Where Israel went Astray

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Israel this week reinforced this untenable situation. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, US Ambassador Richard Jones explained that during her visit, Rice "picked up" Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's plan to hold "discussions" with Fatah terror group commander and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas about the establishment of a Palestinian state in spite of the fact that the PA is ruled today by the Hamas terror group.

According to Jones, Livni convinced Rice that it is necessary to provide a "political horizon" to convince the Palestinians to replace Hamas with Fatah. After the Palestinians overthrow Hamas, he explained, it will be possible to implement the agreement and handover Judea and Samaria to Fatah (and Hamas).

That is, the Israeli government is pushing a national strategy that is based on a total lie. While Abbas plans his visit this weekend with Hamas terror master Khaled Mashaal in Syria in the hopes of facilitating the formation of an Iranian-Syrian sponsored Fatah-Hamas unity government, the Israeli government wishes to "strengthen" him.

A revitalized IDF will be unable to secure Israel under these conditions. As long as the guiding strategic principle dictating Israel's policies is that Israel must establish a Palestinian state, and to that end, the policy debate revolves around issues such as whether protecting the residents of Sderot from rocket attacks will strengthen or weaken Abbas, the IDF will be incapable of defending Israel regardless of who its leaders are.

SINCE THE inauguration of the 1993 Oslo peace process, Israel's national debate has largely ignored the only question that should be guiding it: How are we to advance Israel's national interests? Rather, since 1993, our national debate has been anchored around the question of how best to establish a Palestinian state. This question, rooted in the false Arab narrative which consciously rejects the morality of the Zionist revolution, has brought us to a position where the IDF is cognitively barred from rationally approaching Israel's security challenges.