians shortly after the Hamas won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January, and already has eliminated direct aid to the Palestinian Authority.

"It is our desire to help provide for the basic humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement read to reporters by department spokesman Sean McCormack. But, she added, "The new Palestinian government must take responsibility for the consequences of its policies."

The United States has long channeled most of its assistance to the Palestinians through indirect means, to humanitarian efforts such as food, maternal and child health programs and education, and for projects that only indirectly benefited the Palestinian government. These include such projects as roads, water works and training programs for judges, electoral workers and others.

The United States will redirect about $100 million from canceled projects to humanitarian assistance, the official said. Some of the remaining pot of approximately $140 million will be eaten up in the process of ending or disengaging from those projects, but it is not clear where all the money will go.

The official said the State Department would consult with Congress on the next move. Congress has already approved all the spending under review, and has not yet considered how to apportion new money now that Hamas is in place.

The West has been threatening to cut nearly $1 billion in annual aid to the Palestinians since the election, which turned out the Fatah Party that Washington had hoped could gradually move toward peace with Israel. Hamas has refused to renounce violence or recognize Israel's right to exist.

Without money from the Arab world, Europe and the United States, a Hamas-led government would be nearly broke.

President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have said Washington would not give aid to a Hamas-led government unless it changed its policies.

Also Friday, the European Union's executive office cut off direct aid payments to the Hamas-led Palestinian government.

The decision - condemned by Hamas officials, but welcomed by the Israeli government as a sign of a growing international consensus - effectively stops the next installment of some $36.9 million in projects aimed at funding hospitals, utilities and education run by the United Nations, Red Cross and other groups.

As with the United States, the vast majority of the EU's aid package does not go to the Palestinian Authority government. However, the decision has symbolic value and will add to the pressure on the Hamas leadership.

The funds are considered vital to keep the Palestinian economy afloat - and the impact could be even stronger if EU foreign ministers decide at a meeting Monday to also freeze their governments' bilateral aid to the Palestinians. Britain and the Netherlands have already taken such a step.

EU aid to the Palestinians totals more than $600 million per year and the bloc is the Palestinians' largest donor. The frozen EU funds amount to half of that annual figure, with the rest coming from the bilateral agreements to be scrutinized at Monday's EU meeting.

Hamas condemned the move, which came at a time of intense maneuvering among Palestinian leaders to find a way out of the new government's isolation.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said the EU move to freeze funds "will increase the suffering" of Palestinians.

"Israel will sever all contacts with the Hamas-led Palestinian government, which is a hostile entity," said a statement released by Israeli Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office after the security cabinet meeting.

The statement also said that the Israeli government would work to "prevent the consolidation of power on the part of the Hamas government", but added that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would not be "disqualified."

Israel would coordinate ways which would bypass the Hamas government to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, said the statement, adding that it was recommended that the crossings into Gaza be kept open to enable the passage of humanitarian assistance.

In addition, the security cabinet, grouping top Israeli officials, also suggested during the meeting convened by Olmert that Israeli authorities boycott foreign diplomats who meet Hamas officials while on visits to the region.

Israel had boycotted foreign diplomats who met with late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in a bid to isolate him.

The security cabinet also proposed to continue the freeze of the monthly transfer of about 50 million U.S. dollars of tax revenues Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians to the Hamas-led government.

The Jewish state halted the money transfer after Hamas defeated Abbas long dominant Fatah movement in the January Palestinian legislative elections.

The recommendations are expected to be presented to the full cabinet next Sunday for approval.

The statement came after the Hamas cabinet took office on March 29.

Israel has repeatedly said that it will not deal with the Hamas government unless the radical group renounces violence, recognizes Israel's right to exist and accepts previous Palestinian-Israeli deals.

Olmert, whose centrist Kadima party came first in the March 28 general elections, has been tasked with forming a new Israeli government.

Foreign ministers who met Arafat were only able to meet with Israeli officials after they returned to the region at later dates.

Although the move is designed to dissuade anyone holding talks with the Hamas-led government, the statement said officials who meet the moderate Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas would not be shunned.

Israel regards Hamas as a terrorist organisation and has vowed to have no contacts with the new government unless the movement renounces the use of violence and recognises the Jewish state's right to exist.

The acting prime minister, set to head the next Israeli government after winning last month's general election, also reiterated that Israel would not hold contacts with the Palestinian government led by Hamas, branding it a "a hostile authority."

Hamas has carried out dozens of anti-Israeli suicide attacks since the launch of a the Palestinian uprising in September 2000, although none in the last year.

In addition, around 500 Christian Palestinians will be allowed to travel from the West Bank to spend time with their families in the Gaza Strip while a similar number would be authorised to make the journey in the opposition direction.

The statement also said Sunday that members of Israel's Christian population would be allowed to travel to the West Bank towns of Bethlehem and Jericho to attend ceremonies.