Sascha Baron Cohen narrates “the running of the Jews” in Borat.

The serious-minded former director of Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Yossi Alpher, who also is co-editor of Bitterlemons.org, a Palestinian-Israeli Web site, writes about a close encounter of the Bruno kind in his latest column in the Forward.

In an editorial Thursday, the L.A. Times argues against U.S. acquiescence to an Israeli attack on Iran. The editorialists write:

There are a dozen reasons why “If you want to whack them, we’ve got your back” is the wrong message for the U.S. to send Israel, publicly or privately.

One is the increase in oil prices as a result of the war talk, which only enriches Iran. But here are two better ones: The consequences of an Israeli war with Iran are unpredictable, and it is nearly impossible to assess Iran’s ability to make good on its threats to retaliate against the United States, presumably through its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah. The last thing the U.S. needs now is more instability, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael G. Mullen said Wednesday. And while the odds may be low that diplomacy will solve the problem, we can’t know for sure because we haven’t tried it. Only the Europeans have. If bilateral talks with nuclear North Korea were acceptable to Bush, then why is it still anathema to talk with Iran?

The consequences of an Israeli war with Iran may be unpredictable, but the consequences for Israel of a nuclear-armed Iran are less unpredictable.

Sure, Iran might go nuclear and not attack the Jewish state, but is that a risk Israel can afford to take? Even if Iran held off from attacking Israel — which may be the likelier scenario, were Iran to go nuclear — the Islamic Republic would be able to brandish its nuclear threat over Israel like a mobster with a baseball bat. Is that something with which Israel would be able to live?

As for the oil reason, what’s worse: Expensive gas, or a nuclear-armed Iran? The warmongering serves the free world well, because it’s one more method to get Iran to quit its nuclear program that doesn’t involve actually bombing the place. Thus, regardless of whether or not President Bush actually would give Israel the green light to bomb Iran, it’s helpful that it appears as if he would.

For more on the degree to which rising oil prices are related to Iran-Israel tension, stay tuned for Ron Kampeas’ piece on the subject in JTA (coming out later today).

Meanwhile, Ha’aretz’s Avi Shavit writes that the scenario of Israel attacking Iran in the sunset of Bush’s presidency (which our Ron Kampeas wrote about here), may be far-fetched, but there’s so much at stake that Israel needs to get its ducks in a row just in case. The conclusion: Israel needs new elections now.

Marty Peretz has a piece in The New Republic that echoes JTA’s analysis last week about Israel’s sudden “peace offensive.” Peretz declares the chances of success of an Israeli-Syrian peace deal (as measured by Syria moving away from Iran) virtually nil, and he opposes Israel’s latest cease-fire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip (which doesn’t seem to be working so well).

Though Peretz gets Mahmoud Abbas’ name wrong (he calls him Mohammed, which I don’t believe is the same thing), he more than makes up for it by sticking that line through the “o” of Terje Rød-Larsen’s name. Well done, Marty.

The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto suggests that the accidental killing of American activist Rachel Corrie by an Israeli tractor in March 2003 may have given the Palestinian who perpetrated yesterday’s tractor attack in Jerusalem the idea for turning a tractor into a deadly weapon.

Come on.

On a related note to my post yesterday about the battle over language in the Middle East conflict (“Arab” vs. “Palestinian”), now that we know the perpterator of the attack was Palestinian, we can say so.

And my colleague Dan Sieradski was exacting enough to point out that the deadly weapon used in yesterday’s attack was neither a bulldozer nor a tractor, but a backhoe loader. Given that it’s part tractor, I think we’ll still be safe if we keep calling it a tractor. And if someone calls it a bulldozer, we may just let it slide.

Many readers — and some fellow reporters — are questioning JTA’s use of the more general term “Arab” rather than “Palestinian” to describe the terrorist who perpetrated Wednesday’s deadly attack in Jerusalem.

A note of explanation: In the aftermath of the attack, it was not immediately clear exactly who the perpetrator was. His name was spelled a variety of different ways in the Israeli and international press, his age was given alternately as 30 or 31, and he was described as a resident of eastern Jerusalem.

Now, here’s where things get tricky. Eastern Jerusalem is code for the part of Jerusalem that was controlled by Jordan until the 1967 Six-Day War — i.e. Arab. But now Jerusalem is a united city, since Israel annexed East Jerusalem in the war’s aftermath (though almost no one in the international community officially recognizes that action). When East Jerusalem became part of Israeli Jerusalem (and we began calling it “eastern Jerusalem” — note the lowercase), the Arabs who lived there were offered Israeli citizenship. Some accepted it, but most did not. Virtually all, however, were granted Israeli ID cards.

