Q. Beyond the demagogic aspects, what can we learn from the remarks about Israel made recently by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad?

A. Ahmadinezhad, as president of Iran, has relatively limited authority. The religious leadership recently clipped his wings even further by demanding that governmental decisions be subject to scrutiny by yet another appointed (rather than elected) regulatory group, this one headed by former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, who lost to Ahmadinzhad in the recent elections. The Majlis, or parliament, too, has seen fit to reject some of his appointments of cronies from Revolutionary Guards intelligence days to ministerial positions.

These are squabbles and power struggles among a radical Islamic leadership that is currently fully in control of virtually all positions of power in Iran. But they also reflect the fact that some checks and balances are built into the Iranian system. These found ready expression in the reservations expressed by Rafsanjani and others in the Tehran establishment over Ahmadinezhad's call for the elimination of Israel, the apologetic tone of Foreign Ministry spokesmen, and the reluctance on the part of official Iranian news agencies to publish in full the president's remarks.

Still, rhetoric this extreme against Israel has not been heard from Tehran since the early days of Ayatollah Khomeini's rule. Beyond Islamic fervor--particularly as the end of Ramadan approaches, with its Iranian-inspired "Jerusalem Day" demonstrations--what might have motivated Ahmadinezhad to call Israel a "stain of disgrace" that "will vanish from the center of the Islamic world"? At this point, we can only speculate.

One possible explanation touches on Iran's strategic priorities. Analysts addressing the Iranian nuclear program generally agree that, if and when Iran becomes a military nuclear power, it will invoke its capabilities chiefly to deter other nuclear powers in its immediate vicinity: Pakistan, India, Russia, and US forces in Iraq and the Gulf. Israel will not be at the top of its nuclear enemies list. This approach presumes, not without reason, that Iran seeks regional hegemonic status for "legitimate" reasons connected with the multiplicity of potential nuclear threats among its neighbors, and that it will not attack anyone without provocation (a position reflected in reassurances from Tehran after Ahmadinzhad's statements, to the effect that the Islamic republic had never attacked any other country).

But when the hard-line president of Iran, a man whose views are generally considered to be in tune with those of the all-powerful religious leadership, threatens Israel so openly and states that its elimination is "attainable", there is at least room to contemplate the possibility that the conventional wisdom about Iran's potential behavior as a nuclear power is wrong, and that it would indeed seek to use its weaponry against Israel. Here, incidentally, we recall a similarly incendiary statement made by the "pragmatic" Rafsanjani four years ago, to the effect that tiny Israel is a "one-bomb country" whereas the Islamic world can absorb many nuclear attacks and still recover.

A second, and equally daunting possibility, is that the new president has been made aware that Iran has actually crossed the nuclear point-of-no-return, and is capable from herein of developing nuclear weapons without external input, i.e., can withstand whatever sanctions regime the international community feels motivated to impose. This explanation defies the generally accepted timetable for Iran's crossing the nuclear threshold, which usually points to a juncture that is at least many months, and possibly years, away. But if this is indeed the explanation for the brashness of Ahmadinezhad's threats, then the consequences are of great concern.

Another explanation holds that the Iranian president was, in his own unique way, seeking to reduce international pressures on Iran over the nuclear issue by indicating that Israel is its only enemy. The problem here is that careful scrutiny of Ahmadinezhad's remarks reveals that Israel is described as merely the vanguard of a centuries-old western invasion of the Islamic world, and not an isolated enemy. In contrast, were the Iranian leaders to cease targeting Israel and to emphasize the regional rationale (India, Pakistan, etc.) for their nuclear ambitions, they might indeed succeed in reducing US and EU pressure to constrain their nuclear program.

