Attorney-General Rubenstein tells us that Barak doesn't need a Knesset majority to conduct binding negotiations. 

That makes sense so long as the Knesset has not voted no confidence.

But the Knesset's refusal to do so is precisely the problem - a problem that no one could ever have taken into account in setting up our system.  Who would have thought that a Knesset with eighty or more MKs who do not support the government would not vote no confidence in that government just to protect their own miserable seats.

Who says you don't get the government you deserve.

How interesting it must be being Chairman of the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University and never having to admit error even in the face of facts.  I hope his students can do better.

Our Foreign Minister says that there is no more "territorial Zionism."  Perhaps he suggests we replace it with "Zionism of the heart?"  Shall we go back to wherever we or our immediate ancestors came from and truncate "Hatikvah" after its first two lines?

In your editorial piece "Middle East Replay" you use the term "violence broke out" several times.  Let's get one thing straight.  Whatever you think of the problems in the Middle East and their possible solutions, the current violence did not "break out."  It was deliberately initiated by Arafat's Palestinian Authority and it is within his authority and
competence to stop it.

It has become commonplace to ask what Barak could gain from elections even should he win, given the lack of a majority in the Knesset.  Actually, there is something to gain, even though not for Barak.. 

Until now, Barak has simply ignored the Knesset.  Should he win against MK Sharon, he would have forty-five days to put together a working coalition, otherwise there will be Knesset elections mandated by
law.  Maybe this back-door solution may prove itself.

Alot has been written about the post-election issues - much of it good sense and much nonsense.  The prize in my mind goes to Michael Kinsley who wrote: "In a separate opinion, Chief Justice William Rehnquist can't
resist quoting the Florida voting instructions about making sure you punch through the card, etc. But even he doesn't suggest that the punishment for failure should be losing your vote. This would be like saying that a sign warning pedestrians to look both ways makes it okay to run them over if they don't. In fact, throw in equal protection and--by the court's analysis--it might be unconstitutional not to run them over."

But I suppose that whether you give him the prize for good sense or the one for nonsense depends on your own version of objectivity.  That situation gives rise to true nonsense.

Enchantment, by Orson Scott Card, the Ballantine Publishing Group. 1999, 419 pages. 

Given the general mood of the past few weeks, I decided against taking a pile of "nick-of-time" action books to my recent reserve duty. And having tired of the lawyer books, I picked up Enchantment from my
wife's windowsill.  They list some thirty other titles by the same author and eleven book awards, so my never having heard of Orson Scott Card says something about my limited reading habits. 

Enchantment is a fairy tale about a fairy tale, set in a fairy tale.  Ten year old Ivan and his parents leave Russia for the United States in the mid-1970's, but not before a visit to a cousin in the Ukranian countryside.  This seemingly open-ended visit ends abruptly immediately after Ivan comes across an unapproachable sleeping woman in a clearing in
the woods, surrounded by strangely moving leaves. 

Fourteen years later, Ivan returns to the Ukraine to gather material for his thesis on Russian fairy tales and touches base with some of his old memories, including of course the clearing in the woods.  The young woman - who hasn't changed abit - awakens to his kiss and he finds himself in her world, eleven hundred years ago.  But this is not a sleeping beauty story.  This is The Sleeping Beauty story and our hero is The Handsome Prince.  But there is none of Disney's happily-ever-after for this young couple, who before they begin even to like one another must overcome some significant problems of culture and language. 

Then there is the witch.  Here too, not a cartoon witch or a Brothers Grimm witch, but a Russian witch with a one-eyed ursine Russian god for a husband. 

Princess Katerina's Kingdom of Taina is much different from what Ivan the scholar had expected and he has his academic appetite well-sated by meeting with someone who knew St. Kirill and by handling some first- generation Cyrillic writings.  We are also treated to life on Card's imagined seam between the indigent Paganism and the area's developing Christianity. 

But Ivan himself is a Jew.  And I spent most of four hundred pages trying to figure out why.  It was a convenient vehicle to get the family out of the Soviet Union in the 1970's, but beyond that I found it very
awkward.  Card himself didn't seem very comfortable with it either. 

