"This is not the third round," says deputy Chief of Staff Major-General Moshe Kaplinsky. "Our fire is not intended to shake the Hamas regime, but if that government does not take decisions, it is likely to be undermined. We have not hit facilities of the Palestinian Authority nor of Hamas. They are not the ones who are firing the qassams. We are using a lot of fire - and precise fire - against those who are executing the launchings."

Meanwhile the shelling around populated areas in the Gaza Strip is getting more tight. At first the shells landed a few hundred metres from the buildings, this week they are only a few dozen metres away. The open-fire orders are changing, the "safety range" is getting smaller.

"We are not yet at the climax. There remain steps to climb. We are firing into the cities, but we are not firing - nor will we fire - towards concentrations of population. True, it requires us to take risks, and accidents can happen, and to my regret civilians too have been harmed. But on the other hand we have to consider the price of the qassams. When the qassam firing reached such an extent - they fired a "grad" missile, they put new areas within the range of fire - we raised the response level.

"We must apply more pressure, and there are signs that the pressure is having an effect. Hamas is seriously flustered, and it is in a dilemma: it wants quiet, but without it looking like it is putting the brakes on the armed resistance."

How close are we to an incursion on the ground?

"I hope it will not come to that, but even if we activate ground forces, it will not happen tomorrow morning. We still have the ability to apply force from outside, and we will make the most of it: more shelling, more forces, more security systems have been dispatched to the sector.

"We will not reject any action that the Southern Command and the officers in the field request, and the moment we decide that the time has come to go into action on the ground - we will do it. I just want to mention, that even a ground incursion is not a definitive solution to the problem. After all, we were in Gaza, and even then they fired qassams. Even during the course of our operations."

We have reached the rate of a thousand qassams a year. To judge by results, the army is not providing security

"In a war like this decisive results do not come quickly. It took us a long time to learn how to deal with the suicide bombers, and we still do not have the complete answer. We are not dealing only with the individual rocket. In the totality of the war on the qassams we are dealing with production, expertise, transportation, launching and escape.

"Quality intelligence is needed, with a capacity for rapid activation of fire circuits, and we're working on it. Now they have the capacity to produce dozens of qassams a month. It's a long war."

It will not be an intifada

It costs a lot of money to deal with qassams. Tens of millions of shekels have been invested in a technological project that has been assigned high priority and that is supposed to enhance the capacity to destroy targets in the chain of production and launching of the qassams. The project combines the military industries and the operational personnel in the air, on the ground and in intelligence. The goal is, among other things, to improve the quality of the sensors that gather intelligence in real time. They, in combination with observation posts and other intelligence actors, are intended to create a faster capability to close fire circuits. This project reports to the desk of the Deputy Chief of Staff.

In the General Staff of Dan Halutz, the Deputy Chief of Staff is in practice the CEO of the vast concern called the IDF. All projects, big and small, are decided on by him. Not only is he the one who holds the purse-strings, who must decide what is more important and what is less so, but he is also charged with building the forces for many years. In his estimation the project against qassams will start to bear fruit within three or four months.

And what do you say in the meantime to the residents of Sderot and Zikim?

"Patience. We will do everything necessary to deal with this threat. If we have to escalate the response, we will escalate. If we have to send land forces into Gaza, we will send them."

The army is preparing for a third round against the PA. What will characterize that round? Will it be like the last intifada?

"I'm not sure that there will be another round. But if there is, it will not resemble the previous ones. The threats are different, the enemy is different. In Operation 'Defensive Wall' we dealt with terror cells. Today it may be that the hostilities will be against the Palestinian Authority and its government.

"I'm not talking about a military process aimed at changing the regime in the PA, but a situation of deteriorating security, with the Hamas government being involved in terrorism - as we expect that it will. Then, we will have to deal with those apparatuses of the regime as with a terrorist actor, with all that implies.

"Today, as we prepare for the possibility of deterioration, we have to plan the procedures in a much broader way. We have to consider unknowns such as the position of the PA apparatuses in the scenario - are they involved or not. We are also likely to get to a situation of an intolerable level of terror, to which we will have to respond strongly. So we have to be prepared for another violent, intensive round."

Have you changed the training schedule to prepare for possible conflict?

"Regarding the preparations for operational plans, we are defining the forces to be activated in every area. For some of the forces we are changing the training, and we are changing the sector of operations so that they will have a better knowledge of the terrain they will have to operate in. We are also accelerating some of the projects linked to the fight against terror."

When will the army be ready for the next round?

"There are several stages. The first is the immediate introduction of special forces into Gaza. We are ready for that now. The second is the entry of a larger force into the launching area, and we're also ready for that. Regarding a more extensive occupation of the Strip, I don't want to indicate a target date. It's a matter of months.

"We have to be ready, but of course the green light will come from the political leadership."

