The Blood Drippings of OY? – Fig Trees and Vineyards

Details about the man are sketchy. In fact, not much is known other than that he was a journalist who reportedly also had ties to the Israeli Foreign Ministry. In the years since the publication of his paper, he seems to have dropped out of public life…

By Richard Edmondson

Since the US invasion of Iraq 11 years ago, and particularly since the so-called “Arab Spring” uprising of three years ago, we have seen one country after another in the Muslim world bled, lacerated, and dismembered. Spasms of mayhem, recorded on videos, have particularly hit Syria, a nation that has been invaded by hordes of Wahhabi executioners backed and funded by the West and Saudi Arabia, in a conflict that has run on for almost three years. That conflict recently spilled over into Lebanon, whose capital city, Beirut, has seen at least six deadly bombings since July of last year, including two in one week—on December 27 and again on January 2. The most recent bombing there took place January 21 and killed an 18-year-old girl.

And these don’t include bombings and attacks outside of Beirut, in places like Hermel.

A question worth pondering is to what extent much of this germinated out of the mind of Oded Yinon. What’s that? Oh, you say you never heard of Oded Yinon? Welllll…………..pull up a chair and sit down!!! I’ll tell you about him! Pour yourself a cup of hot chocolate! Or some coffee if you prefer! Or perhaps you might want to pour something a little stronger once you hear what I have to say.

Oded Yinon—let’s call him “OY” for short—said that we’re living in a “new epoch in human history.” Whew! Sounds profound, doesn’t it? But wait, there’s more (unfortunately). OY said this new epoch would be characterized by “a breakdown of the rationalist, humanist outlook,” and he insisted that humankind is losing the ability to “assess the simplest things, especially when they concern the simple question of what is Good and what is Evil.”

So good and evil are essentially becoming irrelevant concepts. Got it? He alsosaid, and I quote:

The view that ethics plays no part in determining the direction Man takes, but rather his material needs do–that view is becoming prevalent today as we see a world in which nearly all values are disappearing.

When OY contended that views of ethics and questions of good and evil are being discarded, and that values are disappearing, what exactly did he mean? Did he mean this was taking place among all peoples of the earth? Or only among those at the top of the global pyramid? Or did he, perhaps alternately, mean that once the global elites had cast aside all concerns over ethics and values, the rest of the world could be counted upon to follow suit?

To try and answer these questions we might consider that OY made these statements, and much more, in a paper he wrote, entitled “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties,” that was published in 1982. At that time, it was OY’s view that this “new epoch in human history” was then in its “early stages.” Now, more than thirty years along, it does seem very much as if pesky anxieties over good and evil have been shaken off by most governments, if not entirely by their peoples.

Thinking about the rebels carrying out their atrocities in Syria, while John Kerry attended a “peace conference” in Switzerland where he vowed even even more US support for them, I am kind of reminded of these lines from my poem “The Faces of Humanity,” which I posted a bit over a week ago:

The face of the young woman,
Pregnant and unemployed, who gave birth to a son,
And who, as she rocked her tiny son, cried in fear at Satan’s
Dark playing of the pianoforte;

And you know? Looking around at the cannibal hordes in Syria as they go about severing human heads for fun and profit, occasionally beheading the wrong person, I can’t help wondering if that pianoforte is not the sound we’re hearing now in the background.

But to get back to the subject of Mr. OY—this Israeli Jew’s scholarly dissertation was entitled “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties.” It was published in February of 1982 in a magazine called Kivunim (Directions), a Hebrew publication of the World Zionist Organization. The intended audience presumably consisted of global Zionist elites, top echelons of the Israeli government, and probably also Zionist Jews occupying positions of power in Western governments. Most likely also it was intended for the leadership of pro-Israel lobbies in those respective countries.

What were OY’s credentials for preaching to such an audience? Details about the man are sketchy. In fact, not much is known other than that he was a journalist who reportedly also had ties to the Israeli Foreign Ministry. In the years since the publication of his paper, he seems to have dropped out of public life. (More about which below).

Shortly after publication in Kivunim, OY’s text was translated into English by the Israeli dissident, the late Israel Shahak, who obviously recognized its significance—and in July of 1982, Shahak’s English translation was published by the Association of Arab-American University Graduates as part of its “Special Documents” series, along with the notation that it had been published earlier that year in Kivunim.

Stop and think for a moment what was going on in 1982. In June of that year, Israel invaded Lebanon, and in September Israeli forces under the command of the now-deceased Ariel Sharon observed and oversaw the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. The Iran-Iraq war also was raging—essentially, in many respects, a war between Sunnis and Shiites. In that war, the US backed Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, while at the same time—in the very same war mind you—Israel provided support to Iran, a Shia state which had had a revolution only a few years before.

The Iran-Iraq war resulted in more than a million deaths on both sides, with the US supplying chemical weapons to Iraq, while Israeli arms sales to Iran totaled an estimated $500 million and included 150 M-40 antitank guns with 24,000 shells for each gun; spare parts for tank and aircraft engines, ammunition; and TOW missiles. A crucial role was played by Israeli arms dealer Yaacov Nimrodi, who reportedly signed a deal with Iran’s Ministry of National Defense, and much of the Israeli weaponry was paid for by Iranian oil delivered to Israel. Also Israel facilitated delivery of American-supplied weapons to Iran as well, this in the course of what became known as the Iran-Contra Affair. In other words, while Israel was backing one side in the war, the US essentially was backing both sides! “Michael Ledeen, a consultant of National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, requested from Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres help in the sale of arms to Iran,” Wikipedia reports. You’ve probably heard of Ledeen. He’s the neocon alleged to have had a hand in the Niger yellowcake uranium forgeries whose writings, at the National Review, Wall Street Journal and elsewhere, usually or often include the emblematic phrase, “faster, please.”

