Chomsky takes M&W to task for two failures. First, M&W misunderstand the goals and therefore the successes of U.S. policy. Second, and as a result, M&W fail to consider other dominant interests that gained from U.S. policies in the Middle East, for example the oil industry. Both accusations are to the point. Together they form a basic principle of analysis on which I agree with Chomsky: U.S. foreign policy is determined by domestic interests.

Chomsky then frames the debate as an attempt to weigh "the impact of several factors which (all agree) interact in determining state policy: in particular, (A) strategic-economic interests of concentrations of domestic power in the tight state-corporate linkage, and (B) the Lobby."

The main problem is this: are (A) and (B) different factors at work, as Chomsky says, or alternative modes of explanations? One can contrast a leftist mode of explanation, one that analyzes the economic system of domination, to a rightist vision of history as a struggle between nations, races, or civilizations. In the leftist worldview, the state is the executor and protector of economic privilege, whereas in the rightist worldview the state is the embodiment and executor of the unified national identity. These two modes of explanations cannot be combined as "factors". They are holistic and mutually exclusive worldviews. Both, of course, must take account of the same facts. Leftists must explain how nationality, ethnicity and religion manifest themselves as organizing principles of domination and resistance within economic systems. Nationalists must justify the existence of class differences within "unified" identities and separate "productive" from "parasitic", and "organic" from "foreign" elements of society. But there is no coherent way to combine these visions of the world.

In so far as attacks on the Israel Lobby are motivated by and analyzed within a rightist mode of explanation, they should be rejected by the left outright. The issue is not one of weighing specific evidence. It is a political issue rooted in our deepest intuitions about the world and our sense of place in it. Ultimately, this is the problem with M&W. Their "realist" conception of the state as a "black box" is inherently in line with rightist state based nationalism. Their annoyance with the "Israel Lobby" seems motivated as much as anything by the theoretical difficulty of the "black box" model of the state to deal with capitalist globalization. They want to be imperialists in a simple world -- with the U.S. in one black box, Israel in another -- not in the world of globetrotting transnational elites we actually inhabit.

Chomsky rejects M&W's formulation of "the national interest," substituting his own, i.e. the interest of the dominant "concentrations of domestic power." In doing so, he correctly rejects M&W rightist framework. But his formulation is nonetheless based on the state as the fundamental unit of analysis. And that leads him to compare "the Lobby," which is here a guest concept from that other dimension, with his own concept of the dominant "concentrations of domestic power." This is an inherently impossible comparison between two concepts that do not belong to the same universe. Unsurprisingly, the mixing of conceptual frameworks leads to incoherence, and Chomsky concedes that, as soon as the Lobby becomes an important element in Washington "it's hard to distinguish 'national interest' (in the usual perverse sense of the phrase) from the effects of the Lobby."

The way out of this mess is to translate M&W's concept into our own analytical framework before we do the comparison. That would mean collapsing the false distinction between the Lobby and "strategic-economic interests of concentrations of domestic power in the tight state-corporate linkage." But we should also loosen the requirements of Chomsky's "domestic" adjective. Instead, we should look at Washington as a complex web of interlocking and overlapping alliances of (transnational) capital and (domestic) state institutions. The Israel Lobby will then reappear as one such alliance among many. While U.S. capital emerges domestically, and while White Americans predominate in its circles, capital is global and many of the interests represented in Washington lost their "nationality" long ago. There is as little that is "American" in the interests of Citibank and Wal-Mart as in the interests represented by the Israel Lobby.

The capital alliances that make Washington are heterogeneous. Some are clearly defined by an industry, such as healthcare of agribusiness. Others are defined ideologically around a mobilizing issue, such as the gun lobby and the religious right. Yet other are defined by nationality/identity, and of these the most powerful is clearly the Israel Lobby. Each alliance is specific in nature and qualitatively unique. Thus it is easy to show that the Israel Lobby is unique. But it is equally easy to show that the agribusiness lobby is unique. However, they all share one common characteristic -- they all serve a capitalist interest. That is a truism, for the simple reason that you cannot play the Washington game without capital. You cannot offer career opportunities; you cannot dispense campaign funding; you cannot share a meaningful rolodex. And without these, you're not in the game.

