David Brooks had an interesting piece (registration required) in Sunday’s New York Times arguing that just as Israel has started to move to the center politically, its enemies have gone berserk. Brooks is a brilliant columnist, but I don’t think his analysis on this is correct.

It’s true enough that Israel’s enemies are berserk with bloodlust and maniacal hatred. The genocidal threats from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are evidence enough. Or just look at yesterday’s editorial from the Iranian newspaper Kayhan, courtesy of Memri.org.

Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the conservative Iranian daily Kayhan, affiliated with Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, called today (July 17, 2006) in his editorial to "wipe Israel off the map." He said: "There are many signs and portents indicating that 'the fateful day' is coming near. It is possible that this day... has already begun...

"The Muslim peoples and many other peoples think that, in global geopolitics, there is no such thing as the state of Israel, and that the [entity] which presently bears this name is a usurping and rootless state that has imposed its parasitic presence over the region and over Palestine with the support of the arrogant powers. [This entity] invents a new crime every day. It causes men, women, and innocent children to bleed to death, or else deports them from their homeland and turns them into refugees. In light of this 'problem,' which is perfectly obvious, the annihilation of the Zionist regime is not only a religious and national duty, but also a universal human duty, from which no Muslim or free human being can be exempt. . .

The Muslim peoples must not allow this conflict to remain within the boundaries of the region. The Zionists are dispersed in many places around the world, and it is not so difficult to locate and get [our] hands on them. The entire world can and must be made unsafe for the Zionists, [including] their political and commercial centers. This does not require the governments' approval... The fateful day may have begun, and fierce revenge on the barbaric Zionists is underway, Allah willing."(2)

Brooks argues that the old days of Israeli/Palestinian tit for tat and negotiations over land for peace are over and that the religious extremists have hijacked the conflict for their broader war against the West.

But the entire Oslo illusion, in which all the world including (God help her) Israel indulged helped pave the way for this nightmare. In the years since Oslo, the entire world has been pretending that the conflict was about whether Israel would allow the Palestinians to have a homeland of their own on the West Bank and Gaza. Throughout that time, while Arafat sipped tea with Madeleine Albright and bussed Jacques Chirac, his regime was poisoning the minds of the Palestinian people with the most inflammatory anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic propaganda imaginable. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf were big sellers in Ramallah and Hebron. Not content with that, Arafat launched a suicide bomber war against Israeli civilians and stoked hopes of taking all of “Palestine” one day. He was a monster with the blood of thousands of innocents (including Christian Lebanese) on his hands, and when he died he did so in the warm cocoon of a French hospital and his people wept for him.

While Israelis were watching their children , their siblings, their parents, blown to pieces at outdoor cafes, on buses, and in supermarkets, the whole world chanted “We must stop the cycle of violence. Israel must move faster to give the Palestinians what they demand.”

The only difference between Hamas/Hizbollah and Fatah is that the former two are less devious about their intentions. The genocidal fantasy of “wiping Israel off the map” has been alive since 1948 and has been nurtured by every government that failed to call Arafat what he was, every government that deligitimized Israeli self-defense, and every government that has held Israel up to impossible standards ever since.

A word about George Bush: He is the most stalwart supporter of Israel who has ever sat in the Oval Office and he deserves honor.