The Threat Inherent In A Palestinian State

www.frontpagemag.com ^ | May 13, 2003 | Don Feder

[Tailgunner Joe]

In his Feb. 26 speech to the American Enterprise Institute, President George W. Bush predicted, "Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage in Middle Eastern peace and set in motion progress toward a truly democratic Palestinian state.” He then gave his “personal commitment” to The Road Map, a plan concocted by Russia, the European Union and United Nations for an imposed settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This plan calls for a number of interim steps toward the imposition of a Palestinian state “containing the maximum contiguous territory.” Israel is to have no control over the borders and airspace of “Palestine,” thus no control over the importation of military hardware from throughout the Arab world.

This envisioned 23rd Arab state is to be created in two stages. Following elections, there will be a state with temporary borders and international recognition by the end of 2003. Permanent borders are to be established after the resolution of such thorny issues as the so-called right of return (the Palestinian demand to flood the rest of Israel with hundreds of thousands of refugees and their descendants), the status of Jerusalem and the fate of 250,000 Jews living in Arafatistan.

In his June 24, 2002 speech, the president assured us that a Palestinian state would only come after the removal of Arafat, the election of a new leadership “not compromised by terrorism,” the cessation of all terrorist acts and an end to incitement by the Palestinian Authority. Other than some window dressing – Arafat appointing his colleague Mahmoud Abbas (a Holocaust denier who supports the murder of Jews on the West Bank) prime minister of the PA– none of those conditions have been met.

Still, the administration has announced that as soon as the war is over, it will begin to push for implementation of The Road Map. Based on past experience, expect token efforts to be accepted as Palestinian compliance, while suicidal concessions are demanded of Israel.

No matter. Even if Arafat & Co. scrupulously adhered to The Road Map’s conditions, a Palestinian state would still be the grave of Israel.

To understand why, consider what’s been going on in the Palestinian Authority since the Iraq war started. Demonstrators have crowded the streets chanting, “Death to America. Death to Bush.” An official of Arafat’s PLO told Al-Jazerra TV, “Iraq’s battle is Palestine’s battle.”

Fiery sermons are regularly broadcast on Palestinian television, including one by Sheikh Ibrahim Mudayris expressing the hope that “Americans will drown in their own blood.” The PA renamed a city square in Jenin to honor the suicide bomber who murdered four American soldiers on March 27th.

Hamas (a member of Arafat’s PLO) enlisted terrorists to fight U.S. forces in Iraq. And Arafat sent Saddam his “warmest greetings” and “deepest prayers to Allah, may He … strengthen our brotherly ties, cooperation and solidarity.” In the past, those brotherly ties have included Arafat’s active support for Iraq in the Persian Gulf War and Saddam paying $25,000-bounties to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

This is the face of a future Palestinian state – not the diplomatic delusions of a peaceful and democratic Palestine living in harmony with Israel – but fundamentalism, irredentism and terrorism.

Since Olso, the Palestinians have given every indication that they will follow in the footsteps of every other Middle East tyranny. The Palestinian Authority inculcates virulent anti-Semitism in its media, school curriculum and religious broadcasts. Since September 2000, Palestinians have murdered 761 Jews and wounded more than 5,000 – almost 80 percent civilians. A March 8, 2003 poll showed 70% of Palestinians support these atrocities.

Yes, but the Palestinians must have a nation of their own, the international community insists. Why? The “Palestinian people” is an invention of Arab propagandists. PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein admitted this in a 1977 interview with a Dutch magazine. (“Only for political reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.”)

Arab inhabitants of Israel speak the same language, practice the same religion and observe the same customs as Arab Moslems throughout the region. They would be completely at home anywhere in the Middle East.

In the 1920s, the British lopped off 77 percent of Mandate Palestine and presented it to the Hashmite dynasty. It became Trans Jordan, latter the Kingdom of Jordan. If there is a Palestinian Arab homeland, it is located on the East Bank of the Jordan.

There has never been an independent Arab state on any of the land designated the West Bank – or on the rest of Israel, for that matter. The territory targeted for a Palestinian state was illegally occupied by Jordan for 19 years and liberated by Israel in 1967. It is Biblical Israel (Abraham is buried in Hebron, not Tel Aviv.) -- the land promised by God to Abraham’s descendants in perpetuity. Moslems currently control 99.9 percent of the land in the Middle East. Including the West Bank and Gaza, the Jews have a nation half the size of California’s San Bernardino County.