Tanks will be parked, aircraft will be grounded

This coming June a decision is to be made that will influence the structure of the IDF for the next five or even ten years. That month the IDF's multi-year work plan, "Rainbow" [keshet] will be submitted to the Chief of Staff for ratification. The plan, on which Gen. Kaplinsky had concentrated, outlines an army that is different not only organizationally, but also smaller, more technological, with an emphasis on precision combat and preference for smart fire. They are going for more unmanned systems - and not only in the air. Much more automation and robotics, with an emphasis on flexible special forces. And also a different kind of intelligence that is appropriate for dealing with the international terrorism that is knocking on our door and threats in the "Third Circle". Iran, for example.

In the security establishment there is a wall-to-wall consensus for a deep cut, of between two to four billion shekels, in the security budget. Regarding the structure of the military force, a cut of such magnitude is an earthquake. In fact, you can take your plan and throw it in the garbage.

"If those are the numbers, and like you, I read about them in the newspaper - it's definitely an earthquake. I really hope that the next cuts, if they come, will come as a result of analysis and with an understanding of the security implications. An immediate and deep cut will necessitate a new strategic assessment regarding the threats that we are supposed to respond to. They will have to tell us what threats we should "set aside" and we will explain the damage implications.

"The budgetary basis for the multi-year plan - that was ratified by the government - even now commits us to a significant reduction of the army. We are still asking ourselves difficult questions: how many tanks do we need and how many can we keep? How many aircraft can the budget maintain, will we have to lower the level of airworthiness of the aircraft in some branches of the air force. We will also have to reduce the number of units in the regular force and in the reserves.

"In the past four years we have reduced the permanent force by 6,000 people, and we will have to remove still more, so that the army can respond not only to the threats of tomorrow morning, but so that we will have the appropriate means of warfare in another 10 or 15 years.

"A significant cut without a multi-year plan would be a great blow to the IDF's ability to provide security. I remind you that we too, as officers in the General Staff, have responsibility for security."

Are you talking about shutting down air squadrons?

"Yes. We are also talking about adjusting our long-range branch to the limitations of the budget."

You have cut the reserves by 25%. Where is the red line? How low can you go?

"The corps of trained reservists is a necessity in the face of the threats. To my regret, their ranks have been seriously harmed in recent years by unplanned and unsystematic cuts to the military budget. For the next plan we are setting up a rigid budget that is not changeable, in order to preserve the reserves that we have.

"Also under the present plan we are supposed to part with another 20% of the reservists, and not to integrate [into the reserves] 10% - 20% of those released from regular service. I hope that the reduction in numbers will allow us to retain the level of preparedness of the people we need."

In June the decision is also supposed to be made on the dissolution of one district command, supposedly the Central Command. They are also talking about closing strategic production lines, such as the Merkava [main battle tank]. "There has not yet been a decision on shutting down production of the Merkava," says the Deputy Chief of Staff. "In any event, it is not a decision that can be implemented tomorrow morning. It is a long-range process, with long-term implications - but probably there will be no choice."

Of the 34 billion shekels of the security ["Defence"] budget, the IDF budget is only between 18 and 21 billion. Five billion, for example, goes to the Rehabilitation Department. 40% of the IDF budget itself is dedicated to the long-range strategic branch: the navy, the air force and intelligence. Some of the money is set aside for emergencies. Nothing can be done with it in ordinary times, but it is our insurance policy in the face of threats like Iran.

Everybody is talking about an attack on Iran. Are we too prepared in the protection of the home front?

"There is a program of several years to deal with the Iranian threat. The strengthening that you are talking about - building shelters, reinforcing roofs - is not the main subject of the plan. We are talking about active protection: the "Wall" system (Arrow missiles), an intelligence system that will give an accurate warning, and an attack system.

"But as far as we're concerned, Iran is not just weapons of mass destruction. Iran is already here. It is Hizbullah, and it is already here with us, next to the fence. It [Iran] was involved, through Hizbullah, in the suicide attack at Kedumim. It is involved in the guidance of Hamas. It is pressing the Islamic Jihad to carry out attacks.

"Iran's strategic goal is to acquire nuclear weapons, and under that umbrella to act in order to create regional instability. Ahmadinejad's vision is to erase Israel, and he means what he says."

Translated from Hebrew by Mark Marshall

AJC has long supported a negotiated two-state solution. "We continue to hope that responsible Palestinian leadership will ultimately emerge, and that a peaceful coexistence will one day take root between Israel and the Palestinians," wrote AJC President E. Robert Goodkind and Executive Director David A. Harris.

The full text of the AJC letter to Javier Solana follows:

His Excellency Javier Solana
Secretary General/High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy
Council of the European Union

Dear Javier:

We are writing to express the American Jewish Committee's appreciation for the decision adopted yesterday by the Council of the European Union to suspend assistance to the Hamas-led Palestinian government. We thank you for your personal role in this important decision. We also welcome the Council's decision to continue the provision of humanitarian assistance to meet the basic needs of the Palestinian people through non-governmental channels.

Ursula Plassnik, President of the Council, said in a statement after the adoption of the decision that the European Union's "aim is to see all parties contribute to a positive development in the Middle East by peaceful means." We fully share this sentiment. As you know, we have long supported a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with two states living side by side in peace and security. Regrettably, the recent victory by Hamas in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections presents a major setback to the prospects of peace. We continue to hope, nevertheless, that responsible Palestinian leadership will ultimately emerge, and that a peaceful coexistence will one day take root between Israel and the Palestinians.