Nonetheless, for 233 pages the magic actually works nicely.  I read Crichton's Timeline a few months ago , where we encountered nothing abnormal except the time travel itself, yet somehow the magic of Enchant- ment works better.  Somehow Card makes it seem more plausible. Even Ivan himself tries to deal with the absurdity of it all, acknowledging full well that he has entered the fairy tale.  Several times he wonders if he is being unfaithful to his American fiancee whom he
kissed first or to his Tainin princess whom he kissed earlier. 

From page 234, it becomes silly, as Ivan and Katerina temporarily return to Ivan's time and place, with the witch on their trail.  Katerina manages the modern world with Ivan's help, but the witch - well, it's too
much to believe.  (Yes, I know I'm writing this about a story of magic.)  When the witch acquires both English and computer literacy by looking over the shoulders of airport employees, Card loses his own magic. 

After both Ivan and the reader learn more about Ivan's own family, our heros return to 890 with some technical help to wage war on the enemies of Katerina's father's kingdom.  Of course, the witch brings back some
modern devices of her own.  The making and breaking of spells gets out of hand - Card's hand - and the seat-of-the-pants technology and nick-of-time
action were too reminiscent of the Cussler-Ludlum genre that I had been trying to avoid. 

Card has his own version of happily ever after and I expect that the next time the army calls, I'll take a few of his works with me.

The book concludes with a list of specific acknow- ledgements, even thanking the person who told him how to spell "mohel."

Mr. Sebastian Mallaby's writes a nice piece about the possibilities in  regulating the net.  In general, this is a good capability, when used  judiciously.

But the not so far recesses of my mind wonder if this will be yet another tool used for those who wish to boycott Israel or engage in other forms of anti-Semitism.

During a Knesset speech this week, MK Colette Avital condemned Eitan Benzur, the recently fired Director- General of the Foreign Ministry for bending to the will of whoever the Minister happened to be, rather
than being faithful to his own positions on foreign policy.  MK Avital should know - she was a Deputy DG of that same ministry.

What she should also know is that as a civil servant, the stance she accuses Benzur of, is precisely what a civil servant is supposed to do. It is also what Avital herself refused to do when she declined to support
the government's positions when she served in New York, as a civil servant.

The honorable MK needs to reread the terms of her own previous employment.  And perhaps a few lessons in basic civics.

I am beginning to see the logic to the position held by Yael Dayan, Tali Lipkin-Shahak and friends.  The settlers are an obstacle.

If we evacuate the settlers who live across the Green Line, then when the PLO state attacks what is left of Israel, the IDF will be able to fire at will, in massive counter-attack - without the obstacles of Jewish settlers in the line of fire.  Then perhaps the "Middle East problem" can find a solution.

The question "will there ever be peace in Israel" hangs in the air, yet the answer is clear.

Peace is inevitable just as 1945 followed 1943.  It will probably require the same kind of price.  It will certainly require the same level of determination.

Our Sages of old tell us that the Bible discusses the purchase of the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron, the site of Jospeh's Tomb in Schechem and the Temple Mount so that when the Nations claim that we are usurpers, we will be able to show them the Bible as proof.  That overlooks the obvious problem that the Nations have no obligation to accept the Bible as
evidence.

One of the more recent commentators pointed out that we aren't meant to show it to the Nations as proof, but rather to use it to reinforce our own belief.  To show our own people.

Now it is in precisely these three sites that the Nations challenge our claims and they are joined by many Jews who neither know nor care what the Bible documents.

They weren't called "Sages" for nothing.

Those who would have us believe that Mr. Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount was nothing more than a provocation, would do well to remember that on more than one occasion Israel has surrendered territory to the Palestinian Authority on the grounds that "we never go there anyway."  With that attitude on the part of the Israeli government, it becomes imperative that public visits be paid to the Temple Mount and everyplace else.

