Leading Israeli sources in Washington heard the following assessment from the U.S. administration: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will end his term next spring, at the latest, and even if he embarks on a political process now, he won't have time to finish it. The public is against him - both on the left and the right - and anyway, he won't be able to take any significant steps. In other words, Olmert is a lame duck. Hence, it would be a shame to waste time and money speaking with him before he proves that he will survive the Labor Party primaries and the final Winograd Committee report on the Second Lebanon War.

One could find evidence of this perception in the cancelation of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's planned visit to Israel. The cancelation itself was less insulting than the reason publicly given for it: the political situation in Israel. Diplomatic language could have disguised the rationale as a scheduling conflict, but the U.S. State Department insisted on mentioning the problems the prime minister is facing at home. Democracies have their own way of resolving political problems, Rice herself told Al Arabiya TV; she didn't provide details.

The attitude toward Olmert's domestic problems is being seen in Jerusalem as an insult and as a reflection of the differences in approach within George W. Bush's administration. Just a week has passed since the president expressed his support for Olmert, only a few hours after the release of the Winograd report. Rice has reasons to be angry at Olmert, who hasn't really been enthusiastic about her diplomatic efforts in the region; before one of her recent visits, he embarrassed her by publicizing a phone conversation that he had had with the president.

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A cover story on Rice in The Atlantic Monthly includes a revealing anecdote. During her penultimate visit to Jerusalem, she had an unreported meeting in her hotel suite: Dov Weissglas, who served as key adviser to former prime minister Ariel Sharon, and Danny Ayalon, the former Israeli ambassador to Washington, hopped over for a friendly chat. The only member of Olmert's government who has merited that kind of an honor is his main rival, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Thus, Rice's announcement about canceling the visit spurred talk among officials and the staff at ministerial bureaus in Jerusalem about a crisis and problems in Israeli relations with the Bush administration. But such speculations are dismissed in Washington, to the point where one person labeled it "paranoia." It was a practical matter: Rice simply had nothing urgent to say to Olmert. In any case, the Americans have a ready excuse in the face of Israeli suspicions: It was Israel that started with the cancelations, they say. Minister Shaul Mofaz asked to delay the strategic dialogue slated to take place in Washington this week as soon as the Winograd findings were released. The reason given for the postponement: the political crisis. Why is Mofaz allowed to do this, but not Rice?

Damascus. Lesson

Mofaz will have a lot to talk about when he finally arrives in Washington, possibly at the end of the month: Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria. The Syrians didn't wait for the Winograd report to learn their lesson and try to adjust their armed forces according to what they saw in the Second Lebanon War.

From the Israeli side, the situation looks like this, according to intelligence experts: The Syrian army is busy raising the level of readiness, stepping up training and arming itself with up-to-date weapons, especially anti-tank missiles.

"They're arming themselves with all the weapons that Hezbollah successfully used against us," one of the sources said. The Syrians have also deployed more forces in the area of the buffer zone near the Israeli border, and have improved their positions. But according to the same sources, the Syrian preparations are defensive in nature. There are no signs indicating an attack, no movement of divisions toward staging areas and no violation of the separation of forces agreement. This requires the Israel Defense Forces to improve its own defensive preparations without generating too much anxiety on the other side of the border. In Israel, the need for taking steps strengthens the position of those who oppose the opening of a "Syrian channel" of negotiation. To talk to them now, one such opponent said, would be interpreted as showing weakness; it's better not to start talks that would erode Israeli deterrence even more than has already happened.

What can the Syrians achieve with a military operation should they choose to cause trouble? Israeli strategists describe a so-called "Sadat strategy": taking control of a small area in the Golan Heights and obstinately holding on to it, as an impetus to jump start a political process that would lead to an Israeli withdrawal from the rest of the Golan. Perhaps this would include an attempt to capture Mount Hermon or one of the military posts at its base; perhaps it would involve linking up with a Druze village, portraying such a move as liberation from Israeli occupation. This could be accomplished with small Syrian forces, without a massive pincer movement involving hundreds of tanks, as in the Yom Kippur War. Up-to-date anti-tank missiles from Russia, which penetrated Israel's Merkava tanks in Lebanon, could curb an Israeli armored assault.

The IDF used to refer to this scenario as an example of the underhanded opportunism of the Syrians in the Golan. It has yet to take place, though, and it's difficult to assess the probability that it will. The Second Lebanon War may have exposed embarrassing faults in the Israeli ground forces, but it also showed that the country's leadership is not deterred by escalation. The Syrians will have to take this into consideration if they decide to destabilize the status quo in the North.

Gaza. A choice?