We firmly believe that the international community must remain consistent and united in its stance toward Hamas - dealing with it only if it agrees to recognize Israel's right to exist, to abandon terrorism, and to respect existing agreements and obligations. Any deviation from these principles, which have been set by the Quartet, would only strengthen the radicals who are opposed to peace, and further marginalize moderates. The European Union can - as it has since the Palestinian elections - play a crucial role in preventing any erosion in the international community's united stance on this issue.

We have always valued our relations with the European Union and with you personally. We fondly remember our meetings with you in the past, and look forward to our continued cooperation in advancing trans-Atlantic understanding and the cause of peace in the Middle East and around the world.

Respectfully,
E. Robert Goodkind, President
David A. Harris, Executive Director

The truth is that Ross and Indyk are two government officials that best illustrate the presence of pro-Israel advocates in the US government. Ross, who was the lead negotiator at the Camp David Peace talks, was publicly criticized for his lack of objectivity by his own deputy Aaron Miller. Miller in a Washington Post op-ed called "Israel's Lawyer" wrote that during the negotiations Ross and his team, instead of facilitating compromise, which would have been in America's best interest, chose to act as an advocate for the Israelis. [3] Dennis Ross is currently the director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a pro-Israel think-tank which is funded by the American Israel Policy Action Committee (AIPAC). Martin Indyk, who founded WINEP and served as its first executive director, was later both US Ambassador to Israel and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. He is a long time uncritical supporter of Israeli government policy.

In their recent best-selling book, Boomerang: The Failure of Leadership In the Second Intifada, presently only available in Hebrew, Raviv Drucker and Ofer Shelah, two respected Israeli journalists, described a meeting between the then Secretary of State Colin Powell, who the lobby considered to be the "weak link" in the chain of more Israel-friendly Bush Administration officials, and Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith, who is a prominent member of what in Israel is called the Jewish lobby. The following selection indicates in a dramatic way that Gergen's view of the influence of the Israel lobby may not be shared by all ex-government officials.

In his [Powell's] own State Department there was a keen awareness of the strength of the Jewish lobbyists. Secretaries of State did not usually meet with lobbyists, but both Jewish officials and Jews that did not officially represent specific groups from Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League to Ronald Lauder, could meet with Powell on short notice.... At the State Department, Foxman had an aura of omnipotence. He was held responsible for the appointment of Indyk as Undersecretary of State under Clinton, and was thought to have played a role in the appointments of Secretaries of State Christopher and Albright. Powell related to Foxman almost as if he were someone to whom he must capitulate. Once Foxman told one of his deputies that Powell was the weak link. When the Secretary of State heard this he began to worry. He knew that in Washington a confrontation with the Jewish lobby would make his life difficult. Once he arranged a meeting with Foxman, but the busy Foxman postponed the meeting three times. When they eventually met, the head of the Anti-Defamation League apologized to the Secretary of State [for the postponements]. "You call, we come," replied Powell, paraphrasing a well known advertisement for a freight company. That statement had much more meaning than just a humorous polite reply. [4]

Unfortunately, the American press has thus far been largely complicit in the unwarranted attacks on two professors who have written a generally well-argued essay on the disadvantages of the current American/Israeli relationship. Most press accounts of the article feature the negative criticism, but tend to ignore or downplay positive comment. In the present political climate it is not a surprise that there is not a groundswell of support for the two embattled scholars. Abe Foxman called the essay "a classic conspiratorial anti-Semitic analysis invoking the canards of Jewish power and Jewish control." [5] I, as a Jew, agree with the Jewish editor, Mary-Kay Wilmers, who published the article. She feels, as paraphrased in The Observer, "that the most angry denunciations of anti-Semitism - while designed to serve the purpose of censorship by those attempting to forestall criticism of Israel - may actually encourage anti-Semitism in the long run." [6]

The American media does no favor to the many American Jews and Israelis who are critical of Israel's self-defeating expansionism and its suppression of the Palestinian right of self-determination. The Israel lobby in the United States does not represent the opinions of many American Jews. The pressure it exerts on government officials to blindly and unconditionally support present Israeli policies, in the end will help neither the United States nor Israel itself.

Ira Glunts first visited the Middle East in 1972, where he taught English and physical education in a small rural community in Israel. He was a volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces in 1992. Mr. Glunts lives in Madison, New York where he operates a used and rare book business.

Notes:

[1] New York Daily News

[2] http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html

[3] Washington Post

[4] Drucker, Raviv and Shelah, Ofer, Boomerang..., Keter, 2005, pps. 132-133. Translation and text emphasized or enclosed in brackets, mine.

[5] Chicago Tribune

[6] The Observer

Lantos represents South San Francisco and San Mateo County. He is white, Jewish, Hungarian born and portrays himself as "the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress." He is an unabashed supporter of Israel. That makes him, of course, an "untouchable."