Notably, Ahmadinezhad does not formulate his current threats against Israel in nuclear terms. In fact, he implied in his speech last week to the "World without Zionism" conference that it is the Palestinians, under Islamic leadership, who are capable of defeating Israel. This would appear to mean, at a minimum, ongoing and even enhanced Iranian support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Another troubling aspect of the Ahmadinezhad affair is the relative lack of vocal condemnation of the Iranian president's remarks by the Muslim and Arab worlds. Algeria did vote in the UN Security Council to condemn them, and Saeb Erekat of the Palestinian Authority also made remarks to that effect. But how are we to understand the silence of the rest of the Arab world as it continues to do business with Iran, particularly when Ahmadinezhad specifically condemned those Arab and Muslim countries that had established some form of relations with Israel? Evidently, the Iranian president is judged by Arab leaders to have considerable appeal on the Arab street.

Q. November 4 marks the tenth anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. A decade later, how do you assess the ramifications for Israeli society?

A. The picture ten years later is not a pretty one. Jewish settler extremists and supporters, led by their rabbis, continue to threaten Israeli leaders intent on peace or territorial compromise, and the establishment continues to hesitate to deal with them forthrightly. True, the recent disengagement provided a persuasive and encouraging measure of the real balance of power between the Israeli establishment and the radical settlers and their supporters. And an admirable constitutional and judicial structure that protects freedom of speech is one of the key elements sheltering Israel's hate-mongers. Nevertheless, we must recognize that the Rabin assassination set back the cause of a two state solution for years, that the danger of another political assassination is real, and that such an assassination is liable to deter future leaders from confronting the extremists.

These impressions are well reflected in Israeli public opinion. A Yediot Aharonot survey published October 28 indicates that two-thirds of Israelis fear to a medium or large extent that another political murder will take place, while 61 percent blame "the politicians" for cultivating the incitement that led to Rabin's assassination and 83 percent assert that there are more murderers like Yigal Amir waiting in the wings. Fully three fourths of the public believe that the state is lax in enforcing anti-incitement laws.

In contrast, 18 percent believe Amir should be pardoned and released from jail at some point, while 39 percent believe that, like it or not, this will happen. The Amir family's scenario for a pardon focuses on the argument, which infuriated many Israelis when it was aired last week, that since Rabin was himself a criminal (for compromising on part of the Land of Israel), his murderer deserved a shorter sentence. Other observers suggest that at some point in the coming decades, when an Israeli government releases Palestinian terrorist murderers "with blood on their hands" to cement a peace agreement, it will also release Amir in order to conciliate the far right and demonstrate "even handedness".

November will witness a number of tenth anniversary ceremonies commemorating Rabin, including the official inauguration of the imposing Rabin Center structure in north Tel Aviv. Some 59 percent of Israelis believe this strikes the right proportions, while ten percent believe this is an insufficient effort and 25 percent say it's exaggerated. Sadly, the Rabin Center memorialization effort has thus far largely misrepresented Yitzhak Rabin's real legacy. Rabin's entire adult life, including the Oslo years, was devoted to Israeli security. Yet the agenda of the Rabin Center, spearheaded first by his widow and, since her death, by his daughter, focuses to a large extent on "civics" education and democracy. In other words, it concentrates--thus far unsuccessfully, judging by the above figures--on the prevention of another political assassination, rather than with Rabin's concept of strategic security and how he translated it into support for the Oslo process and a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

The public's perception that Shimon Peres (27 percent) and Ariel Sharon (24 percent) are Rabin's real ideological heirs merely reinforces the impression that his strategic legacy has been lost or dissipated. Peres always believed in an integrative peace with the Palestinians--territorially, economically and politically (some form of federation)--while Rabin was the first separationist. Sharon has adopted separation and bought into the demographic argument, but opposes a negotiated peace and a viable Palestinian state--both pillars of Rabin's approach. In this regard, Ehud Barak, who gets only four percent of votes in the poll as Rabin's heir, was perhaps the last of the Rabin disciples. But his mishandling of the peace process with the Palestinians gave the Rabin approach a bad name. (Of course, Yasser Arafat contributed more than his share to the failure of Oslo, and we'll never know how Rabin would have dealt with the Palestinian leader in the long term.)

Finally, according to the Yediot poll, some 60 percent of Israelis today evince respect and longing for Rabin, and 37 percent believe the country would be better off today had he lived. Include me in those figures.