This can hardly count as democracy when our leaders prefer to go it alone and disdain "we the people" as accessories.


In Israel, the sheep are led by a shepherd who takes them from one wilderness to the next dead-end. The people follow Korach because there is no Moses.


The people follow Korach because there is no Moses.



Around here, our congress and our president are on the verge of pushing through an immigration measure that only they want - not the people. The people say no, our leaders say yes, and apparently we have nothing further to add. Yet, we did not anoint these men and women, we elected them.


They are answerable to us, and still they rule as if they've been given approval from up above, as was the case in former times when kings ruled by divine right.


Our president walks around with a 30 percent approval rating, so you'd think he'd reconsider his position on Iraq, immigration, and certainly Israel, which keeps being asked to live side by side "in peace and security" with terrorists who continue to be armed and refreshed with American tax dollars. The people don't want this, but the people be damned.


Even the leaders we elect are handed to us even before we've had a chance to think it over. By the time we go to the ballot box, the Primary States, such as New Hampshire, have already narrowed us down to about two choices. The rest of us may as well stay home by the time election day arrives.


Yes, over in Israel, it's the same story - and it is amazing how our two nations run parallel. Ehud Olmert is favored by about four percent, I said four percent, of the people, and yet he persists. He won't let go and go home, even after the people insist that they've had enough of him and his administration.


Olmert (like Ariel Sharon before him) failed his main task, to protect his nation. Since Israel's rebirth, he is the first prime minister to lose a war. (Helpless in Lebanon, clueless in Gaza.) He is prepared, he says, "to learn from [his] mistakes," which he should do on his own time, not during business hours. The job of prime minister is not for amateurs and interns.


A nation's survival and well-being should not rest on the shoulders of on-the-job trainees.


Even without a mandate, Olmert gave up Gaza and, still without a mandate, he is prepared to relinquish Judea, Samaria, the Golan and even parts of Jerusalem. What's keeping him in office? If he does not answer to the people, well then, from what source does he derive his power?


Obviously, then, he considers himself anointed, so let them eat cake.


All that takes us back to former times when it was assumed that the people can't be trusted. Only the rulers and the aristocracy know what's best for us. That is not democracy.


The day our secretary of state met Israel's secretary of state - Condoleezza Rice's meeting with Tzipi Livni - that was quite a sight, to behold two self-anointed leaders agreeing that Israel must continue to make concessions, land for peace, while both spoke for their administrations, but not for their people.


Decisions are made for us before we know what hit us or what's been taken from us. Here, we keep yelling "protect our borders" and in Israel, the cry is about the same - no more land for peace, because there is no peace for land.


The "disengagement" from Gaza (now a launching site for rockets against Israel) was a mistake from the word go and so were all the other concessions. Today, even supporters of the Gush Katif "disengagement" finally agree that it was folly, and yet still they lead, eyes wide shut. The people were not so blind; they saw it coming, Gaza as springtime for terrorists, but they have no seat in the democratic process.


The United States and Israel are two nations with teetering sovereignty. We call it a border with Mexico, and yet there is no border with Mexico. Anyone who can climb a

Decisions are made for us before we know what hit us.

fence is home-free in America. Who needs papers? We have no border along the south and Israel has no borders north, south, east or west, because every inch of Jewish territory is perpetually "open to negotiations."


Speaking of primaries, Israel's Laborites just finished up their first round of balloting and it appears that Ehud Barak, Mr. Cut-and-Run, is a contender all over again. Likewise, in other news, Shimon Peres, Mr. Oslo and foster parent of Yasser Arafat and the PLO, wants nothing less than the presidency of the Jewish State.


Retreads, reruns, repeats - these are the choices. No thanks. So, how about joining me in a write-in campaign, that I'd also like to see as a slogan, and it goes like this:


NONE OF THE ABOVE.


Part 12 of The Bathsheba Deadline, Jack Engelhard's latest novel, is now available. This installment of the serialized novel, the first published by Amazon.com, may well be its grand finale. Click here to find out! Haven't started reading it yet? Click the link and scroll down - all previous installments are there and ready to be downloaded.