He is also the ranking Democrat on the powerful House International Relations Committee, which provides him with unusual opportunities to help Israel. He sponsors repressive legislation targeting the Palestinians and Israel's Middle East adversaries and, when called upon by Israel, he represents it in countries where Israel has no diplomatic relations, a questionable activity by a member of the U.S. Congress.

"He's true blue and white" - the colors of the Israeli flag - a former leader of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, Israel's official lobby, told the Jerusalem Post, referring to Lantos' devotion to Israel. Lantos made his first trip to the Jewish state in 1956 and has been there nearly 60 times since.
Rep. Tom Lantos speaks to media in Moscow, May 31, 2005. Lantos voiced strong support for a landmark nuclear energy deal with India and predicted the U.S. Congress would eventually approve the controversial accord.
Photo: Konstantin Koutsyllo, Reuters

And all along you thought his first concern was the voters in his district.

In 1991, in an effort to convince Congress and the world that Iraq needed to be forcibly removed from Kuwait, Lantos helped stage a hearing before his private Congressional Human Rights Caucus at which the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador, pretending she was a nurse who had been working in a Kuwaiti hospital at the time of Iraq's invasion, testified that she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers throwing babies out of scores of incubators on to the hospital floor in order to take the incubators back to Iraq.

The story was a total fabrication, but the outrage it engendered was enough to get reluctant members of Congress to change their minds and vote for the war. Despite articles about the fraud in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and Harper's, Lantos was never criticized on the House floor, let alone censured.

But this story is not about Israel or Iraq. It's about the different treatment afforded Lantos as compared to that meted out by the Capitol Police to our second member of Congress, Cynthia McKinney, who represents the De Kalb district in Atlanta, Georgia.

McKinney, of course, is African-American, and one of the few members of the Congressional Black Caucus who has not been cowed into submission by the Democratic Party and the only one who has refused to genuflect to the Israel lobby. But, again, this story isn't about Israel, although its specter and that of its lobby seem ever present.

To make matters worse - for McKinney, not for the pursuit of truth and justice - she has refused to accept the official Bush administration explanation of the events of 9-11, and she has participated in events alongside of other critics of that narrative who have been marginalized not only by both political parties and the mainstream media but by the "gatekeepers" of the left led by Noam Chomsky.

She has also been outspoken - while the Democratic Party has been largely silent - about the disenfranchisement of Black voters in Florida in the last two presidential elections, which is the subject of a new film about her on that subject, "American Blackout," that opened in February at the Sundance Film Festival. In other words, she is considered a "trouble-maker" in a colony of "go-along-to-get-alongs."

The Democrat Party leadership was overjoyed when McKinney was defeated for re-election in 2002. After she had served five terms, AIPAC decided to make an example of her for having criticized Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. That led to a stream of money flowing to her opponent, Denise Majette, from wealthy out of town Jewish donors.

That, a steady drumbeat of attacks by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, plus an estimated 40,000 votes from Republicans who crossed over to vote in the Democratic primary were enough to turn the tide against her. The Democrats were, in turn, mortified two years later when, without their help, the plucky McKinney ran and was re-elected to her seat.

To show the party's displeasure, McKinney was denied the return of her seniority by a tight-lipped Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco congresswoman who serves as the Democrats' minority House whip.

And McKinney, it turns out, is "touchable" - as those who have been following her ordeal with the Capitol Police are well aware. Touchable by a white Southern cop in a Capitol Police uniform in a white dominated predominantly Black city in which the Black majority are second class citizens and reminded of it every day.

So when McKinney entered the halls of Congress over a week ago, one of a handful of Black congresswomen - who should have been recognized - and walked around the security barrier on her way to vote as members of Congress are allowed to do, a Capitol cop on duty reached out to stop her.

McKinney allegedly turned around and struck him in the chest with the cell phone she was carrying in her hand, and now, incredibly, the Capitol Police have taken this minor incident to a federal grand jury.

Now what about the "untouchable" Tom Lantos; how did he get into this story?

Six years ago this May, Lantos was driving his car in Washington, D.C., and ran over the left foot of 13-year-old Owen Sanderson. Sanderson and his eighth grade classmates from a school in Bolton, Mass., were crossing the plaza in front of the Capitol when the congressman drove over the boy's foot, sending him to the pavement screaming in pain, the boy and his teachers told the press. Lantos then left the scene without getting out of his car to see whether the boy had been hurt.

As the Boston Globe described it, "While several horrified teachers and the principal shouted at Lantos to stop, the California Democrat sat rigidly, staring straight ahead and refusing to get out of his white Ford Taurus, which carried U.S. Congress plates."

"The first thing I heard was Owen screaming," said Ken Tucker, principal of the Worcester-area school. "Owen's foot was pinned under the car."

Lantos, 72 at the time, finally reversed slightly, freeing Owen's foot and ankle, and drove off without checking on his condition, said Tucker and several teachers. Lantos said he had no idea the boy had been hurt. "I was driving to my office," he said. "There was a typical spring mob of tourists and kids and so on. ... One of the kids, horsing around, not looking or something, jumped in front of the car, stumbled, then got up and walked away."