In the wake of the Katzav victory over Shimon Peres, a number of news analysts recalled the words of Yitzhak Ben-Aharon - then head of the Histadrut - after the Likud's victory in 1977.  They remind us that Ben-Aharon spoke of "the people's error" and the 
necessity to "replace the people" (lehahlif et ha'am).

My own recollection of May 1977 is that Ben Aharon called for the people (his people) to take to the streets  to prevent Begin's taking office.

Where were all these recollections when Yitzhak Ben-Aharon received the Israel Prize a couple of years ago for his life's work?  They certainly weren't out asking forgiveness from Shemuel Schnitzer.

The media are concerned that on each of President Katzav first days in office, he was to be found in a synagogue, something that many of do every day - even more than once a day.

They ask why the synagogue, and not meetings with people from the theater of the universities. 

Somehow I expect that President Katzav will visit the theater more frequently that his predecessor visited a synagogue, even as a sightseer.

So now we know the names of the two teenagers who murdered Derek Roth.  What we don't yet know is the name of the official in the Prison Authority who decided that this team of young murderers should be allowed a joint furlough.  Common sense tells us that 
the second felony would have been less likely had they been given their furloughs separately.

For a few more years, society will be protected from Aloni and Ben-Ivgi as they continue to serve out their murder convictions, until the inevitable paroles for good behavior.  But who will protect society from
the foolish people who make decisions about furloughs and paroles.  They no doubt go on as usual.

David Newman writes of the coming anti-government demonstration in Kikar Rabin "The vast majority of the demonstrators will not show pictures of the prime minister in SS uniform."  How many times does he have to be reminded that the only organization to show the prime minister in SS uniform was the General Securities Services, which (not incidentally) reports to the prime minister?  Or does Mr. Newman know this but hopes
that your readers don't.

Whether Mr. Newman writes from ignorance or malice is academic.  He is out of line, even though he may be in good company. 

I, for one, did not continue reading the article, so if he had any real message, it never reached me.

Your editorial (11 July) makes a persausive case for a Knesset made up of district representatives.  But it misses the mark on four points.

First, the notion of constituency will not work here as it does in the US.   If the average citizen goes to his Congressman, he will get help or at least sympathy.  Here there is little doubt that he will have to prove
himself first to be a better than avarage supporter of the representative.   Or worse, the representative will look at the citizen's dress or life style or school and dismiss him out of hand.  It will make many many
citizens permanently disenfranchised.

Second, the notion of "party" is not the same here as in the US.  There may be only two parties there, but they are hardly the monoliths that they would be here.  There are 435 members of the House of epresentatives and during a two year term, it is probably very difficult to find any two with identical voting records.  A two- party system here would be more like a double one-party system, reinforcing the worst totalitarian tendencies that we already see too much of.

Third, representation by district implies at least some sort of geographic coherence.  That there is something that binds Californians and differentiates between them and Alabamans.  Here, that is simply not the case.  Those groups who are scattered will lose any chance at fair representation.  This applies to the haredim as well as the kibbutzim and others.

Fourth, and maybe most important on the practical level, the notion of gerrymandering - defining the district themselves - would take political haggling to new heights, yet unimaigined.

Spare us please.

The person who wrote the headline for Yosef Goell's opinion piece "Bury the Hatchet - or There's No Deal" must surely know that the only place Arafat & Co. are interested in burying hatchets is in our own skulls. 
That hasn't changed nor will it in the near future.  The guiding principle must be twofold - take away as many hatchets as possible and keep the rest as far away as possible. 

The Prime Minister tells us that Israel must make enough concessions to the Palestinians so that  should talks break down, everyone will know it wasn't our fault.

When Golda Meir addressed the nation immediately after the Yom Kippur war began, she made the absurd statement that the IDF did make a preemptive strike so that we would not be blamed.  This claim was never repeated, not only because it wasn't true.  It was 
also an outrageous policy even had it been true.

Barak's claim is equally outrageous. 

It is also based on a false assumption.  Israel will be blamed no matter what happens.

Much is made of the so-called alliance between the sovreign states of Israel and the United States.

