COMMENTARY

The Coming Catastrophic War in the Middle East
by Louis Rene Beres
January 23rd, 1997

The so-called Middle East Peace Process will soon bring forth a new round of terrorism and an unprecedented spasm of war. From the start, the Oslo Accords which are the codification of this Process, have been used by the Palestinian Authority (PA) -- in close cooperation with Syria, Iran and Iraq -- as the optimal means to destroy Israel once and for all. By any reasonable expectation, this attrition/annihilation strategy of war through "peace," so long as it remains unopposed in Jerusalem and Washington, will prove successful.

In their very wildest dreams, Israel's Islamic enemies could never have imagined the extent to which the Jewish State would cooperate in its own destruction. Encouraged by an altogether naive President of the United States, the Netanyahu Government, in the fashion of its immediate predecessors, still refuses to recognize what should now be perfectly obvious to everyone: The state now being created by the Palestinian Authority, with its allies in Damascus, Teheran and Baghdad, is to be erected upon the ruins of the State of Israel. The fact that Netanyahu insists that there will be no Palestinian state, but only an "entity" like "Puerto Rico," is doubly foolish, combining insupportable optimism with a demeaning image of paternalism.

What about Jerusalem? Here the Prime Minister plans to draw the line. There is no way, says Mr. Netanyahu, that Israel will even consider a redivision of its eternal capital. Yet, we have heard such claims before, and no post-Oslo Israeli Government has simply declared, as it should have, that Jerusalem is altogether nonnegotiable. Instead, these governments have merely postponed the Jerusalem question by relegating it to "final status" consultations.


By any reasonable expectation, this attrition/annihilation strategy of war
through "peace," so long as it remains unopposed in Jerusalem
and Washington, will prove successful.


Yassir Arafat is completely truthful when he declares that the developing state of Palestine will have Jerusalem as its capital. He can certainly offer nothing less to a collaborative Islamic world that now acts as an essential midwife to the birth of another Arab state and as gravedigger at the death of the Jewish State. This means that, in the near future, Netanyahu can either surrender Jerusalem the way in which he recently surrendered Hevron in which case the incremental and "peaceful" removal of Israel by the Oslo Accords will continue or he can hold on to Jerusalem. If he chooses the second option, which is certainly more plausible, the Palestinian Authority and its allies will assuredly unleash a new round of terrorism in Israel, one that might even include chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

This brings us to war. As reported recently by the U.S. Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, national leaders in most Arab states and in Iran "are convinced that the present vulnerability of Israel is so great that there is a unique opportunity to, at the very least, begin the process leading to the destruction of Israel." Preoccupied with the battle against expanding terrorist violence throughout Israel, Netanyahu will be forced to concentrate his military strength internally, leaving the country's peripheries exposed. Aided by Palestinian "police" created by the "peace process," the terrorists will open up many fronts that could ultimately immobilize Israel's capacity to defend itself. In the ensuing chaos, for which Israel remains largely unprepared, Arab citizens of Israel -- now almost one million strong -- might join their Palestinian brethren in "Palestine" to finally rid the region of its hated "Jewish cancer."

Yassir Arafat has already destroyed Israel's intelligence network in Judea/Samaria/Gaza (Palestine), and is now in full control of the Islamic terror group Hamas, according to a recent "revolutionary reassessment" of the PLO Chairman by Israeli intelligence services. As part of an agreement with Syria, Damascus will begin to provide the Palestinian Authority with advanced weapons. In Gaza, where Arafat has built himself a personal command bunker four stories deep, the PA security services are accumulating large stockpiles of anti-tank and antiaircraft-weapons, including missiles, even though they are prohibited by the Oslo Accords.

When the time comes, and Israel is in chaos because of its diffused response to multiple acts of terrorism, the Palestinian Authority -- together with sympathetic Israeli Arabs, Syrians, Iraqis and Iranians -- will commence full scale war, a war likely to be joined by Israel's first "peace partner" Egypt. The Israelis, having forsaken the preemption option while it might still have been purposeful (because they didn't want to upset the "peace process" or The Americans) may then also have to face coordinated ballistic missile attacks against population centers involving unconventional warheads. Lacking an operational ballistic missile defense capability, which Israel's enemies know is still years away, Jerusalem's only real option will be to wreak parallel destruction upon its enemies. The final result of the American-led Middle East Peace Process will thus be catastrophic regional war, a conflagration from which there will be neither escape nor sanctuary and in which Washington's expert participation will be limited to burying the dead.
# Click for the B'tzedek commentary index.

:: ^ :top :::::: home ::::::: projects ::::::: the jerusalem connection ::::::: contact jefi ::::::: sms/email alerts ::