Such a conception of the Israel lobby dissolves Chomsky's other complaints.

1. Chomsky raises a major problem in any discussion of the Lobby. Practically everyone in Washington supports Israel. Either the Israel lobby involves everyone, or support for Israel serves so many interests that it is hard to evaluate who is actually behind it.

Thinking in terms of capital alliances, it is clear why all of Washington agrees on so many subjects. There are interests strongly shared by all capitalists, and there is also a common culture with shared beliefs and ideas that circulate together with the money. Beyond that there are interests shared strongly by a few and only loosely by the rest. And further out are the really divergent interests that are the object of intense struggles. The differential importance of various concerns to different segments is the stuff that makes alliances possible. Each alliance has a core that is fully committed to a set of policies, as well as looser associations -- core elements of other alliances -- that join in more sporadically.

The interlocking and overlapping nature of Washington makes analysis difficult, but not impossible. It is both possible and necessary to identify the different interests and the alliances they make. It is also possible to notice when they clash. Once so described, talk of the power of the Lobby to control Washington becomes incoherent. Nobody controls Washington. There are more or less powerful alliances, and they usually do not test their power by engaging in all out war against each other. There is always a background of cooperation. But it is equally incoherent to dismiss the power of the Israel Lobby just because others, such as energy corporations, also supported and gained from the U.S. support for Israel. This is like dismissing the power of Wall Street investment banks because agribusiness also supports "free trade." When Cynthia McKinney was unseated by AIPAC, it was a service the Israel Lobby performed for Washington as a whole, getting rid of Representative who actually had the audacity to represent the poor people of her district. But it was her disrespect for Israel that got AIPAC to lead the charge. This is how cooperation works, and one must not be surprised that other segments of Washington would repay the favor and occasionally support Israel well beyond what their immediate interests dictate.

2. Chomsky notes that the Lobby only came to the fore after Israel became strategically important to the U.S., mostly as a means to combat Arab nationalism. Indeed, each powerful element in Washington derives a significant portion of its power from the very fact of being there and engaging in alliances with other elements. Wall Street wouldn't be so powerful if it couldn't rely occasionally on the U.S. army to collect debt. The Israel Lobby likewise draws its power from Washington, thanks to services performed in the past. But it is the wrong metaphor to imagine it as a kind of a light bulb, one that immediately goes dark when the power source is cut off. The logic of power is to accumulate and nowhere more so than under capitalism. The Israeli elite that served Washington in the last three decades was well compensated, and the same goes for the American intermediaries who facilitated the relations. In the process of serving the U.S., Israeli elites integrated their own wealth within the U.S. capital system and formed lasting alliances with segments of U.S. capital. They also created and endowed a series of institutions that are deeply involved in the culture of Washington. These alliances and institutions now stand on their own, and it would take a lot to disrupt them, even if Israel becomes as strategically useless as M&W claim it has.

Furthermore, most strategic goals can be achieved in more than one way. Israel helps the U.S. control the Middle East by simply being a constant irritant that weakens Arab governments and renders them dependent on Washington. But is it the only way for Washington to insert itself in the Middle East? The Israel Lobby does not need to "coerce" Washington to do its biding; it is enough that it can propose and promote choices of strategies that are consistent with its interests, and block strategies that are not. This is the core of the furor over M&W. M&W do not propose a less imperialist U.S. foreign policy. They merely suggest that the U.S. could achieve its imperialist goals in the Middle East at a lower cost by using an alternative strategy. I am not sure M&W are right. Perhaps the road through Israel is indeed the cheapest and safest for U.S. imperialism. But they could be right. M&W are, after all, leading defense intellectuals whose so-called "offensive realism" is a naked justification for unbridled U.S. imperialism. It should be clear that M&W neither need nor deserve the support of the left for their imperial stratagems. Their paper was explicitly targeted to the world of defense intellectuals and civil servants. But it is wrong to assume that Israel is necessary today for U.S. imperialist goals because it was so in the past or even because it is useful in the present. (Indeed, one way to think of the value of the Iraq War from a neo-conservative perspective is precisely as an attempt by a segment of the elites to commit the U.S. to a specific strategic path at the very moment when other paths could have been at least equally tempting.)