When the self-righteous Americans object to Israeli arms sales to China on the grounds that this weaponry may someday injure a US soldier, someone should remind them about the sales of everyting from AWACS to Saudi Arabia to rifles to the Palestinian Authority. 
Not to mention offers to upgrade the Syrian army.

The chances of these weapons injuring many thousands of Israeli soldiers and civilians is many times that of a shooting war between China and the US.

What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Jonathan Rosenbloom makes a good point about having critical issures decided by a constitutional court
which would reflect the political and social fabric of the country, instead of of by the Supreme Court where everyone is cut from the same elitist cloth.

The problem is that knowing the system the way we all
do, there is no question that the appointees to this new court will be at least approved by the Supreme Court judges, or even appointed by (or from among) them.

Just look at the new proposal to have a judge chair a
public committee to appoint the directors of the Israel
Broadcasting Authority.  The judicial coup is no longer
creeping - it is galloping.  And like a runaway horse,
must be stopped.

In his fine essay, Jacob Heilbrunn writes that "Holocaust revisionists don't attempt as much to deny the event outright as to dismiss its importance and significance."

This is neither new nor limited to Holocaust evisionists.  On 24 May  1994, Israel Radio broadcast the words of Mr. Shimon Peres, who during a visit to the United Nations spoke of memorializing "the two Holocausts - the Jewish Holocaust and the Japanese 
Holocaust."

Needless to say, this pronouncement passed without comment from our media and leaders.  Nor was it condemned by the man who sits in Mr. Truman's office.

The NRP's petition to the High Court of Justice against the awarding of the Israel Prize to Shulamit Aloni is nothing more than a public relations stunt in the best tradition of the NRP.  They have asked that the Court do what it did in the case of Shemuel Schnitzer's 
aborted Israel Prize - send it back to the Committee for reconsideration.

The Court will do that and the Committee after due consideration will let their original decision stand.

And the NRP - having won the battle and lost the war - will say that they did what they could and add it to the list of their dubious accomplishments.

This evening (Tuesday), Haim Yavin had a panel discussion about the accusations of harrassment against Yitzhak Mordecai.

Yuli Tamir says something like "we are all affected (negu'im) by this mentality that discriminates against women."

And every time Negbi opens his mouth he calls the woman who made the complaint "bachura" instead of "isha,"  not appreciating that this is excatly what Yuli Tamir is complaining about.  I called the station and suggested Negbi be called to order, but I suspect that my complaint will go straight into the trash can.

It seems to me to be a good idea to teach a dose of the anti-Israel  writings of  Mahmoud Darwish in Israeli schools, as Yossi Sarid  has mandated. 

What better way for our young people to understand that the Arabs  in our midst really do want us to leave these shores, despite what  some of our leaders would have us believe. 

Mr. Ehud Barak thinks that a few hundred meters difference in the question of borders with Syria is not significant, even if it affects the Kinneret shoreline.

It's good he isn't a surgeon - what's a few millimeters here or  there?

And it's good he isn't a general - what's a few dozen meters when shelling near your own troops?  (What's that you say, Ms. Miriam Ben-Porat?)

Atty. Yaakov Weinroth tells us that Ezer Weizmann
cannot be held responsible for financial irregularities even if they were illegal, because he was acting on the advice of his attorneys.  There is some logic to that position, but I expect that it is selective in it's application.

For instance, some legal experts think that the
caricature that sent Tatiana Susskin to prison was a legitimate expression of free speech.  Had she consulted an attorney beforehand, she might have been told it was legal.  Can anyone imagine the court's accepting that as a defence?

Of course, she isn't Weizmann, and that makes all the difference in our society where The Law rules supreme.

Of far more concern than the recent BTselem ad section, which I'm told contained much factual nonsense, are two other clearly labelled ads you have carried recently.  One is the full paid Jews for Jesus ad on Friday 24 December and one was a 1/8 page ad Friday 31 December sponsored by the United Jewish Communities of North America, asking for yordim.

The problem with the first is obvious and requires no further comment.  A recent, previous publisher POST told me that a similar ad in his time would have been rejected.