Owen's teachers and principal were dismayed at what they saw as insensitivity and arrogance by a government official, the Boston Globe reported. "If he had stopped and spoken to us, we would have had a much different response to this," said Malin, the art teacher. "It's called human decency."

Youngsters "learn too often in life that if you have money and power, you're above the law," said Perkins, the school nurse. "That's not the way it's supposed to be."

The teachers, Tucker and the tour guide disputed Lantos' assertion that he did not know Owen was hurt. Lantos "was asked several times to get out of the car by myself and the teachers," Tucker said. "He was told, 'You hit a kid and you need to stop.'"

"He was trying to drive through a crowd of kids, was what he was doing. Why or how, I don't know," Tucker said. "He didn't roll down his window. He made no offer to get out of the car."

Laura Friend, an English teacher who was among those chaperoning the 68 students, said she raced toward the Taurus and screamed at Lantos through a half-open window. "I was saying, 'Stop, stop, stop! Back up, back up, back up!' He didn't look at me. He didn't even take his hands off the wheel or anything," Friend said.

When it appeared Lantos might not stop, Tucker said, he stepped in front of the car. A Capitol Police officer twice told the principal to move out of the way or he would be arrested, Tucker and several teachers recounted. "The officer said, 'Look at his license plates. He's a congressman. If we need to get in touch with him, we can find him if need be,'" Friend recalled.

The boy he hit said he did not harbor bad feelings toward Lantos or his wife, Annette, who was a passenger in the car. But "it's disappointing that they didn't get out and say, 'Are you OK?' I just feel bad he didn't call to apologize."

Lantos paid a $25 fine after being issued a ticket for "failure to pay full time and attention," said Lt. Dan Nichols, spokesman for the Capitol Police, adding that the investigation was closed.

Which brings us back to the Capitol Police and Cynthia McKinney and her accusations of racism on its part. One wonders what would have been the fate of McKinney or any member of the Congressional Black Caucus had they run over the foot of a white child, congressional plates and all.

As it was, when McKinney leveled the charge of racism against the cop over her encounter in the Capitol, not one Democrat, not one member of the Congressional Black Caucus, chose to stand with her and with Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover, who had flown out to be at her side, at a Monday morning press conference.

Her fellow Georgia congressman, John Lewis, one time civil rights hero but in the decades since a Democratic Party loyalist, had the audacity to tell her, "You need to come to a non-violence workshop." Compare that with the comment from Ohio Congresswoman Marci Kaptur who, in the same NY Times article, described her as "a modern day version of Sojourner Truth. The edge of her knowledge singes some people. Sometimes turmoil surrounds the truth."

On Wednesday, April 5, with the grand jury case hanging over her head, McKinney met with members of the CBC and, following that meeting, in an effort to defuse the situation, she offered a public apology to the officer and to the Capitol Police, saying, "I am sorry that this misunderstanding happened at all. I regret its escalation. And I apologize."

But was McKinney on target in charging racism against the white Capitol Police?

According to the evidence, most definitely so. When the Black officers in the U.S. Capitol Police filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the government in 2001, they expected to get justice, reported the Final Call newspaper in August 2003. What they say they've gotten is retaliation. At the time the article was published, they were threatening a second class action suit, the paper reported.

The officers took their case to Capitol Hill July 30, 2003, for a press conference alleging the Capitol Police Department's pattern of "filing excessive and unfounded disciplinary charges against prominent members of the class action, as well as a pattern of harassment, including exclusion of class members from the U.S. Capitol Complex and a series of auto tampering, break-ins and vandalism of class members' automobiles."

"We suspect that such conduct by the department smacks of retaliation against the class members and is designed to undermine the momentum of current settlement negotiations," class attorney Nathaniel D. Johnson told the Final Call. Officer Larry A. Ikard, a member of the class action, spoke on behalf of the 358 Black members of the Capitol force.

"When will someone become accountable for the blatant acts of discrimination the African American officers have had to endure throughout our tenure? How can we be responsible for egregious acts committed against us?" he asked. He told the audience about training opportunities he was denied and being subjected to a racially hostile work environment.

The Congressional Black Caucus responded to the officers' complaints with a letter June 26 to Chief Terrance W. Gainer and members of the U.S. Capitol Police Board. "We are incensed and embarrassed at having to deal with these same systemic issues of discrimination against African American officers in our own U.S. Capitol Police force, now in the 21st century," the letter stated.

"In these uncertain times of terrorism, concern over homeland security and crises abroad, these police officers are entrusted with the responsibility of guarding and protecting us as members of Congress, our staff and the Capitol buildings and grounds, as well as our constituents who visit the Capitol."

The letter, signed by the 39 members of the CBC, concluded by saying, "We strongly urge the Capitol Police Board to implement far-reaching non-monetary remedies and oversight measures to ensure that discrimination against the African American officers ceases, and we fully support the complete monetary settlement proposed in the letter to the U.S. Attorney's Office."