3. Chomsky faults M&W for the failure to notice that the U.S. has adopted similar foreign policies in the past in other areas of the world despite the lack of a relevant lobby. This is a relevant critique of M&W and all those who believe American imperialism is an Israeli import. But once we firmly locate the Lobby within the system of alliances that constitute Washington, it becomes a non-issue. First, it is simply not correct to describe the level of integration between the U.S. and Israel as in any way similar to any other relation the U.S. has with a similar ally. Chomsky himself has written extensively about the so-called "special relation." The key question is not the basic American policy as such, but the capitalist integration of elites. It is precisely because there is no Indonesian or Chilean lobby that the relations between these countries and the U.S. are different, even if the basic contours of U.S. policy, i.e. support for the ruthless suppression of native nationalism, has been the same. The Lobby is not the cause of U.S. involvement in the Middle East. In many ways it is the result. But that result has altered Washington in ways no other imperialist intervention did.

A final question must be asked: practically speaking, what does it matter?

Chomsky cites Stephen Zunes approvingly to the effect that "there are far more powerful interests that have a stake in what happens in the Persian Gulf region than does AIPAC." The practical implication of this statement is that it is wrong for anti-imperialists activists to pay too much attention to the Israel lobby. It's a waste of resources and a diversion from the real target -- U.S. imperialism.

The problem is that Zunes and Chomsky are again confusing their own leftist framework with the right wing framework they oppose. It is wrong to focus on identity as such, including the national/ethnic identity of Jews/Israelis who are key figures in the imperialist machinery. It is wrong to see the world as fundamentally a clash of tribal identities. But is in not wrong to strategically focus on the Israel Lobby. The "Israel Lobby" shouldn't be an alternative framework that competes with "U.S. imperialism" as an explanation to world events. The Israel Lobby should rather be a shorthand designation for a segment of the elites that fully participates in making U.S. imperialism happen.

To insist on ignoring the Lobby it is to help it maintain a "safe zone" for U.S. imperialism to hide within. This is indeed one of the many useful services the Lobby provides for the larger Washington power system. The Israel Lobby is today a major purveyor of racist and pro-war propaganda, which is shielded from public criticism by its association with Israel and the sword of fighting anti-Semitism. To ignore it is to create a safe zone for racism and war at the heart of the U.S. public sphere.

The Israel Lobby is an important and active component of U.S. imperialism. To insist that one must only focus on "U.S. imperialism" is to limit the struggle to abstractions. It is as if one were to say, "don't mind Nike, it is just a shoe company. Focus your energies on global capitalism." It is just as counterproductive to insist on fighting U.S. imperialism while giving a free pass to one of its major manifestations.

Gabriel Ash is an activist and writer who writes because the pen is sometimes mightier than the sword and sometimes not. He welcomes comments at: g.a.evildoer@gmail.com.

Walt and Mearsheimer conclude that the US has placed Israel's interests above its own, with the result that the US plunged into a disastrous misadventure in Iraq, made itself the object of Arab and Muslim anger and the target of terrorism. The financial, political and diplomatic cost of supporting Israel, they argue, cannot be justified on any practical, moral or strategic grounds.

The predictable response to the study is that the authors, among the two most distinguished international relations theorists in the US, have themselves now been labelled as anti-Semites in numerous articles in the mainstream press.