Keep in mind that the Cold War was still under way at this time as well, and in his paper OY makes several references to the Soviet Union, even suggesting at one point that countering Soviet efforts to exploit oil and mineral resources in the third world “is our major foreign policy challenge.” But it is clear that his chief concern was the Middle East. His paper (full text below) is divided into 31 sections, each numbered, each consisting of one stand-alone paragraph. Out of the 31 sections, only five are devoted to the Soviet Union. By contrast, 24 deal with the Muslim world. And specifically how Israel might assert itself as the dominant, uncontested power in the region by causing the breakup of Muslim countries into smaller, weaker statelets. In fact, Shahak, in his own commentary on the paper, describes the references to the USSR as but “lip service,” and asserts that OY’s chief objective was the turning of Muslim states into what would essentially be little more than “village associations,” under “leaders” with no loyalty or accountability to the population, and with “the establishment of Israeli garrisons in focal places between the mini states, equipped with the necessary mobile destructive forces.”

So let’s take a close look at OY’s grand “strategy” for reshaping the Middle East more to his liking and turning the Jewish state into an imperial hegemon in the process. There’s actually nothing new about this strategy. In fact, it’s quite old, and you’ve all heard of it: it’s called “divide and conquer.” OY saw the Muslim world as built like “a house of cards,” and he viewed every single Arab or Muslim state as facing “ethnic social destruction from within, and in some a civil war is already raging.” He also noted that Arab countries had been cobbled together by the colonial powers, mainly Britain and France, without any consideration for the ethnic/religious makeup of the populations and without their wishes and desires taken into account.

This world, with its ethnic minorities, its factions and internal crises, which is astonishingly self-destructive, as we can see in Lebanon, in non-Arab Iran and now also in Syria, is unable to deal successfully with its fundamental problems and does not therefore constitute a real threat against the State of Israel in the long run, but only in the short run where its immediate military power has great import. In the long run, this world will be unable to exist within its present framework in the areas around us without having to go through genuine revolutionary changes.

He also noted—and this perhaps pertaining to his comment about survival being contingent only upon “revolutionary changes”—that “in this giant and fractured world there are a few wealthy groups and a huge mass of poor people.”

Throughout the sections of his paper OY proceeds to examine each country, one by one, analyzing the social divisions within, calculating their potential for wreaking havoc, with a view toward how Israel might exploit these fractures to hasten the state’s dissolution and dismemberment. For instance, here is what he says about Syria:

Syria is fundamentally no different from Lebanon except in the strong military regime which rules it. But the real civil war taking place nowadays between the Sunni majority and the Shi’ite Alawi ruling minority (a mere 12% of the population) testifies to the severity of the domestic trouble.

And also on Syria:

Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi’ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today.

And here is how he analyzed the situation in Lebanon:

Lebanon is torn apart and its economy is falling to pieces. It is a state in which there is no centralized power, but only 5 de facto sovereign authorities (Christian in the north, supported by the Syrians and under the rule of the Franjieh clan, in the East an area of direct Syrian conquest, in the center a Phalangist controlled Christian enclave, in the south and up to the Litani river a mostly Palestinian region controlled by the PLO and Major Haddad’s state of Christians and half a million Shi’ites)… Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula

But apparently his main concern at the time was Iraq:

Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger thanSyria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us.

OY noted that the majority of the Iraqi population is comprised of Shiites, who live under a Sunni ruling minority. This situation, he said, also applies to the makeup of the Iraqi Army—Shiite principally, though with Sunni commanders. Then he makes a comment that is altogether quite striking for those of us who have been watching events unfold in the Middle East lately and feeling ourselves quite perplexed over the fact that Muslims, or some Muslims at any rate, genuinely appear more interested in fighting other Muslims than in facing their common enemy: Israel. Here is what he says on that, and again keep in mind he’s talking about the ethno-religious makeup of the Iraqi Army: “This has great significance in the long run, and that is why it will not be possible to retain the loyalty of the army for a long time except where it comes to the only common denominator: The hostility towards Israel, and today even that is insufficient.”

So all these divisions within Muslim societies were to be exploited, and they were to be exploited to the max:

A sad and very stormy situation surrounds Israel and creates challenges for it, problems, risks but also far-reaching opportunities for the first time since 1967. Chances are that opportunities missed at that timewill become achievable in the Eighties to an extent and along dimensions which we cannot even imagine today…
The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target.

“Sad.” Right. Can’t you just tell he’s shedding tears over it? OY of course thought Syria, the softer target, would be the first to fall, with Iraq following suit later on, so he got it backwards, but otherwise his predictions have proven remarkably accurate. Remarkably accurate, that is, except for one thing: Despite Israel’s (and its US lobby’s) best efforts, the Syrian government has not fallen. (At least not yet.)

