Dominos anyone?

By Caroline B. Glick, Jewish World Review Russia's invasion of Georgia is exposing many aspects of the international system that the US-led West has studiously ignored since the fall of the Soviet Union. One old truth that deserves attention is that the domino-theory of international relations remains true. That theory asserts that events in one arena will foment similar events in other arenas.

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Great powers are not the only ones that can cause dominos to fall. Small states can as well. Israel's actions make this point clearly. This week the Olmert-Livni-Barak government voted to release another two hundred terrorists from prison. Israel's leaders claimed that after releasing terrorist murderers to Hizbullah last month, we have has no excuse for not releasing terrorist murderers to Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas now. If Abbas cannot match Hizbullah's achievements, they argue that he will be discredited. But as the Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh explained Monday, there is virtually no one in the Palestinian Authority who believes that Israel will be strengthening pro-peace forces in Palestinian society by releasing Fatah terrorists from jail. Those terrorists will merely strengthen the more radical elements in Palestinian society that are generally allied with Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

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