The second - under the banner "Time for a Change???" - is very different from those ads for specific community positions (cantor in South Africa, etc).  This ad has no place in your paper.

The POST ran a full page ad  recently telling us how successful 1999 has been for the paper's revenues.  These two ads could have been rejected with no harm to the paper's finances.

In his generally fair article today, Aryeh O'Sullivan writes "At a trial in 1990, four soldiers under Eitam's command, including two officers, were convicted of assault. While  Eitam avoided conviction, he was severely reprimanded and the judge advocate-general recommended that he not be promoted. "

What is this "avoided conviction?"  Would you have us believe he ran away or perhaps hid behind some kind of immunity?

You write in your editorial "Ehud Barak continues to swear that he will not concede any Israeli vital interest. If keeping Jerusalem whole is not a vital interest, what is?"

We know Barak's answer to that question - staying in power.  I'm disappointed that you need bother to ask.

Dear Mayor Dean:

Your op-ed piece in the Jerusalem POST last Monday was very nice, but unfortunately it was unnecessary.

You see, we in Israel have our own forms of controlled speech, including a press that only tells us what they think we should know.

Since few people even heard about Mr. Netanyahu's shabby treatment in Berkeley until you told us about it, we didn't need your assurances regarding your well-known "long and rich traditions."

In any case, shouting down politically incorrect speakers is in the best traditions of some of our own local universities.

Yours sincerely,

MAYOR DEAN'S RESPONSE

Dear Mr. Pickholtz

Thank you for your response to my editorial regarding free speech.  I am sorry to hear that the press in Israel tells you only what they want you to know.  I fear that is more frequently the case worldwide than any of us
would like to admit.  Your words about this situation seem to me to confirm my argument that we must be able to hear for ourselves speakers who may have a different message. 

It has been very interesting to me that my humble piece has been published by so many papers and individuals around the world.  I am glad to say
mostly with very positive responses.  However, there have been some hot dissents. No one, except you, however, has said it was "unnecessary" because few people in Jerusalem knew about the incident in Berkeley.  From what others have said to me, it is my understanding that many in Jerusalem have heard of this incident and were quite upset about it.  Unnecessary or not, I stand by what I said even though "free speech" is sometimes very hard.  Let me be clear, I do not like Mr. Netanyahu's politics, but I will defend his right to speak.

I am deeply concerned about your statement that shouting down politically incorrect speakers is in the "best" tradition of some of your universities. Unfortunately, in my view, that is now happening on the University of California at Berkeley campus.  I deplore it, not only from the standpoint of it being just plain "bad manners" but from the standpoint of chilling that precious commodity that we call free speech. I say "precious" because it is becoming more and more apparent that we must defend this right against those who are selecting themselves to decide
what the rest of us can and can't hear.  I will decide that matter for myself.

Thank you for your message.

        Shirley

The badly written law for direct election of the Prime Minister was passed by a single vote, when Binyamin Netanyahu broke ranks with his party and supported it.  The fact that he himself may be prevented from running as a result is sweeter than any irony.

I wish MK Yossi Katz well in his efforts to torpedo the proposed change as it's high time our MKs began taking responsibility for their irresponsible actions.

Now that the issue of deferment of military service for yeshiva students has again reached our headlines, can we please try to differentiate between the terms "yeshiva students" and "Haredim?"

The question of deferments for yeshiva students is a matter of legitimate debate.  "Exemptions for Haredim" is not - nor has anyone suggested it.  Haredim who are not yeshiva students are subject to draft just like anyone else.  The only reason they have a de facto exemption is that the army isn't interested in them.

David Kimche, Oren Shahor and others have used your pages to tell us that an agreement with the PLO can still be reached.  Well, we know that.  What they won't tell us - because it isn't true - is that we can reach an agreement that the PLO will actually keep.

I am a frequent, but irregular reader of the POST's online letters.  Often I spend a few minutes responding personally to the writers, but as often as not my time is wasted as the email addresses you publish are either
incorrect or just plain phoney. 

