A real alarm

The wailing siren Tuesday happened to catch hundreds of drivers in a huge traffic jam on Herbert Samuel Street in Tel Aviv. The drivers looking for "action" discovered there was none. Seasoned joggers continued jogging comfortably, while the beach brimmed with sunbathers. It appeared that nobody was too anxious to look for a bomb shelter.

On the other hand, the traffic jam was reminiscent of the first Gulf War, when from 2 P.M. onward, all outbound highways from Tel Aviv to Eilat and Jerusalem were backed up bumper-to-bumper. The 41 outdated Scud missiles that Iraq lobbed into the center of the country did not kill anybody, yet they reaffirmed David Ben-Gurion's belief that our home front is fragile. He did not agree to collude with France in the 1956 Sinai assault until Paris agreed to deploy two fighter jets to defend Tel Aviv.

The principle of bringing the war onto enemy territory and concluding it quickly is no longer relevant. The last two wars taught us that that option no longer exists, that war is waged on the front lines while the home front takes shelter. Beyond the terrorism in the big cities and the Qassams in small ones, we learned during the Second Lebanon War how the entire north could become a target, as 1 million residents were exposed to missile fire. During the latter stages of this miserable war, our planes unloaded tons of bunker-busting bombs on the underground hideout of Hassan Nasrallah, yet didn't manage to kill him. In a sentence: We took a hit, and we also failed.

Defense officials claim the home front defense drill was meant not only to see how well the systems were working, but also to pressure our potential enemies. The wailing siren has not been heard across the country in years, and is now also used in countries that Israel is preparing to attack. Yet the 41 Iraqi Scuds, which caused a large commotion and little damage, put the country in its miserable place. Now there is no place to run except abroad, an escape route for the rich and the well-to-do only.

The Israel Defense Forces statements - that we'll hit their missiles while they're still on their bases - are not serious. The British air force and elite commando units, which sought to eliminate Iraqi missiles before they were launched during the Gulf War, could not locate and destroy even one missile.

If Israel carries out its threats to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, no drill will save it from an onslaught of dozens, if not hundreds, of precision-guided missiles into the heart of the country, launched from Iran and Hezbollahstan. In light of these circumstances, it would behoove us to seriously consider what U.S. President Barack Obama has demanded of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his warning that he will react forcefully against Iran, and his attitude toward the Palestinian issue.

The president joked that his first 100 days really took 72 days, and on the 73rd day he rested. There is a modicum of truth in this joke. This is a president who set an agenda on the most intense issues with amazing speed. One of his goals is to engage moderate Islamic states in dialogue by, among other means, solving the Palestinian problem. At a time when there are so many problems in this part of the world, beginning with nuclear weapons in Pakistan and Iran, as well as the renewal of nuclear activity in North Korea, he sees our obstinacy over outposts and settlements, and our refusal to acknowledge the principle of two states for two peoples, as an obstacle to peace. Rightly so.

Obama's speech was no drill. What he said in Cairo was what he told Bibi, and you can't say he doesn't say what he means. Israel cannot undertake a military operation not coordinated with the U.S. administration. If it does not honor its promises to George W. Bush on the settlements, then Bush's commitments to Ehud Olmert to continue providing $3 billion in annual defense aid for another 10 years will not obligate Obama. This will certainly be the case if we do not realize that a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran is beyond our means.

Bibi is unlucky because Obama - who is black, brilliant and smart - is just beginning his term. He has all the time in the world to set his priorities, and he is also popular. Bibi cannot use the excuse that he has no majority to evacuate settlements. He has Kadima, and he can form a broad coalition and do away with the fringe right-wing element in his government. If he does not understand this, Obama made him understand. If he did not hear the voices from Washington, he heard from Cairo yesterday that there are 2 million more Muslims in America than there are Jews. He made it clear to us that one ought to know what issues are worth fighting over, and what these issues are - defensible borders, security arrangements and the battle against terrorism, as opposed to Migron and migraines.

Today, June 5, 42 years after the Six-Day War, the time has come to respond to the question posed by President Lyndon Johnson to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol: What kind of Israel do you people want? Yesterday, Obama made it clear what the answer should be, and that we should view his sycophantic speech in Cairo as a true alarm.