The Last Refuge

ISRAEL is an island in the global sea. We live in a bubble. This week I was sharply reminded of this.

I was returning home from Germany. On the eve of the flight, all TV networks, from CNN and BBC to the German channels, were reporting on the events in Pakistan. In the airplane, I opened Israel's largest circulation tabloid, Yedioth Aharonoth, in order to read about the Pakistani mess. I did not find any mention of it on page 1. Nor on page 2. I found a small item on page 27. The first pages were devoted to something much more important: the shouts of protest by right-wing football hooligans when they were requested to stand up in memory of Yitzhak Rabin.

The next day, Yedioth found an Israeli angle that enabled it to put Pakistan on the front page after all: the fear that the Pakistani nuclear bomb would fall into the hands of Osama bin Laden, who would aim it at Israel. Hallelujah, there is again something to be afraid of.

But the putsch by Pervez Musharaf is a serious matter. It could well have far-reaching effects for the world in general, and for Israel in particular.

The main victim - besides, of course, the hundreds of political activists who have been thrown into prison - is George W. Bush.

Machiavelli said that it is preferable for the prince to be feared rather than loved. In the same vein, it can be said that it is preferable for a president to be hated rather than derided.

And derision is what George W. is attracting. He has asserted in the past that his main task was to bring democracy to the Muslim world, and has assured us that the implementation of this aim was well under way. That is a laughable pretense.

What is happening in fact?

In Iraq one tyrant has been overthrown, and dozens of small local tyrants have taken over. The country is bleeding and falling apart. The "democratic elections" have brought to power a government that hardly governs the Green Zone in Baghdad, which has to be secured by American soldiers.
 
In Afghanistan an "elected" president hardly rules the capital, Kabul. In the rest of the country, local chieftains are in control. And the Taliban are slowly and steadily re-conquering the country.

In Iran, democratic elections have brought to power an uninhibited politician with a big mouth and small achievements, whose favorite occupation is to curse the American Crusaders and the "Zionist entity".

In Syria there is a stable dictatorship, which can carry on mainly because the Syrians believe that any alternative would be worse.

Turkey is ruled by a religious Islamic government, with the wife of the president wearing a headscarf. More than 10 million Kurdish citizens are oppressed and discriminated against. Not a few of them are fighting a guerilla war. In the course of the campaign against the Kurds, the Turkish army is about to invade neighboring Iraq, happy to have an opportunity to destroy the practically independent Kurdish regime there.

Lebanon is as far from democracy as ever. Real democratic elections, in which every citizen can vote directly for parliament without sectarian divisions, are out of the question. A new president has to be elected, but that is well-nigh impossible, the gulf between the sects is so wide. This week, Hizbullah conducted large-scale maneuvers near the Israeli borders. Even the Israeli army was impressed.

In Palestine, impeccable elections were held under strict international supervision, the only really democratic elections in the Arab world. George Bush would have been proud of them, if - alas - they had not been won by the "wrong" crowd - Hamas. Now, Israeli army intelligence prophesies that President Mahmoud Abbas, Bush's favorite, may fall immediately after the Annapolis conference, if, as expected, it ends in failure.

And now, Pakistan. It seemed that there, at least, Bush was harvesting successes. He had brought back Benazir Bhutto, another Bush favorite, and everything looked fine: a democratic regime was about to be re- installed, the president was about to hang up his uniform and form a coalition with Bhutto. But then a bomb exploded next to her armored car, dozens were killed. The president-general, who was just waiting for such an opportunity, carried out a coup d'etat against himself, and, instead of his moderate dictatorship, has set up a much more harsh regime, like a Pakistani version of the late Saddam Hussein.

As in a Hollywood comedy, George Bush is standing there with a custard pie splattered all over his face. He looks ridiculous.

No president likes being ridiculous. Scary - OK. Evil - OK. Dumb - OK. But ridiculous - never!

That may have a direct bearing on a question that is worrying the whole world, myself included: Will he attack Iran?

The temptation is almost overwhelming. In another year, his term in office will come to an end. After eight years, he has nothing to show for it - except a continuous series of failures. But a man who (he says) holds daily talks with God cannot leave the stage of history like that.

He is longing for some sort of success in Annapolis. At the most, there will be an empty declaration signed by the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. There will be some good photo opportunities, but that will not satisfy the lions. Something much bigger is needed, something that will leave its mark in the annals of history.