Of course it wasn’t just the “Eastern front” OY was concerned about. There was also the Western front—meaning Egypt and the rest of North Africa. But before we get to that, let’s pause for a brief interlude here while we reflect upon the fact that when policies of this nature are put into effect, or that when gasoline is poured onto a fire, the result is an explosion. And in explosions like this, real people die. In other words, let’s take it from the abstract…to the personal.

Look at the girl in the photo below. Her name is Maria Hussein al-Jawhari. Ave Maria. Apparently her parents named her after the mother of Jesus.

Maria was killed in the bomb blast that hit southern Beirut on January 21. It was a suicide car bombing. The bomb exploded on Al-Arid Street in the Haret Hriek neighborhood. This is a mixed neighborhood of Christians and Shia Muslims. The image above is from Maria’s Facebook page. She was 18 years old, and she seems to have had a premonition of her death. These are the words she wrote: “This is the third bombing that I escape, I don’t know if the fourth will kill me—feeling sad.” Maria wrote those words on January 2—when a previous bomb exploded in Haret Hreik. Nineteen days later, the fourth bombing—in the same neighborhood, and in fact only about 70 meters from the third bombing—did in fact kill her. After her death, her Facebook post reportedly went viral. Maria worked at a women’s dress shop in Beirut. This is a picture of her in better days:

“One subject we would sometimes talk about was her seemingly very large collection of beautiful head scarves which she seemed proud of,” said a friend who knew her.

And this is a picture of Ali Bashir.

Ali, too, was killed in the January 21 blast. He was a college student and was reportedly intent on completing his education. He also is said to have been very fond of sports, excelling particularly at soccer, or football. Ali and Maria were both in the same café when they died.

The explosion reportedly sent body parts flying. This is what Al-Arid Street looked like in the wake of the attack:

Two other people also died in the blast, Ahmed Obeidi and Khodr Srour, while 31 people were wounded.

“Why don’t they (the terrorists) go to Occupied Palestine and blow themselves up between Israelis?” wondered a business owner in the district.

Al-Nusra Front in Lebanon, an offshoot of Al-Nusra in Syria, took credit for the bombing. The supposed target was Hezbollah, a political party and resistance group native to southern Beirut. In its statement claiming credit for the attack, Al Nusra said it considers all areas of Lebanon in which Hezbollah maintains “bases” or “bastions” to be “legitimate targets” for future attacks. So far in these despicable attacks civilians like Maria and Ali seem to be the chief victims. The US government, which claims to be fighting a war on terrorism, has not bothered to condemn the bombings. But that’s okay. All the white phosphorous smoke on seven continents couldn’t shroud the hypocrisy emanating from Washington or hide the rather giant, atrocious footprint of the Israeli lobby there.

Hezbollah, it should be remembered, forced Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon in 2000 (had it not done so the country likely would still be under occupation with Israel exploiting its water resources), and also fought a war against the Jewish state in 2006, achieving significant military successes and severely hammering Israel’s reputation for military invincibility.

But that’s about enough of this interlude. Let’s return to our subject at hand—the cuddly and genial Mr. OY.

The Dark Age

First off, before we go any further, keep in mind the characteristics of the “new epoch” we’re living in. No ethics. No values. No morality. No sense of right or wrong or good or evil. In fact, he even said that the “dominant process” under way is the breakdown of these things. Or, as he put it: “The dominant process is the breakdown of the rationalist, humanist outlook as the major cornerstone supporting the life and achievements of Western civilization since the Renaissance.”

In other words, we’re going into a dark age.

“The essential concepts of human society, especially those of the West, are undergoing a change due to political, military and economic transformations,” he also said. Well the “economic transformations” were not so visible in 1982, but they sure are starkly apparent now: the gap between rich and poor is wider than it has ever been. This isn’t just true in America any more. According to a recent Oxfam report, the 85 richest people on earth now have the same amount of wealth as the bottom half of the global population.

And what of the “political transformations” we’ve seen? These, too, are laid bare for all to see. While it could be argued that the American government was firmly in the hip pocket of the Israeli lobby in 1982, this was not true of most governments in Europe. The collapse of Europe’s autonomy, and the rise of leaders like the poltroonish Francois Hollande of France, is a thing that has come about largely in the last decade.

While military transformations are a constant, and the technology for killing never ceases advancing, what is new is that the military forces of Western, Gentile nations are now being deployed on behalf of Israel. Think about it. Prior to 1982, whenever America got involved in wars, the driving factor was the national interest, or what was perceived as the national interest. But not so since. In 1982, the American people were suffering from what war hawks complainingly referred to as the “Vietnam syndrome.” Meaning they were sick of war and saw no reason for getting involved in a new one. But that changed for good with 9/11. Vietnam syndrome evaporated in about the time it took Building 7 to collapse in its own footprint. The war in Iraq was pushed for by AIPAC. The war drums were pounded by Israel’s supporters in the media, some of them veterans of PNAC. And now the same supporters, and the same lobby, are trying to whip up a war with Iran.

So yes, on the subject of “transformations”—political, military, and economic—it does seem OY got it right on all three counts.

To recap:

“The view that ethics plays no part in determining the direction Man takes, but rather his material needs do–that view is becoming prevalent today as we see a world in which nearly all values are disappearing. We are losing the ability to assess the simplest things, especially when they concern the simple question of what is Good and what is Evil.”

Funny. I could have sworn I just heard the sound of the pianoforte amp up a notch.