It is a common view in this region that despite decades of American bias and duplicity, US policy would one day be corrected; if it does not become openly supportive of our rights, at least it will not be so blindly supportive of Israel's violations of them. Indeed, I have long argued that the United States does not face a choice between Israel and the Arabs. There is no reason the US cannot support Israel as much as it desires, provided this does not extend to supporting Israel's open aggression against its neighbours, its blatant disregard for international law, and its cruel military rule over millions of Palestinians.

The Walt-Mearsheimer report is significant not because of its content - much of which was already known - but more because of who wrote it and the moment they chose to do it. Its appearance has opened the door to much needed debate. Many Americans get upset that people in this part of the world supposedly believe conspiracy theories and see an Israeli hand behind every US action. But in the absence of free discussion about what role Israel truly plays in US politics, why the US always defends whatever Israel does, and why US leaders seem to be so afraid to criticise Israel, it can be no surprise that people believe the very worst.

What is worrying is that the heavy-handed lobby pressure tactics that have long cowed the US Congress are now apparently being felt in Europe. Until 1967, Israel relied heavily on European support and weapons. But since the occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, European attitudes began to evolve. In its 1980 Venice Declaration, the European Community (as the EU was then called) recognised for the first time the right of the Palestinians to self-determination, with all that entails. This was a major policy shift.

Although never straying too far from the US lead, the EU did try to influence Washington to be a little bit more even handed. Because of this, Israel and its lobby painted the EU as openly hostile to Israel and sought to marginalise it from any political role in solving the conflict, as it had done with the UN. The EU, desperate for a role, accepted the only one the US and Israel would permit: financier to the occupation. European money during the Oslo years made a double contribution; by propping up the Palestinian Authority in the context of no pressure on Israel, it helped legitimise the occupation, and by meeting minimal Palestinian needs, it subsidised the occupation, effectively relieving Israel of the burden of paying the costs of repressing the Palestinians. Ironically, the European billions which should have helped Palestinians build their institutions, ended up feeding corruption and financing more Israeli colonisation and consolidation in the occupied territories.

In reality, the ability of the EU to make a coherent policy has been weakened by the ascent of a number of Eastern European states whose foreign policy is particularly close to that of the United States and which are under its influence. This meant that the EU was paralysed by the debate about whether to support the US invasion of Iraq; the UK, Spain and Italy supported it, while France and Germany led the opposition. A similar process has happened with respect to Israel, and the result will be even more damaging to Europe.

Is it insignificant that within the US, it is the major pro-Israel groups that are pushing for the hardest line against Iran, despite European efforts to find a non-military approach? And is it merely a coincidence that the collapse in independent EU policy coincides with strident campaigns by US-based pro-Israel groups to paint European countries as a new hotbed of anti-Semitism and Muslim terrorism? Many in this region see a direct connection between the power of the Israel lobby and Europe's caving in to the Israeli worldview.

The EU is now following Israel and America in punishing the Palestinians for exercising their democratic right and electing Hamas. The EU has every right to urge Hamas to pursue the course of peace and non-violence, but a more balanced approach would require similar calls to Israel to end its occupation and halt the use of violence as well.

Since it was elected to office in January, actually since the election of Mahmoud Abbas as PA president, Hamas neither practised nor called for use of violence. It has been strictly observing the unilaterally declared Palestinian truce while Israeli attacks, incursions and artillery shelling of as much as three hundred rounds daily on Gaza, left 20 dead and enormous property damage and fear. Rather than step in to stop Israel's aggression in an occupied territory, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan did his best to appease Israel's supporters, announcing his own boycott of the Palestinians, with no mandate or authority to do so.

In this region, many will wonder what sort of principled position this is, and ask whether it is not a position merely taken out of fear and political self-preservation.

The scale and scope of the blind support is such that many people believe that something insidious is at work. The debate about the extent of the role of the Israeli lobby will go on. But what needs no debate is that for whatever reason, US policy is too pro-Israeli and as long as this does not change, conflict in the region will only worsen.

Hasan Abu Nimah is a retired Jordanian diplomat. Amongst his several postings was representative to the United Nations.