A senior Israeli official who has specialized in giving advice to more than one prime minister this week compared the Shimon Peres of the Second Lebanon War to the David Levy of the first war in Lebanon. On the one hand, according to the Winograd report, Peres told the chief of staff: "We have to think two steps ahead. Let's say we do this and they react, what then?" On the other hand, Peres voted in favor of the operation, even though he understood the problem. David Levy also expressed concern over a massacre in the refugee camps in Lebanon the first time around, but didn't do enough to stop it from happening. The question is, what is better for a minister to do: to know something and be silent about it, or to wrap himself in ignorance?

The cabinet ministers could not go the route of ignorance, however, when it came time to decide what to do in the Gaza Strip. The IDF has been conducting a campaign during the last few months to encourage the country to embark on a major operation in Gaza, arguing that this is the only way to stop the bothersome Qassam fire and to prevent the Palestinians from arming themselves and becoming stronger there. Even those who propose limited steps in the first phase, like GOC Southern Command Yoav Gallant, expect this to be only the beginning of broader action.

The cabinet will discuss the options on Sunday. The dilemmas are not simple, and deterred Israel from launching such activity even at the height of the intifada, during Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank. The Strip is very densely populated and filled with large quantities of weapons, and an invading force is expected to encounter serious opposition. In order to minimize the IDF's losses, the firepower needs to be intensified, which could in turn increase the number of Palestinian civilian casualties. Protecting the Palestinian civilians raises the risk of IDF casualties. If the government decides to send troops into Gaza anyway, it's still not clear how they would get out of there, and who would take control of the keys and ensure quiet.

Five years after Defensive Shield, Israel still has security responsibility over the West Bank, and there are no indications that the Palestinian Authority is capable of taking it over. There is also the concern that a Gaza operation won't succeed and will end instead in a Lebanon-style fiasco. Therefore, some Israeli strategists are looking for
creative ways to prevent the need to go into Gaza - for instance, by using technological means to act against Qassams launched from the Strip. Such means could ostensibly identify and hit any rocket launcher in the area, along with anyone attempting to fire rockets. Those knowledgeable about the secrets of intelligence and technology say the capability for this already exists, and that all the components just need to be put together to complete the system.

That isn't the only creative idea being circulated: The suggestion has also been raised to hold off on military action and to utilize the culture of Israeli service-providers - which is well-known to anyone who has ever called an electrician or plumber - in the fight against the Qassams. Minister Yitzhak Cohen (Shas) proposed in the cabinet meeting this week that the Palestinians receive a similar level of service as that received in Israel. A Qassam hits the power station in Ashkelon? We'll say that the cable to Gaza was damaged and it will take two weeks to fix it. Sderot was hit? We'll declare a problem with the water main near the city, and say that reparations will take 10 days. A gas station was struck? The same thing. There's no need to bomb the Palestinian infrastructure, just to explain that their rockets are damaging shared infrastructure. But Olmert hasn't bought the concept.

Saudi Arabia. A visit.

It happened only a few days after the U.S. secretary of state at the time, Colin Powell, ended four years in his post and left the job to his successor, Rice. The doorbell rang, and on there stood Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan - then the Saudi ambassador to the United States, now the national security adviser of his country. Powell's wife Alma had once mentioned her longing for the 1995 Jaguar she once had, and the prince heard her. Now that Powell was no longer secretary of state, Bandar found the opportunity to give a gift to the Powells: a 1995 Jaguar, just like they used to have.

This anecdote, which appeared in The New York Times two weeks ago, caught the attention of Israelis this week who were trying to discern the meaning of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's trip to the Middle East. It reminded some how connected the kingdom is to the empire, in tangled ways that are sometimes hidden. Bandar's star is falling, say those in the know in Washington. The direct line between the U.S. administration and the Saudi king is what's important right now, and the king relies on Cheney.

Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said this week that Cheney's visit is meant to help the Bush administration understand "how useful several of Washington's closest allies are prepared to be," especially regarding the developing struggle with Iran. The Saudis have disappointed the United States several times over in the past few months, including in the Mecca agreement on the formation of a Palestinian unity government and, worse still, public condemnations of the American military presence in Iraq. But the Saudi channel is alive and kicking. Those who already eulogized it, like those who eulogized Cheney and were excited by the erosion of his status, apparently spoke prematurely - and excessively.

Olmert, meanwhile, misses no opportunity to heap compliments on the Saudis and to try to get close to them. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it doesn't seem that his efforts have been too successful so far. The Saudis disappointed with the Mecca agreement, and again when they decided to distance themselves from a dialogue with Israel about the Arab League peace initiative.

The king is cautious, unlike Bandar, who conveys the feeling that there will be a breakthrough any minute, a knowledgeable Washington source said this week. For his part, Bush understands the message: He will conduct his business with Riyadh with the modesty and discretion of the kinds that characterize Cheney, and his cards will stay close to his chest. This affects Israel as well, as the Americans are quite stingy about what they are prepared to tell the Israelis regarding their contacts with Saudi Arabia.