JTA’s style is to refer to Arabs who are citizens of Israel as Arab Israelis (occasionally we slip up and call them Israeli Arabs), but these people mostly call themselves as Palestinians, or Palestinian Israelis. We refer to other Arabs in the neighborhood as Palestinians.

So, is someone from a village on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem — which was not even considered part of Jerusalem when the Jordanians controlled the territory — who has an Israeli ID card an Israeli?

It wasn’t clear to us whether or not the terrorist had Israeli citizenship; hence, our preference for the more general term. The only thing we could say with certainty is that he was Arab.

(Some news outlets, like the New York Sun, never use the term Palestinian, instead using Palestinian Arab).

In this part of the world, language, identity and conflict are all interconnected.

Finally, if you’re wondering why I used the word “tractor” above and not “bulldozer,” take a look at the video from the attack. Looks like a tractor to me.

The debate in Israel about the efficacy of the prisoner swap deal with Hezbollah continues.

Alexander Yakobson writes in Ha’aretz that the real cost of the exchange of “prisoners for bodies” with Hezbollah is more Israeli bodies, since the deal projects Israeli weakness. He could have argued his point much more effectively and clearly simply by saying that this deal gives further encouragement to Hezbollah and other terrorist groups to kidnap more Israelis and demand ransom.

In an editorial whose point escapes me, The Jerusalem Post, which argued against the deal, says, “All of us must now respect the decision” by the Israeli Cabinet to make the swap.

Ynet’s Roee Nahmias writes that the deal constitutes a victory for Hezbollah, albeit “by points rather than by knockout:”

Nasrallah looked into the cameras a few times and promised to Kuntar that he shall be released. The operation to abduct the IDF soldiers was called “the promise that was kept.” What can we say; this promise at least was indeed kept.

In an editorial Wednesday, Ha’aretz calls on the Israeli prime minister to reject pressure to open up Israel’s doors to another 8,700 would-be Ethiopian immigrants. Tracing some of the history surrounding the aliyah of the Falash Mura (which you can read more about here), the editorial slams Ehud Olmert for bending to “political pressures, here in Israel and especially from the United States,” to expand immigration from Ethiopia:

Once again it became clear that Israeli governments cannot be relied upon to implement policies that they themselves determined. There is always room for yet another committee, another pressure group, another reexamination.

If the explanation for the mass Falashmura immigration is demographic, then there is no limit to the number of people who are prepared to convert to Judaism in order to immigrate to Israel and improve their living conditions. If the justification is family reunification, then Israel has a great number of nuclear families begging to be reunited with non-Jewish relatives in Russia, including adopted children and grandmothers who were deported at the end of a visit, and there are Israeli Arabs who have been prohibited from living here with their spouses.

In order to set a sane immigration policy, we need a political leadership that can plan ahead.

Ha’aretz published an editorial along similar lines in April, albeit with different numbers cited (there’s Ha’aretz for you!).

Read this JTA story I wrote for more background about who these 8,700 people are, and visit this archive for more on those befuddling numbers…

Unnamed senior Pentagon officials told ABC News there is an “increasing likelihood” Israel will attack Iran, and soon.

The official identified two “red lines” that could trigger an Israeli offensive. The first is tied to when Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility produces enough highly enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon. According to the latest U.S. and Israeli intelligence assessments, that is likely to happen sometime in 2009, and could happen by the end of this year.

“The red line is not when they get to that point, but before they get to that point,” the official said. “We are in the window of vulnerability.”

The second red line is connected to when Iran acquires the SA-20 air defense system it is buying from Russia. The Israelis may want to strike before that system — which would make an attack much more difficult — is put in place.

Some Pentagon officials also worry that Israel may be determined to attack before a new U.S. president, who may be less supportive, is sworn in next January.

For more on that, read this piece by JTA’s Ron Kampeas.

An article in Tuesday’s Science Times sheds light on the dilemma faced by Ariel Sharon’s doctors when he suffered a minor stroke shortly before his major, incapacitating stroke two and a half years ago. Microbleeds, which likely caused Sharon’s massive stroke on Jan. 4, 2006, continue to raise questions for about how to treat patients at risk for strokes.

Israel’s Channel 10 TV has a segment (translated by Ha’aretz) about a campaign in the schools of Kiryat Gat, a southern Israeli city, warning Jewish girls against getting romantically involved with Bedouins. Schoolgirls are shown a video titled “Sleeping with the Enemy,” which warns against sexually exploitive Arabs.