However the Jew may have changed over the centuries, the anti-Semite has stubbornly remained faithful to his hatreds. Whether designed purposefully to minimize hostilities or merely as a function of different times and different places, such changes have elicited nothing, absolutely nothing, in the way of greater acceptance or generosity of spirit. This is because the anti-Semite, individually or collectively, responds not to the particular qualities of the Jew or the Jewish State (these qualities are effectively irrelevant to his hatreds), but only to his own personal fears and insecurities. As Jean Paul Sartre points out in his ANTI SEMITE AND JEW, "If the Jew did not exist, the anti-Semite would invent him."

The anti-Semite takes his stand on the ground of willful irrationalism. So, too, does the enemy of Israel mark his opposition to the Jewish State. Disinterested in authentic diplomacy and peace treaties, this enemy sees no pleasure in reallocations of land or in expressions of compromise - which after all are merely rational expectations - but rather in the primal passion of mass killing and destruction. As we have seen in the late September Arab riots, where such passion is created by "Allah's Will" and by irrefutable religious obligations, the pleasure is doubled.

What, then, is Israel to do? We realize that past is prologue, that "Death to Israel" is simply a new phrase for a very old hatred. Hence, Prime Minister Netanyahu, longing for a successful Peace Process, should not be deceived. Wary of White House summits that are undertaken with little genuine understanding, he should not allow himself to be used as the very instrument of yet another carefully planned genocide. Aware that Israel's future is linked forever to its Jewish past, he must seek safety not in a "civilized" acceptance of concessions and national self-mutilation, but in a judicious commitment to power. Seeing in Israel the historical plight of the individual Jew facing annihilation - the Jew as macrocosm - Jerusalem must always remember that civility among the barbarians, however "peaceful," leads only to oblivion.

Am Yisrael Hai! The People of Israel can live. But with so many Jews now brought safely to Zion, the crucial task remains to bring safety to Israel itself, to the place of refuge. Should Mr. Netanyahu fail in this task, the State of the Jews will become the very reason for Jewish misfortune. Lacking the capacity to defend its citizens from a genocidal war, a war now being planned in Gaza, Cairo, Damascus and Teheran, Israel could represent not the solution to Herzl's "Jewish Problem," but a critical component of the Final Solution.

I am aware, of course, that the ironic juxtaposition of Israel and Jewish oblivion is so dreadful that it borders on sacrilege. Yet it is a juxtaposition that dare not be ignored. Should Prime Minister Netanyahu fail to take it seriously, the concentration of millions of post-Holocaust Jewry in an area smaller than a county in California could provide a distinct blessing to Yassir Arafat and his colleagues throughout the Islamic world. But if he does take seriously the connections between Zionist objectives and Jewish vulnerability in Israel, he will have taken the first critical steps toward ensuring Israel's survival.

Mr. Prime Minister. It is now up to you to make certain that Israel's national liberation does not become its existential catastrophe. Please look closely at the multiple meanings of "peace." Every act of naming is dense with implication.
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