You don't print so many letters a day, that you cannot take a minute to check the validity of the addresses you publish.  Other publications do it. 

And while I am complaining, I must comment on an apparent bias in your choice of letters.  A Martian reading your published letters would assume that people who support what are called "right wing" policies are more likely than not to be ignorant of proper spelling, punctuation, capitalization and syntax.  That reflects on the way these issues are seen by readers. 

You tell us about your "large volume of letters," and that would indicate that the ones you throw out are even worse than the ones you publish. 

Finally, I for one would like to see you stick to your own rules.  Refrain from publishing those without full names or with obvious aliases, those with no email addresses, those which are strictly inflamatory and those that have no place in public discussion (such as the ones on Ms. Nolen's personal beliefs). 

Mr Tom Gross' point about the inaccuracies in reports by the foreign media is well taken.  Unfortunately he called his own accuracy into question by "reminding" us that Ariel Sharon was the Foreign Minister who
signed the Hevron withdrawal agreement.  I don't recall if Sharon voted for or against it, but the Foreign Minister at the time was David Levy.

Your brief report on the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Nahum Korman's conviction refers to his being convicted of murder.  That is not the case - he was never even charged with murder.  The issue was
manslaughter. 

The notion that the State can appeal an acquittal in this country is foreign to those of us brought up in the UK or US systems, but it something we have to live with.  What we cannot live with is the Court's logic (not cited in the POST's online article) that common sense dictated a conviction since the defense could not prove an alternate cause of death.  The idea that Korman is guilty because he wasn't proven innoccent, despite the Court's own finding that the witnesses did not tell the truth, is unacceptable and should be proclaimed as such by all people of conscience.

Amotz Asa-el and others keep reminding us that Ehud Barak is trapped by his insistence on one-man decision-making and by his desire not to lose his own left wing.  Yet these same pundits tell us that it is the responsibility to stand at Barak's side.

It doesn't take a prophet to see a few weeks ahead, when Barak takes his own decisions that the Likud cannot live with.  The Likud will be forced to leave the government - one they should have known better than to join to begin with.

That will open the door wide for the Netanyahu that Barak, Sharon and the pundits all want to avoid.

For quite a few months now, people in my workplace have been complaining about Barak's performance as Prime Minister.  My response has always been "if the elections were tomorrow, would you vote for Sharon?"  They have always said "... but if it were Netanyahu..."
and I'd tell them they should quit complaining because they aren't serious.

The poll quoted in Friday's POST puts Sharon quite close to Barak and Maariv puts Sharon ahead substantially.  Sounds like people are getting serious - which can only mean that our situation is perceived as
really serious.

Kim Dae Jung was chosen for the Nobel Peace Prize for more than his efforts towards North Korea.  But since this was his most recent and most ambitious venture, more than one local pundit has commented on his
receiving it alone. We have been told that Kim Jong Il, his North Korean counterpart, could never have been considered for such an honor, despite his role in the new dialogue.  The northern Kim, we are reminded is a
dictator, a terrorist, not a fit member of the respectable international community.

None of the Israeli commentators that I heard thought to compare Kim Il Jung to the illustrious laureate Yasser Arafat, dictator and terrorist eminent. 

I don't understand the fuss over the disgusting killing of the Israeli soldiers who accidentally entered Ramallah. 

Why is this getting our leadership more incensed than a deliberate shooting from Beit Jala into an apartment in Gilo? 

The enemy tries to kill soldiers in wartime. This is wartime and it is time we recognized that. But not because they killed soldiers - because they are waiting for the opportunity to kill more civilians.

Amotz Asael makes an absurd contrast between Arafat's concern for his personal safety should he sign an agreement with us and the lack of concern by Lincoln, DeGaulle, Sadat and Rabin in similar circumstances.

Those behind the assasination of Lincoln were not hard-liners from his own camp, but Southerners bent on revenge.  No one there was out to prevent reconciliation, nor did anyone think that Lincoln's
death would reverse anything.

In the cases of DeGaulle and Sadat, so one seriously expected that the removal of the peacemaker would cancel his achievements.

