Reflecting on the Rabin assassination ... , Robertson said: "I believe that anyone who injures God's land — God's holy land — and blocks the flow of prophecy in that land is in great danger. And the Lord warned me years and years ago, 'You're coming into Israel, the land of the Bible. You don't make mistakes here because the prophecies will stand.' And however much God may love me, He'd take me out of the way...to keep me from interfering with prophecy." (from Pat Robertson's postmodern Armageddon [1998] by Edmund D. Cohen, The Public Eye Web site)

While the administration of President George W. Bush favours, or is at least indifferent to, the collapse of the Baathist regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, the Israelis reportedly made it very clear in high-level talks here late last month that they do not see the alternatives to the young leader as particularly attractive.

At the same time, while Washington appears relatively content with Europe and Russia taking the lead in diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to curb its nuclear programme well short of any weapons capacity, Israel is growing concerned that Washington's threats to push for international sanctions or even attack suspected nuclear targets in Iran are becoming less and less credible.

The government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whose new party is expected to emerge as the strongest in elections next year, is also increasingly worried about Washington's pro-democracy drive for the region. In its view, the U.S. campaign risks empowering Islamist groups that are ideologically even more hostile to Israel than the authoritarian regimes they are challenging.

In that respect, the strong showing by the candidates affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood in recent parliamentary elections in Egypt, the Arab state with which Israel first established peace, is considered particularly ominous. (my emphasis)

The notion that Sharon is unhappy with the direction of U.S. policy in the region naturally challenges the view that Israel exercises a dominant - if not decisive -- influence over Washington's Middle East policy, particularly since the rise within the Bush administration after the September 2001 attacks of neo-conservatives for whom Israel's security is considered a core principle.

But neo-conservatives have generally held their own views about how that security can be best ensured - usually in ways that are much closer to the right-wing Likud Party, whose ranks Sharon has just deserted, than to an Israeli government whose policies they consider too dovish. Thus, while they cheered Sharon for his harsh crackdown against the second Palestinian intifada, many neo-conservatives broke with him over his disengagement from Gaza.

In spite of their gradual decline in influence in the Bush administration since the Iraq invasion, neo-conservatives have been lobbying hard for the past two years for a policy of "regime change" in Syria. If necessary, this would include limited military strikes designed to humiliate Assad and punish him for his alleged failure to dismantle operations by the Iraqi insurgency and "foreign fighters" in Syria. They have been backed by the same hard-liners who championed the Iraq invasion, notably Vice President Dick Cheney and some senior Pentagon officials.

In the past year, neo-conservatives have also argued that overthrowing the Baathist regime in Syria would add momentum to U.S. efforts to spread democracy in the region, particularly in the wake of Damascus' withdrawal of its military and intelligence forces from Lebanon after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February.