It was the same Chief Gainer who filed the complaint last week against McKinney. But it seemed to be a different CBC, one that not only failed McKinney, but apparently failed to defend itself against a racist remark directed at all its members by Texas' poster boy for sleaze, Rep. Tom De Lay, who recently announced he was not running for re-election.

"Cynthia McKinney is a racist," DeLay said on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends," a day after abandoning his re-election campaign under a cloud of ethics violations and charges, the Associated Press reported. "She has a long history of racism. Everything is racism with her. This is incredible arrogance that sometimes hits these members of Congress, but especially Cynthia McKinney."

While McKinney was being slandered right and further right by other Fox commentaries and the same racist talk show hosts who raged at her re-election, she was sandbagged from the left by columnist Earl Ofari Hutchinson, who somehow thinks the Congressional Black Caucus is something other than what it currently is, a rather meek handmaiden to an even meeker Democratic Party.

"A big tip that the race squawk won't cut it in this case is the mute reaction of the Congressional Black Caucus and other Democrats," wrote Ofari in an article entitled "The Sad Saga of Cynthia McKinney," as if either group - and particularly the Democrats - was deserving of any credibility in this day and age.

"Not one Caucus member publicly charged to her defense," he went on, "and not one Democratic House member stood at her side at her initial press conference when she cried racism. In all likelihood, she apologized at the quiet urging of Caucus members. No, McKinney was wrong."

No, Ofari was wrong, and the refusal of the CBC to stand behind her at this time, along with their refusal to demand a return of her seniority when she was re-elected, will go down as shameful chapters in the caucus's history, while the betrayal of McKinney by the rest of her fellow Democrats and the party itself is consistent with their betrayal of the rest of America.

Jeff Blankfort is a radio program producer with KPOO in San Francisco, KZYX in Mendocino and KPFT/Pacifica in Houston. He is a journalist and Jewish-American and has been a pro-Palestinian human rights activist since 1970. He was formerly the editor of the Middle East Labor Bulletin and co-founder of the Labor Committee of the Middle East. He may be reached at jblankfort@earthlink.net.

Apart from the ten members of the Palestinian parties and two eccentric Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox Jews, all the members of the new Knesset (there are 120 in all) arrived promising that their magic formulae would solve the 'demographic problem'. The means varied from reducing Israeli control over the Occupied Territories - in fact, the plans put forward by Labour, Kadima, Shas (the Sephardic Orthodox party) and Gil (the pensioners' party) would involve Israeli withdrawal from only 50 per cent of these territories - to more drastic action. Right-wing parties such as Yisrael Beytenu, the Russian ethnic party of Avigdor Liberman, and the religious parties argued for a voluntary transfer of Palestinians to the West Bank. In short, the Zionist answer is to reduce the problem either by giving up territory or by shrinking the 'problematic' population group.

None of this is new. The population problem was identified as the major obstacle in the way of Zionist fulfilment in the late 19th century, and David Ben-Gurion said in December 1947 that 'there can be no stable and strong Jewish state so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60 per cent.' Israel, he warned on the same occasion, would have to deal with this 'severe' problem with 'a new approach'. The following year, ethnic cleansing meant that the number of Palestinians dropped below 20 per cent of the Jewish state's overall population (in the area allocated to Israel by the UN plus the area it occupied in 1948, the Palestinians would originally have made up around 60 per cent of the population). Interestingly, but not surprisingly, in December 2003 Binyamin Netanyahu recycled Ben-Gurion's magic number - the undesirable 60 per cent. 'If the Arabs in Israel form 40 per cent of the population,' Netanyahu said, 'this is the end of the Jewish state.' 'But 20 per cent is also a problem,' he added. 'If the relationship with these 20 per cent is problematic, the state is entitled to employ extreme measures.' He did not elaborate.

Israel boosted its population with two massive Jewish immigrations, each of about a million people, in 1949 and in the 1980s. This kept the Palestinian proportion of the population down and today Palestinians account for nearly 20 per cent of the population of Israel (not counting the Occupied Territories). Ehud Olmert, the leader of Kadima and acting prime minister, thinks that if Israel stays in the Occupied Territories and its inhabitants are included in the Israeli population, Palestinians will outnumber Jews within 15 years. So he advocates hitkansut - meaning 'convergence' or, better, 'ingathering' - a policy that would leave several populous Palestinian areas outside direct Israeli control. But even if this consolidation takes place, there will still be a very large Palestinian population inside the 88 per cent of Palestine in which Olmert hopes to build the future, stable Jewish state. How large exactly we don't know: demographers in Israel belonging to the centre or the left provide a low estimate, which makes disengagement seem a reasonable solution, while those on the right tend to exaggerate the figure. But they all seem to agree that the demographic balance will not stay the same, given the higher birth-rate of Palestinians compared to Jews. Thus Olmert may well come to the conclusion that pull-outs are not the solution.

Once the 'Arabs' in Israel and the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories came to be thought of in the West as 'Muslims' it was easy to elicit support for Israel's demographic policies, at least where it counted: on Capitol Hill. But even in Europe there was no need, after 9/11, to explain why Israel has a 'demographic problem'. On 2 February 2003 the popular daily Maariv carried a typical headline: 'A quarter of the children in Israel are Muslims.' The piece went on to describe this fact as Israel's next 'ticking bomb'. The increase in the 'Muslim' population - 2.4 per cent a year - was not a problem anymore, but a 'danger'.