Rabin's case is even more extreme.  Everyone knew that even an attempt on his life would make it harder for his opponents to achieve their goals and developments proved that to be correct.

Not so Arafat.  Let us assume that he were to sign an agreement declaring the end of the struggle, with the intention of sticking to it.  Subsequent attempts by his own hard-liners to kill him would be based on the assumption that they could turn their forces on us and undo the peace.

Arafat's concern for his own safety is not based on cowardice as Asael asserts - it is based on his assumption that without him there would not be enough unity in his own camp to do anything.  No matter when he dies and how, I expect that will prove valid.

We heard on the radio that MK Zehava Galon introduced a bill saying that MKs will no longer be entitled to free bus transportation.  And whaddya know - it passed.

I suppose that next month they will increase their salaries to compensate themselves, for the expense and for the suffering.

Mr. Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League refers to the "left's critique of Yitzhak Shamir" but "the right's hatred of Yitzhak Rabin."  (He doesn't even bother with the treatment of Ariel Sharon.)

That is Abe Foxman of the Anti-what League? 

And why am I not surprised?

We read now that while the country's future is tied to hi-tech jobs, there are those who think that these jobs should be given to imported workers.  The Hebrew newspapers are full of large, colorful ads for hi-tech positions, competing with one another for anyone with the appropriate training.  Ninety-eight percent of the 
population - employed and unemployed, educated or not - don't know what the companies want, so foreign is the terminology to even the conventionally well-educated.

The jackpots for these companies are enormous and I have trouble accepting Amir Peretz' contention that they want foreign workers just to save salary costs.

The challenge to train people is obvious but those who don't know the material in advance don't even have the basis to choose between one course and another.  Many of these government sponsored retraining courses - even for academics - end without anyone's getting a job in his new field.  Here too, the huge rewards the companies stand to reap from success should preclude age discrimination and other irrelevant considerations, so long as they have intelligent
people trained for entry level positions, with the potential for additional learning through experience.

Like the army that makes plans to fight the last war, our 
governmental employment services seem to be fighting the last recession.  Many of them are probably geared simply to improve unemployment statistics by getting people into courses without real regard to future employment in the field of training.  Some creative thinking is needed to make the retraining of workers with life-experience such that they can find productive roles in hi-tech.  This must be done in a true partnership with the companies.  Unfortunately, the
ones who make the decisions, who create the courses, who give the direction are the ones who need to retrain their own thought processes. But that will never happen, because they have safe government jobs.

Efraim Inbar's fine analysis of the importance of maintaining IDF presence in the Jordan River Valley overlooks one major point.

These days, much of IDF policy is made by Carmela Menashe's troops who will make much of the dangers of having Israelis' lives endangered for what she considers no good reason.  Without a commitment to this area that goes beyond protecting the Hashemite Kingdom from its brethren, there isn't much point. 

Now that Mr. Barak will be forced to reconstitute his government based on his narrow base in the Knesset, perhaps we should all remind him firmly and frequently that he is supposed to be able to manage with 
eighteen ministers. This would be a good time to shed the extra ones that he insisted on as part of the price for his broad coalition. 

Barry Chamish was the wrong person to review Natan Geffen's Fatal Sting.  In fact he did not tell us anything about the book - only about its contents.  Nothing about well-written or well-researched, if indeed it was.  But the problem goes beyond that.

The media have succeeded in convincing much of the population that both Chamish and Geffen are kooks - of the same sort.  Therefore a Chamish review cannot be taken seriously and the fact that you could not provide a more appropriate reviewer (even a native Hebrew speaker for a Hebrew book) prejudices us against 
Geffen's book up front. 

On the other hand, too many of the "standard" reviewers would have panned Geffen without even bothering to read him - much as people did with Chamish himself.  And would have gotten away with it as well. 

The problem with reviews of controversial books is that we are saddled with the prejudice of the reviewer and there is nothing to make the reviewer even tell us the truth.  In that lies the solution.  Two reviews for controversial books.  One from a person sympathetic to the views of the author and one antagonistic.