Previously we examined OY’s assessment of Israel’s “Eastern front” and the opportunities existent for exploiting divisions in those societies. Now let’s take a look at his analysis of the “Western front.”

Apart from Egypt, all the Maghreb states are made up of a mixture of Arabs and non-Arab Berbers. In Algeria there is already a civil war raging in the Kabile mountains between the two nations in the country. Morocco and Algeria are at war with each other over Spanish Sahara, in addition to the internal struggle in each of them. Militant Islam endangers the integrity of Tunisia and Qaddafi organizes wars which are destructive from the Arab point of view, from a country which is sparsely populated and which cannot become a powerful nation. That is why he has been attempting unifications in the past with states that are more genuine, like Egypt and Syria. Sudan, the most torn apart state in the Arab Moslem world today is built upon four groups hostile to each other, an Arab Moslem Sunni minority which rules over a majority of non-Arab Africans, Pagans, and Christians. In Egypt there is a Sunni Moslem majority facing a large minority of Christians which is dominant in upper Egypt: some 7 million of them, so that even Sadat, in his speech on May 8, expressed the fear that they will want a state of their own, something like a “second” Christian Lebanon in Egypt.

Well, the Christians of Egypt haven’t gotten their own state, but certainly Sudan, “the most torn apart state in the Arab Moslem world,” has been split asunder. The destabilization of Sudan was a policy objective of Israel for many years and these efforts finally came to fruition on July 9, 2011, when the Republic of South Sudan was officially formed. Israeli businesses began moving in almost immediately. “The potential to make money in many different fields is enormous,” said Meir Greiver, founder of the Israeli-owned South Sudan Development Company. “They have gold, uranium. Some also say there is some aluminum. It is absolutely a place where things can be done.”

Of course the most populous state on Israel’s “Western front” is Egypt. OY believed the peace treaty with Egypt had been a mistake, and he felt that regaining “the Sinai peninsula with its present and potential resources is therefore a political priority,” though one that was temporarily “obstructed” by the Camp David accord.

The myth of Egypt as the strong leader of the Arab World was demolished back in 1956 and definitely did not survive 1967, but our policy, as in the return of the Sinai, served to turn the myth into “fact.” In reality, however, Egypt’s power in proportion both to Israel alone and to the rest of the Arab World has gone down about 50 percent since 1967. Egypt is no longer the leading political power in the Arab World and is economically on the verge of a crisis. Without foreign assistance the crisis will come tomorrow.

And this:

Egypt, in its present domestic political picture, is already a corpse, all the more so if we take into account the growing Moslem-Christian rift. Breaking Egypt down territorially into distinct geographical regions is the political aim of Israel in the nineteen eighties on its Western front…Egypt is divided and torn apart into many foci of authority. If Egypt falls apart, countries like Libya, Sudan or even the more distant states will not continue to exist in their present form and will join the downfall and dissolution of Egypt. The vision of a Christian Coptic State in Upper Egypt alongside a number of weak states with very localized power and without a centralized government as to date, is the key to a historical development which was only set back by the peace agreement but which seems inevitable in the long run.

In other words, peace bad, war good.

So how did OY feel about the Palestinians and the Occupied Territories? Well, needless to say there’s no mention of ending the occupation. In fact, he was very much in favor of expanding the Jewish population into the occupied areas. Or in other words, he was an early backer of the illegal settlement enterprise.

Within Israel the distinction between the areas of ’67 and the territories beyond them, those of ’48, has always been meaningless for Arabs and nowadays no longer has any significance for us. The problem should be seen in its entirety without any divisions as of ’67. It should be clear, under any future political situation or military constellation, that the solution of the problem of the indigenous Arabs will come only when they recognize the existence of Israel in secure borders up to the Jordan river and beyond it, as our existential need in this difficult epoch, the nuclear epoch which we shall soon enter. Itis no longer possible to live with three fourths of the Jewish population on the dense shoreline which is so dangerous in a nuclear epoch.

Note the words “nuclear epoch.” OY seems to have envisioned nuclear war as an inevitable component of the new dark age—and certainly, given all the gasoline he proposes pouring, one might expect the odds for this to be pretty high.

Wait. There it goes again.

Much of what OY expresses is almost verbatim to what we are hearing out of the mouths of prominent Israelis today, and while he doesn’t use the term “Auschwitz borders” per se, the meaning is pretty clear:

Dispersal of the population is therefore a domestic strategic aim of the highest order; otherwise, we shall cease to exist within any borders. Judea, Samaria and the Galilee are our sole guarantee for national existence, and if we do not become the majority in the mountain areas, we shall not rule in the country and we shall be like the Crusaders, who lost this country which was not theirs anyhow, and in which they were foreigners to begin with. Rebalancing the country demographically, strategically and economically is the highest and most central aim today. Taking hold of the mountain watershed from Beersheba to the Upper Galilee is the national aim generated by the major strategic consideration which is settling the mountainous part of the country that is empty of Jews today.

I can’t imagine what more proof the world could possibly require at this point—that Israel has no intentions of making peace with the Palestinians, that it neverhad any such intentions, and that the current “peace process” is nothing more than a sham to hoodwink a gullible public. How much proof do you really need?

So if Israeli Jews are to settle throughout the West Bank (i.e. “Judea and Samaria”) where, pray tell, are the Palestinians to live and have a homeland? OY had an answer for this too—they were to go to Jordan, where Israel would facilitate the creation of a Palestinian state.

