It seems like there is no connection between the issues: the minister for strategic affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, who shared his racist fantasies with an important British newspaper, and the ultra-Orthodox threatening violence in Jerusalem and causing the police to be ready to capitulate. Indeed, the multicultural fashion dictates that every group with its own characteristics is a "sector" (and thus gays and lesbians are also a "sector"), and so it seems that these are two separate sectarian problems.

In effect, the two phenomena - Lieberman's uncontrollable comments and the rampaging of the ultra-Orthodox - are the tip of the same iceberg. Not only because of the brutal and boorish common denominator linking the two, but also primarily because the agitators involved are suddenly accumulating enormous power. Lieberman is transparent, methodical and precise; he has never hidden his views or tried to glamorize them. Even his Cyprus dream is nothing new. In addition, similar comments and even more drastic ones have already been heard from ministers and leaders of political movements in Israel.

What is the difference between what the late minister Rehavam Ze'evi said and wrote, and Lieberman's Cyprus proposal? Only the context. Ze'evi, an unimportant minister, was active in an environment not prepared to get swept away by such hallucinations. Lieberman, who is now a senior representative of the State of Israel, is active in a supportive environment that is thirsty for his innovations and ideas. Since he excels in understanding the situation in the field, he sets off another bombshell each time - not just to shock, and certainly not just to get more votes (the voters throng to him anyway as long as the despair from Israel and Iran intensifies), but to change the discourse and insert his principles into it.

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From the depths of the fear and confusion of the Israeli public, Lieberman brings to light the yearning for a strong man (a presidential system), the fear of becoming refugees again (the Iranian threat), and the exilic longing for ethnic purity (the Cyprus model). These ideas have rapidly acquired a solid base. One can assume that in the next elections, Lieberman will reap the fruits of a strengthened position.

The clearest proof of Lieberman's settling into the Israeli consciousness is the reaction of MK Benny Elon, who accused him of populism Sunday. Elon - who is worried that his former ally, Yisrael Beiteinu, which Lieberman heads, will swallow up his National Union party - has good reason to be jealous of Lieberman. Freed of a beard and skullcap, under cover of neo-liberal speech, the new minister will win over an increasing number of diverse populations: religious and secular, veteran Israelis and immigrants.

The ultra-Orthodox incitement against the pride parade stems from the same shady roots as the proposals put forth by Lieberman. People in Bnei Brak said yesterday that a group of newly religious idlers has dragged serious rabbis into what has turned out to be a public relations campaign for gays, and now the rabbis are having difficulty avoiding it. It's not really important which hooligan started the fire; what's important is that the ultra-Orthodox themselves were surprised to discover how much power they have. And now they are drunk on power and understand how it all began, but they, too, are unable to assess where all of this will go.

The ultra-Orthodox public in Israel has undergone several ups and downs in the last few years. It went from a position of weakness and alienation to one of excessive power, and then, when the coalition rejected it in disgust, returned to reasonable dimensions. The internal conflicts, the transfer of power from the rabbis to political activists, and the socioeconomic changes the ultra-Orthodox are undergoing have stirred up dangerous unrest within the community. A responsible leadership within the ultra-Orthodox world was supposed to make sure that the unrest did not damage the society as a whole, including the ultra-Orthodox themselves.

Had the ultra-Orthodox had responsible leadership, the leaders would have understood that the pendulum was liable to harm them with the same destructive strength, and would have been worried that the dark feelings of incitement reverberate so strongly amid a large secular population. Such a leadership would have understood that fear and hatred are a dismal and dangerous common denominator. But the ultra-Orthodox do not have a responsible leadership of this kind.

That shortcoming is nothing compared to the vacuum at the top of the ruling pyramid in Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's weak response to Lieberman's comments - "my opinion is not like his opinion" - and the hollow protest of all the ministers in response to the Cyprus hallucination and the police's highly publicized powerlessness are the abyss into which Israeli democracy is crashing. Even the most radical and frightened population would be less likely to get swept into hatred of the two "sectors" if it had an appropriate united, humanistic and civil alternative.

Amir Peretz, as head of the Labor Party, is committed to doing this. But now he and his friends - like the well-known monkeys - see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing, and primarily do nothing. And thus will they be remembered in history as those who stood on the edge of the abyss and handed out tickets for the tumble.