Netanyahu's Love Bombs To America

The Tibet lobby has some work to do. The new Israeli prime minister's proposed national security adviser is under suspicion of spying against America:

Mr. Arad, a former member and director of intelligence for the Mossad, Israel's spy service, is mentioned in the indictment of Lawrence Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst who pleaded guilty in 2005 to providing classified information about Iran in a conversation with two employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) ...

Israeli and U.S. officials said Mr. Arad has been denied a U.S. visa since June 2007 under section 212 3(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This gives consular officers and the Justice Department authority to bar people who may seek "to violate any law of the United States relating to espionage or sabotage" from entering the country.

Meanwhile, IDF head, Gabi Ashkenazi, tells Dennis Ross that he is planning for war with Iran. Note the verb: telling. Not that Ross needs any formal instruction on how to deal with Israel. In another sign of support for Washington from a staunch ally, Netanyahu has picked foaming-at-the-mouth nut-job, Avigdor Lieberman, to be foreign secretary. Lieberman thought the Gaza operation was a wuss-out and wanted to turn the enclave into an Arab Hiroshima. Maybe having the most extreme elements of the Israeli far right as the most powerful forces in the new Israel could lead to a government able to make some tough decisions in regional diplomacy, including the abandonment of all Jewish settlements on the West Bank.

Or maybe Israel really is in the process of committing suicide.