There is no chance that Jordan will continue to exist in its present structure for a long time, and Israel’s policy, both in war and in peace, ought to be directed at the liquidation of Jordan under the present regime and the transfer of power to the Palestinian majority. Changing the regime east of the river will also cause the termination of the problem of the territories densely populated with Arabs west of the Jordan. Whether in war or under conditions of peace, emigration from the territories and economic demographic freeze in them, are the guarantees for the coming change on both banks of the river, and we ought to be active in order to accelerate this process in the nearest future.

Doubtless the monarchy in Jordan is all too well aware that it will continue to exist only insofar as it remains useful to the state of Israel. “Genuine coexistence and peace will reign over theland only when the Arabs understand that without Jewish rule between the Jordan and the sea they will have neither existence nor security,” OY warns ominously. “A nation of their own and security will be theirs only in Jordan.”

So what does Mr. OY have to say about Iran? Actually not much, but then keep in mind that at the time he published his paper, Israel was supplying weapons to Iran as part of its strategic efforts aimed at breaking up Iraq, and OY probably would have felt the need for a certain amount of circumspection.

A peculiar thing about all this is that if you do an Internet search today, there doesn’t seem to be anything current about Oded Yinon. He seems to have totally dropped out of public life. Our research assistant, MSA, is pretty good at finding information. If it’s out there, she usually finds it. She could find nothing current on him either. There’s not a Wikipedia article about him. Nothing. Has he been deliberately wiped clean? Is he still alive? Is he dead? Did he ever even exist?

The only thing that lives on is his document, “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s,” which apparently, thanks to Israel Shahak, has been distributed too widely to erase. Shahak, who died in 2001, is perhaps best known for his work, Jewish History Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years.” That book awakened a lot of people to the Jewish state’s decidedly non-benevolent intentions, and it includes a curious passage on views of Satan, particularly found in cabbalist thought, the driving ideology behind the Israeli settler movement:

Or take another example: both before and after a meal, a pious Jew ritually washes his hands, uttering a special blessing. On one of these two occasions he is worshipping God, by promoting the divine union of Son and Daughter; but on the other he is worshipping Satan, who likes Jewish prayers and ritual acts so much that when he is offered a few of them it keeps him busy for a while and he forgets to pester the divine Daughter [i.e. Shekinah/Wisdom-see book of Proverbs]. Indeed, the cabbalists believe that some of the sacrifices burnt in the Temple were intended for Satan.

The cabbalists may actually be right on that score if the words of Jesus are any indication:

You belong to your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44)

Before closing, why don’t we pause for another interlude? Refresh your drink. Go to the bathroom if you need to. I’ll wait…Better? Comfortable? Okay. Let’s take a fascinating little excursion into history. The past has a lot to do with the present, and history has a lot to do with determining how best to go about wrecking a country. This is something fully recognized by a lot of Israeli political analysts as well as its esteemed and learned Arabic-Islamic studies experts (of which there are many in Israel—OY wasn’t the only one). As I alluded earlier, it is quite baffling to many of us, watching events play out in Syria and Lebanon with Muslims committing horrible acts of violence against other Muslims. Why do this to each other, we ask ourselves, when all Muslims face a common enemy in Israel? Perhaps you asked yourself that very question. The gasoline has obviously been poured. But there must have been something there that was ignitable in the first place, so what was it?

The history and the causes of the divisions between Sunni and Shia Muslims is the subject of an article published by Dr. Mordechai Kedar. Published on a Zionist website, the article is quite interesting, comments slipped in by the author to support the current media narrative on Syria notwithstanding. Kedar is a professor in the Department of Arabic Studies at Bar-Ilan University who also served with Israeli Military Intelligence for 25 years. He calls the Shiite–Sunni conflict “the most deadly and unsolvable conflict in the Middle East,” and his piece was published on the Arutz Sheva website last November in conjunction with Ashura. Ashura is the day on which Shia Muslims annually mark the martyrdom of Hussein bin Ali.

Hussein was the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and was beheaded in the city of Karbala, in southern Iraq, in the year 680. He was the undisputed leader of the Shia sect at the time, and his head was taken to Damascus, where it was put on display by the Sunni caliph, Yazid bin Muawiyah. But what brought about the division between the two groups in the first place? Here is how Kedar relates it:

The story begins in the year 632, the moment that Muhammad died. Immediately upon his death the struggle began over who would succeed to the most powerful position in Islam – the office of Caliph, Muhammad’s replacement and the leader of Islam.
Ali bin Abi Talib was Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, since he was married to Fatima, daughter of Allah’s messenger and his first wife, Hadija. Fatima bore to Ali two sons, Hasan and Hussein, and two daughters – Zainab and Umm Kulthum.
While Muhammad was still alive, his daughter Fatima quarreled with Aisha, Muhammad’s last wife, who was younger than Fatima by several years. After Muhammad’s death, Aisha’s father, Abu Bakr, was appointed as the leader of Islam, which was against Fatima’s wishes, who saw her husband Ali as the natural successor to Muhammad, since he was Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, as well as the father of Muhammad’s grandchildren.
There were severe struggles among the group of people that surrounded the first three caliphs, Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman because of the family feud over who would inherit the leadership.
Ali was eventually appointed as the fourth caliph in the year 656 after his predecessor, Uthman, was murdered. Those who opposed Ali, principally members of the Umayyah family, accused him of being involved in the murder of Uthman and during all five years that he ruled, he had to fight his adversaries continually.
The governor of Syria, Muawiya, rose up and pronounced himself caliph. His son, Yazid, was the caliph who gave the instructions to murder Hussein bin Ali.
The murder of Hussein occurred in Southern Iraq, near the city of Karbala. He was murdered together with several dozens of his friends and family members, with only one baby surviving to continue the dynasty. The murder, which occurred in 680 – remains the defining event for “Shi’at Ali”, the “sect of Ali”, which is the source of the name “Shia” or Shi’ite, the name of the stream of Islam that supports the leadership of Ali’s descendants.

