Besieged from the inside?

The Zionist state appears paralysed, and either unwilling or unable to carry out its obligation to decide its borders. It will therefore require a great deal of pressure to oblige it to do so. A good first step would be the complete cessation of military and financial aid to the Jewish state;such a move would clarify the stakes in the minds of Israel's corrupt political elite.

Of course, any analysis of Israel's precarious position in the Middle East must include a discussion about Iran. News last week that Israel requested permission in May from the Bush administration to strike Iran's suspected nuclear facilities, and Bush's subsequent refusal, suggests that any attack is unlikely in the foreseeable future.

However, the fact that Washington and Israel have increased their secret war against Iran in the last years proves that Israel's regional hegemony is being profoundly challenged, not least thanks to the Iraq war. "Should Israel accept that its era of nuclear monopoly in the Middle East has ended,” asks Yossi Melman in Haaretz, "and assume a new role as a passive witness to a regional nuclear arms race?"

Despite the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed El-Baradei, claiming in a German newspaper last week that Iran appears to be on a path towards some kind of nuclear know-how, he admitted the wider context of the current tussle. "The Iranian issue at its heart is really a question of security," he said. "The nuclear [part] is a symptom of an underlying sense of insecurity or a desire to be recognised as a major, regional power."

Only direct talks between America and Iran can bring this about, something Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama hinted he would consider during his term in office in last week's debate with John McCain. The Jewish state and its Diaspora courtiers fear such a normalisation of relations between the powers because it would threaten Israel's long-held dominance of the region.

In a rare win for the forces opposed to the Zionist lobby in Washington, a long-pending (though non-binding) resolution that called for President George Bush to launch a blockade against Iran was shelved last week. The Australian Jewish News, meanwhile, must have missed reports of reduced tensions, saying in a September editorial, "with the rocky political climate in Israel, the logic appears to imply [military strikes] sooner rather than later. All we are waiting for [is] the time and date."

How many more wars does the Zionist community believe Israel should launch?

While Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is notorious in the West for making often outrageous comments towards Jews and Israel, and denying the Holocaust, his interview with Democracy Now! during his recent visit to New York, suggested a softer tone. Despite a bigoted attitude towards homosexuals, Ahmadinejad claimed that Iran would support a two-state solution if the Palestinian people supported it. "This Zionist regime does not have a chance of remaining in the region," he said, "because it has not established roots with the region. It's like an alien creature that's come into your body." It may not be pretty language, but he's sadly right. Israel's major friends in the Middle East, namely Egypt and Jordan, are paid billions of dollars every year by Washington to maintain an alliance with the Jewish state.

Throughout all these debates, the mainstream Jewish Diaspora remains mired in delusion. Dr Ron Weiser, the former President of the Zionist Federation of Australia, highlighted this recently with an essay that talked about the importance of re-defining Zionism in the 21st century. With no mention of either the occupation or the Palestinians, it was as if this ideology operated in a vacuum.

In the comments section below Weiser's essay, one reader perfectly expressed the mindset that I've spent years trying to challenge: "I believe God is with Israel and He has a strong hand in the continuing establishment of Israel."

God has His work cut out for him.