The “best friend Israel ever had in the White House” continues to vigorously pursue policies specifically designed by State Department to destroy the Jewish state. Is it possible that President Bush is not aware of the risks involved in conceding land to an intransigent enemy? The Palestinians, like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda did in Afghanistan, will use the land as a base from which to launch better organized and more lethal attacks. Does Gaza ring a bell? Yet, Bush persists in demanding that Israel hand over historically Jewish lands it heroically liberated in 1967.

Bush and Ehud Olmert, the weak and stupid Israeli Prime Minister, view eviction of Jews from their homes as an acceptable sacrifice. We have a name for people who think like that. We call them anti-Semites.

Israel will tell US President George W. Bush during his visit to the region this week that it is committed to acting “expeditiously” to dismantle unauthorized West Bank settlement outposts, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday.

Israel has pledged repeatedly to take action on the outposts, generally small encampments settlers have set up in the West Bank to break up territory the Palestinians claim for a future state.

Olmert spokesman Mark Regev did not say how quickly Israel would take down the dozens of outposts.

Israel first pledged to remove West Bank outposts in 2003, under the US-backed “road map” peace plan. That plan, however, stalled shortly after it was launched because Israel and the Palestinians failed to honor initial obligations.

But Regev said conditions have changed since Israel and the Palestinians relaunched peace talks at the international conference in Annapolis, Maryland, in November.

“What is new in the post-Annapolis process is that there isn’t an expectation that Israel alone will implement its obligations under the road map in a vacuum,” Regev said. “Rather, the expectation is that both sides will in parallel move forward in implementing their obligations. Obviously, that framework makes the process more doable.”

Olmert, he added, “is committed to acting expeditiously on this matter.”

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said he hoped Olmert would follow through.

“I hope that he will dismantle the outposts … so that we can make 2008 a year of peace and treaty,” Erekat said. “We’ll judge it once we see it.”

The road map calls for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. As initial steps, it requires the Palestinians to rein in militants and Israel to freeze West Bank settlement construction and remove outposts built since March 2001.

The government maintains that there are about two dozen such outposts, though Peace Now, an anti-settlement group, puts the number around 50.

Recently, Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon said Israel should present Bush with a timetable for dismantling outposts. It was not clear he reflected Olmert’s position.

Poor Bibi Netanyahu! For daring to suggest, ever so gingerly, that Israel has a right to retain territory it deems essential to its security, he will be shunned by the President on his Middle East “peace” trip.

U.S. President George W. Bush has declined to meet with former Prime Minister and current Likud Opposition Leader MK Binyamin Netanyahu during his upcoming visit to Israel, slated to begin on Wednesday, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Sources in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Kadima party quoted in the report offered this explanation: “At the White House, they think [Mr. Netanyahu] is a liar because of his behavior when he was prime minister.”