Despite the large amount of time that has elapsed, and despite the fact that there have been many periods of peace between the two sects—and even numerous instances of Shiites and Sunnis intermarrying—the conflict has never been resolved and has continued to bubble below the surface in a manner of speaking. Pour gasoline on it and—well, you know what happens.

The Wahhabis, the sect of Islam that originated in Saudi Arabia in the 16^thcentury, regard Shiites as heretics in the strictest sense. With more than a decade of US invasions, sanctions, air assaults, and drone attacks, Muslim societies throughout the Middle East are under a great deal of stress, and it is well known that when populations are under stress there is a tendency to turn toward religious fundamentalism. Kedar makes mention of a couple of quite interesting items:

In one of the Arab villages in northern Israel, a number of families changed over to the Shi’ite side of Islam after Hezbollah’s “divine victory” in 2006, and as a result, these families have been banned: their youth were expelled from the schools and the stores in the village were closed to them.
A few months ago in Egypt, a leader of the small Shi’ite sect was slaughtered together with several of his aides, and in Europe there are mosques that have been built with Saudi money on condition that Shi’ites will not be permitted to enter their gates.

be collapsing before too long) that Israeli intelligence analysts, as well as its illustrious “Arabic studies” scholars, carefully observe events of this nature.

Most if not all universities in Israel have an Arabic/Islamic studies program, and a few years ago a program of compulsory Arabic language studies was begun in Israeli schools, starting in the fifth grade. Training the future OYs maybe? Whose job, presumably, would be to continue to exploit weaknesses and divisions in the Muslim world, furthering the blood drippings, should it suit the national aim.

Could somebody please turn down the sound?

***

A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties

by Oded Yinon

This essay originally appeared in Hebrew in KIVUNIM (Directions), A Journal for Judaism and Zionism; Issue No, 14–Winter, 5742, February 1982, Editor: Yoram Beck. Editorial Committee: Eli Eyal, Yoram Beck, Amnon Hadari, Yohanan Manor, Elieser Schweid. Published by the Department of Publicity/The World Zionist Organization, Jerusalem.

At the outset of the nineteen eighties the State of Israel is in need of a new perspective as to its place, its aims and national targets, at home and abroad. This need has become even more vital due to a number of central processes which the country, the region and the world are undergoing. We are living today in the early stages of a new epoch in human history which is not at all similar to its predecessor, and its characteristics are totally different from what we have hitherto known. That is why we need an understanding of the central processes which typify this historical epoch on the one hand, and on the other hand we need a world outlook and an operational strategy in accordance with the new conditions. The existence, prosperity and steadfastness of the Jewish state will depend upon its ability to adopt a new framework for its domestic and foreign affairs.

This epoch is characterized by several traits which we can already diagnose, and which symbolize a genuine revolution in our present lifestyle. The dominant process is the breakdown of the rationalist, humanist outlook as the major cornerstone supporting the life and achievements of Western civilization since the Renaissance. The political, social and economic views which have emanated from this foundation have been based on several “truths” which are presently disappearing–for example, the view that man as an individual is the center of the universe and everything exists in order to fulfill his basic material needs. This position is being invalidated in the present when it has become clear that the amount of resources in the cosmos does not meet Man’s requirements, his economic needs or his demographic constraints. In a world in which there are four billion human beings and economic and energy resources which do not grow proportionally to meet the needs of mankind, it is unrealistic to expect to fulfill the main requirement of Western Society, i.e., the wish and aspiration for boundless consumption. The view that ethics plays no part in determining the direction Man takes, but rather his material needs do–that view is becoming prevalent today as we see a world in which nearly all values are disappearing. We are losing the ability to assess the simplest things, especially when they concern the simple question of what is Good and what is Evil.

The vision of man’s limitless aspirations and abilities shrinks in the face of the sad facts of life, when we witness the break-up of world order around us. The view which promises liberty and freedom to mankind seems absurd in light of the sad fact that three fourths of the human race lives under totalitarian regimes. The views concerning equality and social justice have been transformed by socialism and especially by Communism into a laughing stock. There is no argument as to the truth of these two ideas, but it is clear that they have not been put into practice properly and the majority of mankind has lost the liberty, the freedom and the opportunity for equality and justice. In this nuclear world in which we are (still) living in relative peace for thirty years, the concept of peace and coexistence among nations has no meaning when a superpower like the USSR holds a military and political doctrine of the sort it has: that not only is a nuclear war possible and necessary in order to achieve the ends of Marxism, but that it is possible to survive after it, not to speak of the fact that one can be victorious in it.