A Palestinian state living in peace and harmony with Israel? But, of course – just the way Nazi Germany peacefully co-existed with the rump Czech state, after Hitler acquired the Sudatenland. Land for peace has a distinguished lineage.

Speaking to Arab audiences, Arafat frequently refers to the “phased plan,” a strategy adopted by the PLO in 1974. In an interview with Jordanian television, shortly after Oslo, Arafat explained this strategy: “Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.” That remains Arafat’s dream – one shared by the Palestinian people and Arabs throughout the region – to expunge the existence of Israel in stages.

You can have a Jewish state or a Palestinian state. You can not have both.

Why? Consider the topography of Judea and Samaria, designated the West Bank. The Judean mountains are the high ground. (Pre-1967 Israel is a costal plain.) If Israel controls them, invaders from the East have to fight there way up these heights. In Palestinian hands, Israel’s heartland – with 80 percent of its population, most of its industry and military assets – would be within range of mortars, Katyusha rockets and shoulder-held Stinger missiles. Every plane taking off from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport would become a target. Jerusalem would be surrounded on three sides by hostile territory.

If it loses the land West of the Jordan, instead of an Eastern border 40 miles in length, Israel’s new border will be over 200 miles long, impossible to police.

A nation needs strategic depth to survive a surprise attack. The redrawn map of Israel will be nine-miles wide at its narrow waist. A tank column could race across it, and cut the country in half, in short order.

In the decade since Oslo, Arafat has consistently violated his pledges regarding the size of his “police force” and weapons. Even with Israel controlling the borders of the Palestinian Authority, it’s proven difficult to block the importation of arms. The Karine A, Arafat’s illegal arms ship seized in the Red Sea in January, 2002, contained 50 tons Iranian of weapons, including Katyusha rockets, anti-tank missiles, land mines, sniper rifles, mortar shells and explosives. With the Jordanian and Egyptian borders in the hands of a sovereign Palestinian state, weapons – including tanks and anti-aircraft guns – would pour into the Republic of Jihad.

A Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza would become a staging area for the conquest of the rest of “Palestine.” In the next war, troops and armored columns from Syria and other Arab combatants would have unimpeded access through Palestine to the rump Israeli state.

In an article in the December 1999 issue of Commentary, Yuval Steinitz, a member of the Knesset for the Likud party, notes that once the disputed territories have been severed from the rest of the nation, “the tiny area of the Jewish state, together with its over-reliance on reserve forces … casts a giant shadow of doubt of another kind altogether: namely, over its ability to withstand a lightening strike. An enemy’s penetration into the heart of Israel could prevent the mobilization and equipment of its military reserves in addition to interrupting many other vital operations.”

Palestinian forces would be used as an advance column for the main Arab army – infiltrating Israel (across that 200-mile long border), conducting guerrilla operations, disrupting mobilization, cutting supply lines and communications and cause panic in civilian areas.

What amazes me is that – given the record of the “Palestinians,” their frequently stated intensions and Israel’s geographic vulnerability – anyone one in his right mind could imagine that a Palestinian state would exist in peace and harmony with Israel.

President Bush says he wants to bring democracy to the Middle East. If he’s serious about creating a Palestinian state, he will end up destroying the only democracy in the Middle East – Israel.

The obstacle to peace in the region isn’t the “plight” of the Palestinians or their lack of a state – it’s Arab revanchism coupled with Islamic fundamentalism. The idea of a sovereign Jewish state anywhere in the Middle East, is intolerable to devout Moslems and Arab nationalists alike – a sacrilege to the former and a mortal affront to the latter.

You will not find a more unlikely candidate for democracy than Arab Moslems. There is a reason why, among the 22 nations of the Arab world, not one even approaches popular rule – why they consistently produce leaders like Nasser, Assad (father and son), Khomeini, Khadafy, Arafat, Saddam and bin Laden.

Nor is there a religion less likely to co-exist with other faiths than Islam. From Nigeria, to Egypt, to the Balkans, to Pakistan, the Kashmir and the Philippines, Islam is at war with Christians, Hindus and Jews. The idea that a Palestinian state will be the sole exception to what historian Samuel Huntington calls “Islam’s bloody borders” goes beyond wishful thinking.

A Palestinian state would make a mockery of our own war on terror, reward the terror masters and create another Iraq on the borders of our only reliable ally in the region. The only peace it would bring to Israel is the peace of the grave.

[MatthewViti]

bump

[joesnuffy]

shiiites vs whahahabbis

[Salem]

Bump to the Middle East list.

[Alouette]

ping

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

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Similar comments, from reputable sources.

Center for Security Policy

http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=papers&code=94-D_23 Thoughtful military experts have for many years recognized the risks for Israel should it no longer be able to control the territories it acquired in the course of the Six-Day War in June 1967. For example, shortly after the end of that conflict, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded that, "From a strictly military point of view, Israel would require the retention of some captured territory in order to provide militarily defensible borders."

The Chiefs made the following specific findings:

"The prominent high ground running north-south through the middle of West Jordan [Judea and Samaria] generally...would provide Israel with a militarily defensible border."

"The commanding territory east of the boundary of 4 June 1967 [the Golan Heights]...overlooks the Galilee area. To provide a defense in-depth, Israel would need a strip about 15 miles wide extending from the border of Lebanon to the border of Jordan."

"By occupying the Gaza Strip, Israel would trade approximately 45 miles of hostile border for eight. Configured as it [was prior to 1967], the strip serve[d] as a salient for introduction of Arab subversion and terrorism and its retention would be to Israel's military advantage."

"To defend the Jerusalem area would require that the boundary of Israel be positioned to the east of the city to provide for the organization of an adequate defensive position."

…………………………

These findings are as valid today as they were in 1967. In fact, they have been reaffirmed again and again by knowledgeable military professionals. For example, in October 1988, 100 senior U.S. generals and admirals issued a public call for Israel to "retain the Jordan River line as [her] eastern security border" noting that:

"...If Israel loses this line, it would have virtually no warning of attack, its border would be three times longer than the present one. In the midsection of the country it would be 9 to 18 miles from the Mediterranean. Virtually all the population would be subject to artillery bombardment. The plain north of Tel Aviv could be riven by an armored salient within hours. The quick mobilization of its civilian army -- Israel's main hope for survival -- would be disrupted easily, and perhaps irreversibly."

…………………………

In 1991, Lieutenant General Thomas Kelly, the highly respected chief of Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Desert Storm, said, "Israel's control over these areas is the only guarantee, however imperfect, of peace. Their loss is a prescription for war." He added that:

"The West Bank mountains, and especially their approaches, are the critical terrain. If an enemy secures those passes, Jerusalem and all of Israel become uncovered. Without the West Bank, Israel is only eight miles wide at its narrowest point. That makes it indefensible."

…………………………

Importantly, the Israeli Defense Forces are under no illusion about the abiding importance of strategic analyses like that performed by the Joint Chiefs. As the IDF Chief of Staff Ehud Barak said in May 1993:

"The 1967 Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum [is] still applicable. The Arab arms are reaching superiority over Israel with a qualitative as well as quantitative edge....If Israel has to retake the territories proposed to be given up, we cannot do it without tremendous casualties."

…………………………………

The Pentagon Plan - Joint Chiefs of Staff Map (1974)

[SJackson]

Thanks

[risk]

''Israel is to have no control over the borders and airspace of “Palestine,” thus no control over the importation of military hardware from throughout the Arab world.''

I can't see that working out well for Israel. Given our investment in the security and safety of the Jewish people in the middle east, I can't see why we would agree to such a proposal unless we just want to watch it collapse, much as every other rational (yet disadvantageous) proposal has garnered.

[Salem]

"Similar comments, from reputable sources."

Thanks for the info! All this is a great help.

[Nix 2]

"The Threat Inherent In A Palestinian State"

...is any biped who actually calls itself a palestinian.

[dennisw]

sez it all!

[carton253]

What amazes me is that – given the record of the “Palestinians,” their frequently stated intensions and Israel’s geographic vulnerability – anyone one in his right mind could imagine that a Palestinian state would exist in peace and harmony with Israel.

This amazes me also...

[SJackson]

''Israel is to have no control over the borders and airspace of “Palestine,” thus no control over the importation of military hardware from throughout the Arab world.''

This is one of the many significant achievements of Yasser's recent reign of terror. All previous discussions of a "state" acknowledged the fact that it would be demilitarized, and that Israel would have control of airspace and be responsible for defence. Aside from the obvious problem of Egyptian (Iraq is out of the equation for now) tanks in Gaza and the West Bank, the airspace issue alone will require significant commercial flight curtailments into Tel Aviv, and resulting economic harm.

Terror can work, and Yasser's a master at playing the west.