Amir Oren

As always, Israel wants both to limit the supply of American armaments to countries that endanger it and to have the freedom to sell Israeli weapons to countries that directly endanger the United States - and indirectly, Israel too.

On Independence Day, which comes in two weeks, the 59th year of the State of Israel - the year of the anti-tank weapon - will come to an end.

It is best for Iran to establish the context, the timing and the force of the clash with the West - a limited confrontation in the Gulf that could save it from a much bigger blow to its nuclear installations.

Avraham Hirchson is approaching - with differences in locale and circumstances - the role of the Israeli parallel to Agnew.

The competition between Ehud Barak and Ami Ayalon for the chairmanship of the Labor Party is a rare opportunity to place it once again in a position of power.

It is best for the police to deal only with policing and to outsource the security functions to the Border Police alone.

Whoever defends himself after the fact, after a failure, and argues that he had not been ready for his role, is admitting that he accepted the assignment from the voters under false pretenses.

Dichter, in ignoring the court's condemnation of Ganot's conduct and the disciplinary ruling against him, brushed aside the lesson in the resignation of Rafi Peled as police chief.

Israelis need a police force that will make policing, investigations and keeping the peace its main concerns.

The person with the supreme and direct authority to appoint a new justice minister is Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, but, as with all the government faults, he has a senior partner: Amir Peretz.

The failures of the Israel Defense Forces and the Defense Ministry in dealing with the threat posed by tunnels the Palestinians are excavating around the borders of the Gaza Strip - one of which served for abducting Gilad Shalit - are discussed in a hush-hush report the state comptroller submitted this week.

The changes in government, the reshuffling of new and old ministers, might as well begin with the prime minister.

The moment Regev and Goldwasser were abducted, Israel and its leaders − Olmert, Peretz and Halutz, as one − had no real alternative to taking action.

It would have been impossible to wipe away the kissing incident as though it had never happened.

Instead of burrowing under a camouflage jacket, Halutz chose to be a nudist. But instead of being applauded for exposing himself bravely to the public, he ended up being mocked for revealing all.

Barak is waiting in the wings, in anticipation of the Winograd Committee's report. This may well bring down the entire defense leadership. But he will have difficulty presenting himself as the new broom to sweep away the debris left by the Winograd Committee.

The abduction of eight soldiers from the area under Menahem Einan?s command in August 1982 led to the mother of all deals, the Jibril deal. This did not prevent Einan from advancing to become a major general. The question is whether he will have the courage to demand of today?s senior IDF officers what he did not demand of himself.

The circumstances that led to Shalit's abduction point at the security service's failure in the Gaza Strip.

Avi Dichter has turned from an excellent Shin Bet head into a very mediocre minister of internal security.

Only in Israel can the effort to get the IDF Chief of Staff to resign be spearheaded by none other than the army's very own radio service.

Why was the Peled Report, which probed the Har Dov kidnappings, not passed on to commanders who might have used it to prevent future abductions of soldiers?

Israeli democracy reached one of its critical moments last week. It is hard to get a sense of this in the media, which are treating the affair as if it were just another chapter in a series of caprices and affronts affecting the top echelon.

The IDF is investigating hundreds of officers who spoke to the press during the Lebanon war, threatening to prevent necessary information from reaching the public in the future.