In our government, everyone talks whenever he pleases about whatever he pleases. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman acts like the neighborhood bully; his style and statements suit the extreme right's worst thugs, who do what they want in the territories.

Lieberman sends Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to hell and threatens the Assad family's rule in Syria. These opinions won him 15 Knesset seats, a considerable number, of pure radical right. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot pretend he didn't know whom he was appointing foreign minister and what could be expected from him.

Netanyahu is pretending to be a better, more moderate leader who seems ready to lead Israel to peace. So it was convenient - or more accurately, important - that he have Yisrael Beiteinu in the coalition. He also needed Shas, which plays alternately the peace seeker and the radical, depending which pays more. Netanyahu needed these two parties to counter the demands of concessions for peace.

Netanyahu could have presented himself as a man of peace at the Bar-Ilan speech about two states for two peoples. He could have pretended not to understand that Lieberman's statement "if a Palestinian state is established, there will be no Israel" would deter the Palestinian leadership. But not only did the prime minister not object to his foreign minister's statement, he even added his own bit in the Herzliya Conference closing ceremony. "I know that one of my predecessors, Ariel Sharon, spoke from this podium about the disengagement. Today I want to speak about coming together, coming together with heritage, with Zionism. With our past, with our future here in the land of our forefathers, which is also the land of our children and grandchildren," he said. In other words, a return to the Greater Land of Israel dream, which Sharon wanted to scrap.

On one of the morning radio talk shows this week, Moshe Arens commended Netanyahu for his "quiet, not bad year" as prime minister. Arens, who served as defense minister in Yitzhak Shamir's government, maintained that that prime minister wasn't radical enough. He argued Shamir had prevented the Israel Defense Forces from attacking Iraq in the first Gulf War in 1991. What Arens may not have known is that the American administration had warned Israel in no uncertain terms not to intervene. An Israeli intervention would have harmed the Arab coalition, including Syria, which the administration had formed for the attack on Iraq.

Presumably, if Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad produces nuclear weapons, Israel will face a similar dilemma. There will be one major difference - Ahmadinejad isn't bluffing like Saddam Hussein. Then we walked around with gas masks, but Iraq didn't have chemical or nuclear weapons. If the United States decides to take military action against Iran, it is important that Israel have a peace agreement with Syria and close relations with the United States. We do not want the United States to be attacking Iran while Hezbollah and Syria bombard Israel's cities. It is not by chance that Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the IDF support an agreement with Syria.

The problem is that in this government, every minister talks about whatever he feels like, whether it's Road 443 or the salary of a defense official. There is no one in charge, no clear policy on the Palestinian issue. It's no longer "two states for two peoples." Now ministers are scaring the public by saying the Palestinians want one state west of the Jordan, and hope to win by demography. The government is gradually exposing its right-wing character.

If Netanyahu really wants to be the one who brings peace, he must set an unequivocal policy and end the suspicion that Lieberman's statements represent the prime minister.

Some believe that like the waiting period in 1967, a national emergency cabinet must be set up swiftly, without petty accounts. Its sole purpose would be to strengthen the leadership for the survival test Israel may have to face. But after the Six-Day War, the emergency government turned into a paralyzed unity government. It focused on settlements in the territories and turned Israel into an occupation state, whose price we are paying today.

If Netanyahu really wants peace with Syria and an arrangement with the Palestinians, he must first get rid of Lieberman and his party, and perhaps Shas as well, and add Kadima to his government. Kadima leader Tzipi Livni may be miffed, but this is no time for settling accounts - it's a time for closing ranks. With Livni as vice premier and foreign minister and Mofaz as public security minister, it would not be a paralysis government but one that could march us to peace and security. Come on Bibi, forward march.