Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks during a seminar at Tel Aviv University. (Moti Milrod, Maan Images)

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is on the verge of including a notorious hatemonger in his Cabinet - and therefore of pushing the Middle East back toward the abyss of destruction that has been its companion for almost 60 years. Making MP Avigdor Lieberman deputy premier and handing him a new and powerful portfolio to deal with "strategic threats" is obviously a cynical move designed to shore up a weak government at the expense of the country's reputation and security. But the repercussions would not be restricted to the domestic sphere, because such a move could not help but send all the wrong messages to the all the wrong people.

Olmert's Kadima Party was conceived by his predecessor, Ariel Sharon, as a means of consolidating influential forces in the center of the Israeli spectrum. Having fallen out with his allies on the right over his approach to the Palestinian issue, even Sharon understood that the only way forward was to abandon dogma and seek out new formulas. His ideas were nothing like universal in appeal and contained much of the unilateralism that has crippled the peace process all along, but they were a far cry from the vitriol that passes for Lieberman's "philosophy."

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Olmert won Sharon's job by pledging to follow the relatively pragmatic course plotted by his comatose predecessor. He has violated that promise by, for instance, launching unnecessary and needlessly bloody wars against both the Palestinians and the Lebanese. Bringing Lieberman aboard would establish beyond doubt that these actions were anything but aberrations, that Olmert's expression of interest in peace talks with Lebanon was anything but genuine, and that the rest of region has much to fear from the Jewish state in the coming months and years.

The effects of this unmistakable signal would include an exacerbation of tensions with Iran and Syria and a further cooling of Israel's already frosty relations with Egypt and Jordan. This is not to mention the destabilizing effect it would have on Lebanon and the inevitable radicalization of a Palestinian political scene that can only be described as raw. Lieberman's inclusion in Olmert's Cabinet would herald new wars and threats thereof - and constitute a gold-plated invitation for extremist groups like Al-Qaeda to make the inroads they have long sought in the Levant.

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