The essential concepts of human society, especially those of the West, are undergoing a change due to political, military and economic transformations. Thus, the nuclear and conventional might of the USSR has transformed the epoch that has just ended into the last respite before the great saga that will demolish a large part of our world in a multi-dimensional global war, in comparison with which the past world wars will have been mere child’s play. The power of nuclear as well as of conventional weapons, their quantity, their precision and quality will turn most of our world upside down within a few years, and we must align ourselves so as to face that in Israel. That is, then, the main threat to our existence and that of the Western world. The war over resources in the world, the Arab monopoly on oil, and the need of the West to import most of its raw materials from the Third World, are transforming the world we know, given that one of the major aims of the USSR is to defeat the West by gaining control over the gigantic resources in the Persian Gulf and in the southern part of Africa, in which the majority of world minerals are located. We can imagine the dimensions of the global confrontation which will face us in the future.

The Gorshkov doctrine calls for Soviet control of the oceans and mineral rich areas of the Third World. That together with the present Soviet nuclear doctrine which holds that it is possible to manage, win and survive a nuclear war, in the course of which the West’s military might well be destroyed and its inhabitants made slaves in the service of Marxism-Leninism, is the main danger to world peace and to our own existence. Since 1967, the Soviets have transformed Clausewitz’ dictum into “War is the continuation of policy in nuclear means,” and made it the motto which guides all their policies. Already today they are busy carrying out their aims in our region and throughout the world, and the need to face them becomes the major element in our country’s security policy and of course that of the rest of the Free World. That is our major foreign challenge.

The Arab Moslem world, therefore, is not the major strategic problem which we shall face in the Eighties, despite the fact that it carries the main threat against Israel, due to its growing military might. This world, with its ethnic minorities, its factions and internal crises, which is astonishingly self-destructive, as we can see in Lebanon, in non-Arab Iran and now also in Syria, is unable to deal successfully with its fundamental problems and does not therefore constitute a real threat against the State of Israel in the long run, but only in the short run where its immediate military power has great import. In the long run, this world will be unable to exist within its present framework in the areas around us without having to go through genuine revolutionary changes. The Moslem Arab World is built like a temporary house of cards put together by foreigners (France and Britain in the Nineteen Twenties), without the wishes and desires of the inhabitants having been taken into account. It was arbitrarily divided into 19 states, all made of combinations of minorites and ethnic groups which are hostile to one another, so that every Arab Moslem state nowadays faces ethnic social destruction from within, and in some a civil war is already raging. Most of the Arabs, 118 million out of 170 million, live in Africa, mostly in Egypt (45 million today).

Apart from Egypt, all the Maghreb states are made up of a mixture of Arabs and non-Arab Berbers. In Algeria there is already a civil war raging in the Kabile mountains between the two nations in the country. Morocco and Algeria are at war with each other over Spanish Sahara, in addition to the internal struggle in each of them. Militant Islam endangers the integrity of Tunisia and Qaddafi organizes wars which are destructive from the Arab point of view, from a country which is sparsely populated and which cannot become a powerful nation. That is why he has been attempting unifications in the past with states that are more genuine, like Egypt and Syria. Sudan, the most torn apart state in the Arab Moslem world today is built upon four groups hostile to each other, an Arab Moslem Sunni minority which rules over a majority of non-Arab Africans, Pagans, and Christians. In Egypt there is a Sunni Moslem majority facing a large minority of Christians which is dominant in upper Egypt: some 7 million of them, so that even Sadat, in his speech on May 8, expressed the fear that they will want a state of their own, something like a “second” Christian Lebanon in Egypt.

All the Arab States east of Israel are torn apart, broken up and riddled with inner conflict even more than those of the Maghreb. Syria is fundamentally no different from Lebanon except in the strong military regime which rules it. But the real civil war taking place nowadays between the Sunni majority and the Shi’ite Alawi ruling minority (a mere 12% of the population) testifies to the severity of the domestic trouble.

Iraq is, once again, no different in essence from its neighbors, although its majority is Shi’ite and the ruling minority Sunni. Sixty-five percent of the population has no say in politics, in which an elite of 20 percent holds the power. In addition there is a large Kurdish minority in the north, and if it weren’t for the strength of the ruling regime, the army and the oil revenues, Iraq’s future state would be no different than that of Lebanon in the past or of Syria today. The seeds of inner conflict and civil war are apparent today already,especially after the rise of Khomeini to power in Iran, a leader whom the Shi’ites in Iraq view as their natural leader.

All the Gulf principalities and Saudi Arabia are built upon a delicate house of sand in which there is only oil. In Kuwait, the Kuwaitis constitute only a quarter of the population. In Bahrain, the Shi’ites are the majority but are deprived of power. In the UAE, Shi’ites are once again the majority but the Sunnis are in power. The same is true of Oman and North Yemen. Even in the Marxist South Yemen there is a sizable Shi’ite minority. In Saudi Arabia half the population is foreign, Egyptian and Yemenite, but a Saudi minority holds power.

Jordan is in reality Palestinian, ruled by a Trans-Jordanian Bedouin minority, but most of the army and certainly the bureaucracy is now Palestinian. As a matter of fact Amman is as Palestinian as Nablus. All of these countries have powerful armies, relatively speaking. But there is a problem there too. The Syrian army today is mostly Sunni with an Alawi officer corps, the Iraqi army Shi’ite with Sunni commanders. This has great significance in the long run, and that is why it will not be possible to retain the loyalty of the army for a long time except where it comes to the only common denominator: The hostility towards Israel, and today even that is insufficient.