It works for your Rosenblum-Ragen side-by-side columns.  Why not in occasional book reviews too?

One of the nastier "theories" connected to the Holocaust is that at first, the Zionist leadership cooperated with the Nazis, so that the Jews would be frightened and leave Europe for Eretz Israel.

That slander pales before what seems to be the policy of the current government - letting the Palestinian Authority frighten the Jews of Yesha into leaving.

During the election campaign, we heard about two break-ins at the Washington offices of the Barak/One Israel advisers.  The conclusions we were directed to draw were clear - "more" misbehavior by the criminal element inherent in the Likud. 

Isn't it about time that our local media present an update on the investigation by the Washington police? Have they found evidence incriminating anyone from the Likud?  Or anyone else from Israel?  Or anyone else at all?  Are they still investigating?  Did they ever
investigate?  If they stopped investigating, was it before or after ourelections?  Etc. 

Was this ever a story to begin with? 

Will our mainstream local press cover this or will it be left to Makor Rishon, Hazofeh and Yoav Yitzhak, as certain other uncomfortable issues have been? 

Daniel Pipes claims that the Arabs really want the IDF out of Lebanon.  So why do they make such a fuss?  The answer is so simple that even Sallah Shabbati understood. 

With the Government of Israel, you always get what you don't want.   So just like Sallah Shabbati who claimed he preferred the maabara to the new housing, until the givernment "forced" him into housing, 

So Assad and Company are insisting that they don't want a unilateral pullout.  Well,  Barak will fix his wagon.  One unilateral pull-out coming up.

Sarah Honig brings the Chelm story about building the
hospital under the rickety bridge, in a political context.  But we have seen this before.

After all, is it any different that the Ministries of Health and Education have chosen to combat AIDS with condoms rather than with monogamous relationships?

Talk about hospitals under bridges!

Most of the people in my Yeroham workplace are limited in broadcast reception to Radio Darom which is piped in through the telephone.  I supposed it's better than nothing.

The two o'clock spot is filled by a fellow with a coarse sense of propriety named Didi Harari whose program is carried by several local stations.  Harari begins each day with some ill-thought out comments about items in the news.  The day that the new Austrian government was formed, for instance, Harari wondered out loud who are we Israelis to object to Heider in the Austrian 
cabinet.  After all, the rabbi of Ofakim objects to allowing "our pure children" to be in the same kindergartens as children who bring ham sandwiches.  The rabbi could probably have worded his concern better, but Harari began camparing his attitudes to Nurnberg Laws.

On the other hand, maybe Radio Darom is not "better than nothing."

The idea of exchanging aWweizmann resignation for immunity or a pardon is unacceptable.  Even Yosef Lapid who suggested it adds "unless there is more than we already know."  But if we accept this deal, we will never know what else there is.

Besides, I am not convinced that the French put all their money on the Weizmann horse.  I want to know who else is counted among the 'friends" of Edouard Saroussi and Company.

A man stood in the middle of a busy intersection waving his arms wildly and disrupting traffic.  A policeman asked him what he was doing and he replied that he was keeping the elephants away.  The policeman ponted out that there are no elephants and the man said "see what a good job I'm doing."

The difference between that man and the computer companies is that the public paid millions to keep away the Y2K elephants.

Y2K is the biggest con since Immaculate Conception.  I wonder what they'll think of next.

Ehud Yaari's pathetic and irreelevant response to David Bar-Illan's criticism demonstrates that whatever it was that Bar-Illan said, it was on target.  The POST did Bar-Illan a service by printing it.

One cannot help but wonder how many felonies, traffic accidents etc could have been prevented or at least investigated by the scores (some say hundreds) of police who were sent to deal with the alleged misdemeanor that is Arutz 7.

It certainly says something about the priorities of the police decision makers.

I didn't see the controversial BTselem ad section, but I did see that in Friday's paper you printed four letters against and one for.  That tends to give the impression that your mail was weighted accordingly.  Maybe you
might consider giving some pro-con statistics on your incoming mail as it refers to some controversial pieces.