In the run-up to the election, pundits discussed this question using language akin to that employed in Europe and the United States in debates over immigration. Here, however, it is the immigrant community that decides the future of the indigenous population, not vice versa. On 7 February 1948, after driving to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv and seeing the first villages that had been emptied of Palestinians on the western outskirts of Jerusalem, a jubilant Ben-Gurion reported to a gathering of Zionist leaders: 'When I come nowadays to Jerusalem I feel it is a Hebrew city. This was a feeling I only had in farms and in Tel Aviv. Not all Jerusalem is Hebraic but there is already a huge Hebraic bloc - no Arabs in it. One hundred per cent Jewish. If we can persevere,' Ben-Gurion added, this miracle will happen elsewhere.

But despite their perseverance, a sizable community of Palestinians remained. They are students at my university, where they attend lectures by professors who talk about the grave demographic problem. Palestinian law students - the lucky ones who constitute an informal quota - in the Hebrew University may well come across Ruth Gabison, a former head of the Association for Civil Rights and a candidate for the Supreme Court, who has come out recently with strong views on the subject, views that probably seem to her to reflect a consensus. 'Israel has the right to control Palestinian natural growth,' she has declared.

Away from the campuses, these students can't escape the knowledge that they are seen as a problem. Whether from the Zionist left or the hard right, they hear daily that Jewish society is longing to get rid of them. And they will worry, and rightly so, whenever they hear they have become a 'danger'. While still only a problem they are protected by a certain pretence to democracy and liberalism. Once they constitute a danger, however, they could be faced with emergency policies based on the British Mandate's emergency regulations. Houses could be demolished, newspapers shut down and people expelled under such a regime.

The 2006 elections have brought to the Knesset a solid coalition determined to deal with the demographic problem: first and foremost, by disengaging from more of the West Bank; and second, by completing the network of walls around the rest of the Palestinian areas. The border between Israel and the West Bank is 370 kilometres long, but the serpentine wall will be double that length, and will strangle large Palestinian communities. In the Palestinian areas within Israel, segregation is ensured by construction programmes approved when Sharon was minister of national infrastructures: Jewish settlements overlook and encircle large Palestinian areas such as Wadi Ara and Lower Galilee.

On 31 July 2003, the Knesset passed a law prohibiting Palestinians from obtaining citizenship, permanent residency or even temporary residency when they marry Israeli citizens. The initiator of the legislation was a liberal Zionist, Avraham Poraz of the centrist party Shinui. He described it as a 'defence measure'. Only 25 members of the Knesset opposed it and Poraz declared that those already married and with families 'will have to go to the West Bank', regardless of how long they had been living in Israel.

The Arab members of the Knesset were among those who appealed to the Supreme Court against this racist law. When the Supreme Court turned down the appeal, their energy petered out. The Arab members come from three parties: the Communist Party (Hadash), the National Party of Azmi Bishara (Balad) and the United Arab List drawn up by the more pragmatic branch of the Islamic movement. The Supreme Court ruling made clear their irrelevance, in the eyes of both the parliamentary and judicial systems. We're always told that Palestinians should be pleased to live in the only democracy in the region, to have the right to vote, but that vote brings no power.

In the dead of night on 24 January this year, an elite unit of the border police seized the Israeli Palestinian village of Jaljulya. The troops burst into houses, dragging out 36 women and eventually deporting eight of them. The women were ordered to go to their old homes in the West Bank. Some had been married for years to Palestinians in Jaljulya, some were pregnant, many had children, but the soldiers were demonstrating to the Israeli public that when a demographic problem becomes a danger, the state will act swiftly and without hesitation. One Palestinian member of the Knesset protested, but the action was backed by the government, the courts and the media.

The ten members of the new Knesset from Palestinian parties will not be included in any coalition and will probably be sidelined and forgotten, as they were in the previous parliament (there are two other Arab members and two Druze members from Labour and Kadima). Haaretz sent a journalist to live for a few days in the 'Arab areas' in order to write - as an anthropological tourist - on the Palestinians' reaction to the elections. Apart from this piece of reportage, the Israeli media had nothing to say about how the Palestinians voted. After all, they are the problem, not the solution. And if disengagement doesn't 'stop' the growth in their numbers the Jaljulya operation could show the future.

No wonder many Palestinians now want the international community to intervene. But Israel ignored the ruling of the international court on the wall, and is unlikely to be moved by what it will see as interference in its internal affairs. There is another call coming, still hesitant, although it will grow in volume: a call for the creation of an autonomous parliament for the Palestinians in Israel. In a world that has marginalised this community twice over - both in the overall Palestinian polity and within Jewish society - the 1,300,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel have very little to lose by shunning the Knesset and opting for autonomy. Who knows, they may even convince the Jewish majority that they are 'only' a problem, not a danger.

