By Stan Goodenough
Right-wing Israeli politicians have reacted in shock and anger to the news that Defense Minister and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak will not order gas masks distributed to Israelis for fear of provoking the Syrians into a war.
The development was the top story on The Jerusalem Post website Monday.
According to the report, Barak made his decision despite accumulated Israeli intelligence warnings that Syrian president Bashar el-Assad has non-conventional-capable missiles that can hit any population center in the Jewish state.
Syria has long been known to have, along with biological weapons, weaponized VX Gas that can cause excruciating death.
The Post says that military assessments show Syria to be nearing the end of "an accelerated deployment of a large rocket arsenal of Katyusha and Scud missiles capable of reaching Tel Aviv and causing thousands of civilian casualties."
Nonetheless, Israelis are not to be protected against such attacks.
Likud Knesset member Yuval Steinitz, slammed Barak's decision.
"The decision not to hand out masks so as not to upset the Syrians reminds me of Moshe Dayan's unfortunate decision not to call up the reserves so as not to upset the Syrians and the Egyptians on the eve of the Yom Kippur War," he said, according to the Post.
Barak appeared to be acting in line with warnings expressed last week by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Shimon Peres.
Both men said that while Syria was not "wanting" a war, a wrong decision on either side could lead to an explosion.
For his part, Barak's behavior is increasingly seen as enigmatic.
Despite being Israel's most decorated soldier, he was responsible - while serving as prime minister - for ordering the IDF to flee southern Lebanon and allowing the Hizb'allah to move in, the primary action responsible for last summer's conflict which so humiliated the IDF and fuelled Syria's appetite for war .
Barak's pussyfooting to avoid a Syrian strike appears to come from the same source - the disease of leftism or human-secularism that has rendered once brave warriors like Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon into appeasers and even betrayers of their own people - more concerned with not killing Arabs than with saving Jews.
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