And yet, as the Romans used to say, et in Arcadia ego: The growing presence of a dark shadow on our not-too-distant horizon cannot be ignored or denied, even as these sunny days roll on (and off; winter came back last evening, then went away again-a highly unusual pattern for Passover). Steadily, inexorably, our minds are being focused. There are surely other issues on our doorstep: Islamic Jihad still plots murder, and after many failures and foiled attempts, a suicide bomber got through today, wreaking havoc and killing at least nine in the old Central Bus Station, at the heart of Tel Aviv; Hamas, in power, is already openly saying that unless the world pays its bills, even worse terror will soon resume. The "drip" of Qassam rockets continues, bringing the IDF to the edge of large-scale action on the ground, to put the residents of the Negev out of harm's way. An Arab man from Jerusalem was executed, gangster-style, in Jericho for selling land to Jews-a crime equivalent to high treason, under Palestinian and Jordanian law. All the while, despite the lull imposed by Passover, Israeli party politics are flowing in their convoluted course toward coalition-building. None of this, however, opens up existential questions, at least not at this stage. Iran does.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once again challenges the world, telling the West it can no longer do anything about Iran's nuclear program, while repeating his assertions of Holocaust denial. In a major conference in Tehran, he offered aid and guidance to the new Hamas government, as well as to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hizballah; in fact, it seems that Iran's constant goading is the key factor behind the new campaign of murder launched against us. What drives this Iranian confrontational course?
One of the first questions that need to be asked has to do with the roots of Ahmadinejad's breathtakingly, almost childishly aggressive posture. ("Those who are angry with us-let them die of anger.") What gives him, in his mind-unless he is truly demented, and it would be unsafe to proceed on that assumption-the capacity to defy the "powers that be" in this fashion? A number of scholars and experienced Israeli observers of Iranian affairs have tried to account for his outlook by delving into aspects of his faith-specifically, the peculiar convergence between Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's modernist totalitarian perversion of Shi'a beliefs, as reflected in the political structure of today's Iranian Islamist revolutionary state, and the older, mystical traditions within the same denomination, which bring him into communion with the "Hidden Imam," a belief reflecting a touch of the ancient Manichean polarity, typical of Iran in its pre-Islamic era. In his world there is absolute good, namely, all that the Islamic Revolution stands for, and there is absolute evil-i.e., the infidels who rule America and "the rotten tree which would be destroyed by the storm," namely the Zionist entity.

Perhaps we need not delve quite so far into the darker corners of what the some Muslim traditions call ghulat, Shi'a extremists, who slip over the unseen line and pretend to become prophets and saviors-although Muslim history has known many such over the years, some peaceful and benign, others less so. There are less mysterious reasons for Ahmadinejad's defiant posture, and they have to do with the perceived failure of the West as a whole to deal with an underlying challenge to its ability to act against Iran. A few years ago, when the oil markets were glutted and Saudi Arabia could offer surge capacities to respond to any major crisis, Iran would have been reckless to test the West's resolve. But things have changed, and the risk of confrontation could become a double-edged sword-unless important measures are taken soon to alter this aspect of the strategic equation.

At least five major developments have changed the dynamics of the "oil weapon"-an old and rusty threat when used by a disunited Arab world and aimed at Israel, but a potent factor in Iran's game of brinkmanship:

1. The surge in Chinese and Indian consumption of oil, as well as the collapse of self-restraint in the U.S. and elsewhere, have given a new edge to the sellers' market;
2. Saudi Arabia, stretched for funds to keep its pampered and restive population happy, is cruising much closer to its top capacity and can barely provide cover if a key producer should drop out of the market;
3. Iraq has yet a long way to go if it is ever to regain its position as a stable and reliable supplier;
4. Political and social instability, from Nigeria to the Caspian basin, further adds to the uncertainty and to the costs it entails;
5. Finally, in Hugo Chávez the radicals may find, if they choose to take a confrontational course, an angry ally ready to constrain and inconvenience the "North Americans" even further.