Instead of expressions of sorrow at the death of children, the upper echelons of the defense establishment came out with a stream of strident statements. The defense minister said that the only thing to do was step up the pressure on the Palestinians. The deputy chief of staff spoke about a possible invasion of Gaza and the head of army operations added, "what we've seen so far are only the previews." The IDF announced it would further reduce the "safety range" that is designed to avoid shells hitting the civilian population.

It was a chilling, united chorus. Israel is dropping thousands of bombs on towns and villages, on the "the launching pads" of the Qassams - another dubious term created by the defense establishment and blindly adopted by the press - and only the Palestinians, whose Qassam rockets haven't killed anyone since the disengagement, are called "terrorists."

Nor was there any substantive debate after a possible slip of the tongue by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in an interview to the BBC, in which she said that there was a difference between attacking civilians and attacking soldiers. Even though she did not resolutely stand by her own words in an interview with Channel 10, Livni dared to speak the truth: If harming civilians is a measure of terror, then Israel is a terror state. With 18 killed in Gaza alone in 12 days, three of them children, the absence of intent cannot suffice for us. Someone who uses artillery to shell population centers and says with horrific indifference that this is "just a preview," as if it were another reality show on TV, cannot claim that he does not intend to kill children.

Those responsible for such bombings around the world are rightfully considered war criminals. That's terror - just ask Livni. And when it is done in the name of a state, it is much worse than in those cases when the perpetrators are from rogue organizations.

Israel declares it is striving to apply pressure with its cannon on the Palestinian population, so that it will prevent the Qassam fire. That is a hollow argument. No Palestinian leader can promote a cease-fire while dozens of civilians are being hurt. No Palestinian, no matter how peaceable, can prevent with his body the launches from inside Palestinian Authority territory. Could Hadil Aben's parents have done something? What exactly was the crime of these poor people? And how, exactly, will killing their daughter lead to a halt in the Qassams?

The continuing imprisonment of besieged Gaza is precisely the opposite policy that should be applied to serve Israeli interests. The current policy only strengthens support for the Hamas, just like the terror attacks within Israel always strengthen the Israeli right. A nation under siege, its leadership boycotted, will have far more determination and resolve to fight to its last drop of blood. It is impossible to break the spirit of a desperate people. Only a nation that sees a light at the end of its desperation will change its ways.

What would happen if Israel were to turn to the world and call upon it to enlist in the cause of support for the residents of Gaza, to donate and invest money to help them out of their utter poverty? If an Israeli prime minister did such a thing and at the same time called for a meeting with his elected Palestinian counterpart, it would create far more effective and positive pressure than any cannon fire.

If the Palestinians only saw for the first time in their lives that Israel also had their well-being in mind, which is not necessarily bad for Israel, they would have a lot more to lose and they would expel the Qassam launchers themselves. Only the Palestinians can do that, and sowing the seeds of hope is the only way to do so. And if, in the current situation, the artillery fire were to end, and they were to stop the Qassams, would Israel ease the siege, enable freedom of movement from Gaza to the West Bank, allow Palestinians to work in Israel, agree to the construction of a seaport and airport in besieged Gaza? Israel's declarations prove that the answer to all these questions is an unequivocal no. Its current policy and the policies we have seen it adopt lead only to intensification of the violence on the part of the Palestinians.

No Qassam justifies the killing and terror that the shells sow in Gaza. Cannons are meant for war against an army. Using them against a helpless civilian population is supposed to be beyond the realm of the legitimate, without any ifs or buts about it. A state does not shell towns. Period. Just like in the war against crime that is also deadly and endangers state security, no end justifies all the means. Would it ever occur to the Israeli police to evacuate an entire neighborhood from which some murderers came? Would anyone decide to shell such a neighborhood, even if it would mean minimizing the crime coming out of it?

Those who really want to end the Qassam launches from Gaza, should turn Israeli policy upside down. To show restraint in the face of the Qassams, to lift the siege, to immediately meet with the elected Palestinian leadership and call on the world to stop withholding the funds from the Palestinian Authority. Only a free and secure and thriving Gaza will stop launching Qassams. Have we ever tried that?

"This would allow the government to maintain its role in the region as a beacon of democracy."

Lebanon says the Israeli-occupied border area of Shaba Farms is Lebanese territory and Israel's 2000 pullout from south Lebanon was incomplete. Israel and the United Nations say the area is Syrian.

"I'm going to present to President Bush our case... Israel has to withdraw from the Shaba Farms and has to stop violating our airspace and water," Siniora said.

This was essential if the Lebanese government was "to become the sole monopoly of holding weapons in the country" and would help Lebanese reach a consensus on how to defend their country, he added.

"Very important as well is to seek the support of President Bush so that Lebanon will not become in any way a ball in the courtyard of others or... a courtyard for the confrontations of others in the region," Siniora said.

Lebanon's rival leaders are engaged in a "national dialogue" aimed at resolving the country's political crisis, the worst since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war. One key issue is the disarming of Hezbollah, which is supported by Syria and Iran. The Shi'ite Muslim group says its weapons are still required to liberate Shaba Farms and to defend Lebanon against any Israeli threats.