While Netanyahu was speaking on the Left Coast, the man who now represents "the little Satan," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, met President Bush in Washington. They talked for several hours and mostly about what to do about Iran. Both men have been weakened since the last time they met. Mr. Olmert suffered because he was slow to react with enough ground troops for the war in Lebanon. George W. Bush had a really bad hair day on Nov. 7.
Thus, their rhetoric rings a little hollow now, suggesting that their countries have deeper divisions than they're ready to admit. Israel worries that the American weakness in Iraq might compel the president to press Israel to make unwise concessions to the Palestinians in order to organize a coalition of Arab states to support sanctions against Iran. The United States worries that Israel's military image was tarnished in the war in Lebanon, making it appear less fearsome. This war in Lebanon was not exactly the Six-Day War.
Israel has strong friends in America, particularly among evangelical Christians. Nearly everyone has known this for a long time, but some people always find out late. The New York Times discovered it only last week, and put the news of its late discovery on Page One. These Christians frequently invoke Biblical references, but they're quick to draw analogies to the Third Reich. "Hitler told everybody what he was going to do, and Ahmadinejad is saying exactly what he is going to do," says Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, the faith-and-family advocacy organization. "He is talking genocide."
The Rev. John Hagee, pastor of a megachurch in San Antonio, says the Iranian leader's remarks about a second Holocaust prompted him to establish Christians United for Israel. He compared the Ahmadinejad Iranians to an Old Testament villain: "Pharaoh threatened Israel and he ended up fish food."
After President Bush and Prime Minister Olmert concluded their private meeting in the Oval Office, they spoke in a unified voice that they cannot accept a nuclear-armed Iran. The question of how they would stop it remains unaddressed -- in public. But both men obviously know that taking a nap is not the route to peace in our time.