A prominent Israeli energy economist, Dr. Amit Mor, now warns, against this troubling background, that unless major preparations are made, and made now, any future crisis with Iran-over the imposition of sanctions, let alone the use of force-could quickly lead to a test of wills, with Iran taking some 3 million barrels a day off the market. This could easily send oil prices soaring, for the first time ever, well beyond the frightening threshold of $100 a barrel, perhaps as high as $150, ten times (!) or more the prices of the mid-nineties. Sooner rather than later, this would mean $6.40 at the pump. And what happens then?

Mor firmly believes that a resolute leadership in the U.S. and Europe can forestall the crisis, but only if some measures are taken immediately. The strategic reserves, mainly in America, should be replenished now, with plans made for tapping into them in a measured and well thought-out fashion, when the time comes to do so; a million barrels a day can thus come downstream. An equivalent amount, or more, could be saved by changing the consumption habits of American (and, to a lesser extent, European) drivers: Today, Americans at their wheels consume a huge proportion of the world's fossil fuels. Finally, the Saudis-who are, in all likelihood, as eager as anyone to see Ahmadinejad's power curtailed-can be prevailed upon to push the limits and use their residual surge capacity to further mitigate the threat.

Raising this question-and the equally cogent prospect that the revolutionary regime and its proxies may unleash a wave of terrorist attacks, including a barrage of rockets against northern Israel and a broad effort against U.S. and allied targets-must not, in other words, be construed as a politicized argument against taking action. (Much grief came from falling into this mental trap and discarding valuable analysis in the run-up to the removal of Saddam from power.) Quite the contrary: This may be the best reason for acting sooner rather than later, in time rather than too late, so as to deny to this kind of regime the tools of regional domination and exterminatory design. There are strong reasons to believe that this is what most leaders in the Arab world (and the military establishment in Turkey) are saying, sotto voce, to their Western interlocutors. But what it does mean, and should mean, is a new kind of preparedness-and readiness to make some short-term sacrifices, such as carless days and other major changes in public consumption habits. As the terror masters vie with one another in Tehran, pledging to ensure that Iran will not stand alone at the moment of crisis, the need to counter this by resolute action-belying their assumption that the hedonistic West is impotent-will involve not only governments but society at large.

The minister was quoted as saying that there were currently some 70 warnings of terrorist attacks, of which 15 were "localized alerts."

Israeli security forces have had a number of successes, said Mofaz, adding that 10 suicide attacks have been thwarted and more than 160 terrorist suspects have been arrested since the beginning of the year.

Israel holds the Hamas-led cabinet of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) responsible for the terrorist attacks and the overall deterioration in the security situation, Mofaz added.

On April 17, a suicide bombing attack killed nine people and wounded another 40 near the old central bus station in southern Tel Aviv. The Islamic Jihad (holy war) and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed ring of Fatah, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Hamas failed to condemn the attack, saying it was an act of self-defense against the Israeli aggression.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni also briefed the cabinet, saying that international community remained committed to the three conditions it has set for granting the Hamas-led government legitimacy: recognizing Israel, renouncing violence and accepting previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements.

Livni said that the Hamas decision to appoint Jamal Abu Samhadanah, a top wanted militant who survived an Israeli assassination attempt in 2004, as head of a new security force had further eroded the PNA's position in international community.

Hamas announced last Thursday that it was forming an executive security force to help end chaos in the Palestinian territories. PNA chairman Mahmoud Abbas vetoed this decision, saying that establishment of a new security force was "illegal and unconstitutional."

The U.S. missile systems maker Alliant Techsystems, or ATK, has joined the Boeing and Israel Aircraft Industries consortium that is participating in Israel's Ministry of Defense Israeli Short-Range Ballistic Missile Defense tender worth $50-100 million, Globes-Israel Business News reported on April 4. A consortium of Raytheon and the Israeli Rafael Armament Development Authority is also participating in the tender, Globes said.

