JUST NU: Israel anfaller Libanon [2006]

"---But are Jews with memories of the Holocaust ready for German soldiers patrolling their border? What if German troops were forced into conflict with Israeli soldiers?

"We as Germans should approach this region with the greatest caution," warns Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Olmert says he told Merkel that Israel had "absolutely no problem with German soldiers in southern Lebanon."

"There is at the moment no nation that is behaving in a more friendly way toward Israel than Germany," Olmert told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily. "If Germany can contribute to the security of the Israeli people, that would be a worthwhile task for your country. I would be very happy if Germany participated."

But Joseph Lapid, an Israeli Holocaust survivor and former justice minister, thinks differently.

"I think that for us it would be difficult to face German soldiers, but even more so I think that for the Germans it would not be advisable to get involved in a border incident in which they could shoot an Israeli soldier. This would raise hell," he said.

"So I think that for both sides the best advice would be to leave it alone."

However, what's striking about the Israeli reaction is how little there has been. In the past, the very thought of German military uniforms anywhere near Israel would have caused uproar. Yet Israeli historian Tom Segev thinks German peacekeepers, contained within a European force, "won't touch on Israeli nerves."

"Everyone knows that Germany is the most important country for Israel after the United States, both militarily and economically," he said.

Indeed, Germany has gone out of its way to show it is a friend of Israel. ---"

"---It is admittedly difficult for Israel to have a regional strategy that is out-of-step with the U.S. administration-of-the-day. However, the neocon approach is not unchallenged, and Israel should not be providing its ticket back to the ascendancy. A U.S. return to proactive diplomacy, realism and multilateralism, with sustained and hard engagement that delivers concrete progress, would best serve its own, Israeli and regional interests. Israel should encourage this. Israel may even have to lead, for instance, in rethinking policy on Hamas or Syria, and should certainly work intensely with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in encouraging his efforts to reach a Palestinian national understanding as a basis for stable governance, security quiet and future peace negotiations. A policy that comes with a Jerusalem kosher stamp of approval might be viewed as less of an abomination in Washington.

Beyond that, Israel and its friends in the United States should seriously reconsider their alliances not only with the neocons, but also with the Christian Right. The largest "pro-Israel" lobby day during this crisis was mobilized by Pastor John Hagee and his Christians United For Israel, a believer in Armageddon with all its implications for a rather particular end to the Jewish story. This is just asking to become the mother of all dumb, self-defeating and morally abhorrent alliances.

Internationalist Republicans, Democrats and mainstream Israelis must construct an alternative narrative to the neocon nightmare, identifying shared interests in a policy that reestablishes American leadership, respect and credibility in the region by facilitating security and stability, pursuing conflict resolution and promoting the conditions for more open societies (as opposed to narrow election-worship). The last two years of the Bush presidency can be an opportunity for progress or an exercise in desperate damage limitation. It sounds counter-intuitive, but Israel should reflect on and even help reorient American expectations.

Daniel Levy was a member of the official Israeli negotiating team at the Oslo and Taba talks and the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative."