Imagine There's No Israel

Since 1948, Arab countries have used Israel's presence, and the "holy cause" of Palestinian exile, as the focus of their foreign and domestic policies, the spur of their ambitions, and a goad to one another.

"Palestinian guerrilla raids, first used by Nasser in the 1950s, had proven a viable means of goring the Israelis while scoring points in Arab public opinion," writes Michael B. Oren in Six Days of War: June, 1967, and the Making of the Modern Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2002). "Their operations were cheaply financed and, in face of charges of government collusion, plausibly denied, especially when mounted from neighboring countries."

Ironically, Arab nations owe their very present-day existence to the presence of what the French ambassador to England famously called "that s**ty little country."

Imagine there's no country, as John Lennon idiotically wrote -- in this case, imagine no Israel. The post-colonial Middle East breaks into two Arab factions, as it actually did: "progressive" regimes driven by demagogues and financed by the Soviet Union allied against "reactionary monarchies," originally Iraq, Jordan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. In reality, of course, all these regimes are corrupt, rife with violence, factional in-fighting, and subject to serial assassinations and blundering foreign adventurisms.

Syria, heavy with Soviet armaments, swallows up Lebanon and Jordan (no more Hashemite monarchy, no more King Hussein, never any nice beautiful Queen Noor), then turns toward Saudi Arabia. At that point, Syria has yet another coup, and nobody knows what happens next. Initially goaded by Syria, Egypt attacks Saudi Arabia (as it actually did, repeatedly, from its outpost in a Soviet/Afghanistan-style incursion into Yemen). The House of Saud falls from the pressure, but Egypt blows itself apart, too, from sheer internal incompetence and from the military pressures of its occupation of Yemen. There is an Iran-Iraq War, merely 20 years earlier than the one that actually did happen. The Shah is deposed a decade before he actually was. The Soviets achieve a long-desired southern strategic goal, isolating Turkey, opening a route to the Indian Ocean and the Eastern Mediterranean.

All this regional violence would take place against a backdrop of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and against the potential for a superpower standoff -- a potential that underlay every world development in the 1960s and 1970s. Obviously, the United States and England could not have stayed out. Russia could not have stayed out, either.

And guess what? Nobody would ever have heard of "Palestinians." The region now so sharply divided between "Palestinians" and Israelis would have disappeared in the first Syrian rush. The name "Palestine" would be a remote historical curiosity, like Prussia.

Indeed, almost all the country boundaries we assume fixed would not exist -- if Israel did not exist. Today, the United States, for all purposes alone, must contemplate not only a "regime change" in Iraq, but the potential for reshaping an entire region along some revolutionary lines. Arabic countries are hanging on by their fingernails, sustained only by their historic hatred for Jews and for "the Zionist entity."

We would like to believe that, in the "war on terror," we confront "extreme" elements, that, once dealt with, these "extremists" would disappear and countries fall back inside their familiar identities and boundaries.

But it is all of a piece, the hatred, the backwardness, the lies, and the threat. The Jerusalem Post published a sad, beautiful, immensely charitable editorial on May 29, noting the launch of an Israeli spy satellite, the Ofek-5, as sophisticated as any from the United States, Russia, or China. The Post took justifiable pride that the satellite was "built entirely in Israel" and launched on an Israeli rocket. The satellite will circle the earth every 90 minutes, and is capable of photographing virtually any spot on earth to a resolution of one meter. Its existence, as the Post says, "renders a repetition of the onslaughts attempted in 1948, 1967, and 1973 increasingly unthinkable."

"Technology is not a panacea," the Post concludes, "but it is a great handicap to be without it. No Arab state can dream of doing what Israel did this week until the Arab world is politically and economically transformed. This transformation, as a handful of mostly Western-based Arab intellectuals have pointed out, has been blocked by the Arab obsession with Israel. The launching of the Ofek-5 symbolizes not only Israel's technological prowess, but how badly the Arab world needs peace."

Not only could no Arab state launch such a satellite. No Arab newspaper could approach the magnificent generosity of that sentiment.

But, as the editorial notes, the transformation of Arab countries -- to prosperity, modernity, and peace -- is "blocked by (their) obsession with Israel." That is the conundrum. Without Israel, they would not exist. Without the obsession, they will disappear.

Maybe without Israel, the United States would be faced with increasing cases of terrorism. Or maybe the Arabs would have no reason for their "jihad" aganist the Great Satan.

Seriously, Israel is the front lines, and is the recieving end of much "Arab Street" anger. Islamic world is a failed society, and it is inevitable for them to export their problems throughout the world as that is the case today.

If Israel existed or not, we would still have a problem with the Arabs: I have little doubt they still would be organised, as this article says, into undemocratic states, and their leadership would be at a loss to explain how utterly backward they are. And what is the most convenient tactic for regimes in trouble? To blame those troubles on an external source, e.g., the West.

With or without Israel, these people would still be a thorn in our side. With Israel, at least we have a thorn directly in THEIR side.

Regards, Ivan

With or without Israel, these people would still be a thorn in our side. With Israel, at least we have a thorn directly in THEIR side.

Should one day that Israel fall, do you really think that they will stop hating the West?

Of course not, they would only be bolder, and will not rest until the West is completely destroyed!

This seems like a plausible scenario for what would have happened if there were no Israel in the first place.

But should the international islamic jihad ever conquer Israel, that little country would only serve to whet the jihad's appetite for much bigger feasts: ALL of the Christian countries of the Balkans, Italy, Germany, France, the UK, and ultimately both Russia and the United States.

And the jihadists have a plausible plan (including immigration, conversion, a high birth rate,subversion, crime, terrorism, and war) to accomplish their evil goals! It's time to stop them NOW!!!!

Clearly the IDF is standing guard at the borders of insanity. I only hope the poison of hatred does not contaminate their thinking and orders.

Clearly the IDF is standing guard at the borders of insanity. I only hope the poison of hatred does not contaminate their thinking and orders.

The IDF is just amazing. If they make one crucial mistake, the existence of Israel itself is at stake.

Boy, we're lucky that our soldiers are not faced with the same kind of stress that the IDF confronts every day.

I wouldn't go so far as to say the IDF is amazing. They are not even elite, except when compared to their neighbors. I will say that their backs are to the wall so the motivation level is high.

Well, there are only 5 million Jews aganist around 250 million hostile Arabs!

Maybe they aren't quite as advanced as the Americans, but they have one of the world's best armed forces! Just compare them to France. See what I mean.

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