The tender is part of the Israeli Ministry of Defense's Homa project and it is intended develop an anti-ballistic missile defense for the short-range Qassem rockets that Palestinian guerrilla groups like Islamic Jihad have fired into Israeli territory. The Qassems give Palestinian guerrilla groups the tactical capability to threaten major Israeli industrial infrastructure installations in the Ashkelon port area. Israel has huge oil and chemical facilities there.

The threat is wider: Qassem rockets are little more than low-tech simple knock-offs of old World War II Soviet technology rocket mortars or Katyushas. They are easily and widely produced currently in Gaza and they also have the capability of threatening Israel's main airport, Ben-Gurion Airport, from the West Bank across the security barrier built by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Olmert's predecessor, to defeat the bloody Second Palestinian Intifada.

The so-called fence, or barrier, has proven highly effective in dramatically curtailing the slaughter of Israeli civilians including women and children caused by suicide bombers. Over a four-year period, at least, 1,100 of them died. But the barrier effectively confirms that Israel has ceded security control of much of the West Bank as well as Gaza to Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement. And Hamas has so far shown no desire to restrain attacks on Israel from its territory.

Sharon had no hesitation in sending the Israeli army in full force to carry out bloody retaliatory attacks in Gaza, the West Bank capital Ramallah and Jenin during his five years as prime minister. But Olmert may prove more reluctant to take such ruthless and drastic action, especially under pressure to exercise restraint from President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Further, Olmert has already publicly indicated that he would like have Israel's permanent borders with the West Bank and Gaza stabilized by 2010 at the latest and possibly by as early as the end of 2008.

The plans to develop a new BMD system to defend Israel against very short range missile attacks such as it is already suffering from must be seen in the context of this strategy. They appear serious. And it is striking that they are being developed with major corporations that have long enjoyed very close ties to Israel and its own main defense contractors.

The IAI-Boeing proposal is based on their collaboration on the Arrow anti-ballistic missile. They plan to adapt Arrow technology to intercept short-range rockets, Globes said.

Alliant is based in Minnesota and has a factory in Mississippi. It already builds rocket engines for Israel's Arrow anti-ballistic missile interceptor that is produced by IAI and Boeing. If IAI and Boeing win the SRBMD tender, Alliant will manufacture engine components for the rocket, which is based on the Arrow, and which forms the core of the defense system, Globes reported.

"The Boeing-ATK partnership has been a success story for the Arrow program," Boeing Integrated Missile Defense Vice President Debra Rub-Zenko told Globes. "Our exclusive teaming agreement for SRBMD will build upon that vital relationship, ensuring an advanced solution for Israel's short-range missile defense needs."

As with previous Israeli tenders, the U.S.-Israeli consortia participating in the SRBMD tender want their systems to be eligible for U.S. government funding for the proposed project, Globes said.

The U.S. Congress has already approved $133 million for the Arrow program in the coming fiscal year, including $10 million for defense against short-range missiles. Bringing in Alliant into the SRBDM project could ensure that a large congressional bloc will support budget appropriations for short-range missile defense, provided that IAI and Boeing win the tender," Globes said.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld can be expected to enthusiastically support the new program: He has always been a leading enthusiast for every kind of new BMD program and has green-lighted every kind of close Department of Defense cooperation with Israel too.

The on going U.S, struggle with the Sunni Muslim insurgency in central Iraq has also brought home to U.S. defense chiefs the value of having some kind of very short-range BMD system that could provide at least partial protection from such attacks.

However, the key point in the Globes report is the fact that Israeli top military planners are now wrestling to reconcile two conflicting realities: They recognize that Hamas may rule Gaza and much of the West Bank with undisguised enmity towards them for years to come, leaving many of Israel's main population centers and strategic targets within range of attack by very short range missiles. Yet they do not want to reoccupy the territories needed to prevent such attacks as that would render them vulnerable again to more suicide bomber attacks from the Palestinian population they had re-conquered. The new very short range BMD program may offer a way to at least partially escape these twin dilemmas.