Alongside the Arabs, split as they are, the other Moslem states share a similar predicament. Half of Iran’s population is comprised of a Persian speaking group and the other half of an ethnically Turkish group.Turkey’s population comprises a Turkish Sunni Moslem majority, some 50%, and two large minorities, 12 million Shi’ite Alawis and 6 million Sunni Kurds. In Afghanistan there are 5 million Shi’ites who constitute one third of the population. In Sunni Pakistan there are 15 million Shi’ites who endanger the existence of that state.

This national ethnic minority picture extending from Morocco to India and from Somalia to Turkey points to the absence of stability and a rapid degeneration in the entire region. When this picture is added to the economic one, we see how the entire region is built like a house of cards, unable to withstand its severe problems.

In this giant and fractured world there are a few wealthy groups and a huge mass of poor people. Most of the Arabs have an average yearly income of 300 dollars. That is the situation in Egypt, in most of the Maghreb countries except for Libya, and in Iraq. Lebanon is torn apart and its economy is falling to pieces. It is a state in which there is no centralized power, but only 5 de facto sovereign authorities (Christian in the north, supported by the Syrians and under the rule of the Franjieh clan, in the East an area of direct Syrian conquest, in the center a Phalangist controlled Christian enclave, in the south and up to the Litani river a mostly Palestinian region controlled by the PLO and Major Haddad’s state of Christians and half a million Shi’ites). Syria is in an even graver situation and even the assistance she will obtain in the future after the unification with Libya will not be sufficient for dealing with the basic problems of existence and the maintenance of a large army. Egypt is in the worst situation: Millions are on the verge of hunger, half the labor force is unemployed, and housing is scarce in this most densely populated area of the world. Except for the army, there is not a single department operating efficiently and the state is in a permanent state of bankruptcy and depends entirely on American foreign assistance granted since the peace.⁶

|In the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Egypt there is the largest accumulation of money and oil in the world, but those enjoying it are tiny elites who lack a wide base of support and self-confidence, something that no army can guarantee. The Saudi army with all its equipment cannot defend the regime from real dangers at home or abroad, and what took place in Mecca in 1980 is only an example. A sad and very stormy situation surrounds Israel and creates challenges for it, problems, risks but also far-reaching opportunities for the first time since 1967. Chances are that opportunities missed at that timewill become achievable in the Eighties to an extent and along dimensions which we cannot even imagine today.

The “peace” policy and the return of territories, through a dependence upon the US, precludes the realization of the new option created for us. Since 1967, all the governments of Israel have tied our national aims down to narrow political needs, on the one hand, and on the other to destructive opinions at home which neutralized our capacities both at home and abroad. Failing to take steps towards the Arab population in the new territories, acquired in the course of a war forced upon us, is the major strategic error committed by Israel on the morning after the Six Day War. We could have saved ourselves all the bitter and dangerous conflict since then if we had given Jordan to the Palestinians who live west of the Jordan river. By doing that we would have neutralized the Palestinian problem which we nowadays face, and to which we have found solutions that are really no solutions at all, such as territorial compromise or autonomy which amount, in fact, to the same thing. Today, we suddenly face immense opportunities for transforming the situation thoroughly and this we must do in the coming decade, otherwise we shall not survive as a state.

In the course of the Nineteen Eighties, the State of Israel will have to go through far-reaching changes in its political and economic regime domestically, along with radical changes in its foreign policy, in order to stand up to the global and regional challenges of this new epoch. The loss of the Suez Canal oil fields, of the immense potential of the oil, gas and other natural resources in the Sinai peninsula which is geomorphologically identical to the rich oil-producing countries in the region, will result in an energy drain in the near future and will destroy our domestic economy: one quarter of our present GNP as well as one third of the budget is used for the purchase of oil. The search for raw materials in the Negev and on the coast will not, in the near future, serve to alter that state of affairs.

(Regaining) the Sinai peninsula with its present and potential resources is therefore a political priority which is obstructed by the Camp David and the peace agreements. The fault for that lies of course withthe present Israeli government and the governments which paved the road to the policy of territorial compromise, the Alignment governments since 1967. The Egyptians will not need to keep the peace treaty after the return of the Sinai, and they will do all they can to return to the fold of the Arab world and to the USSR in order to gain support and military assistance. American aid is guaranteed only for a short while, for the terms of the peace and the weakening of the U.S. both at home and abroad will bring about a reduction in aid. Without oil and the income from it, with the present enormous expenditure, we will not be able to get through 1982 under the present conditions andwe will have to act in order to return the situation to the status quo which existed in Sinai prior to Sadat’s visit and the mistaken peace agreement signed with him in March 1979.

Israel has two major routes through which to realize this purpose, one direct and the other indirect. The direct option is the less realistic one because of the nature of the regime and government in Israel as well as the wisdom of Sadat who obtained our withdrawal from Sinai, which was, next to the war of 1973, his major achievement since he took power. Israel will not unilaterally break the treaty, neither today, nor in 1982, unless it is very hard pressed economically and politically and Egypt provides Israel with the excuseto take the Sinai back into our hands for the fourth time in our short history. What is lefttherefore, is the indirect option. The economic situation in Egypt, the nature of the regime and its pan-Arab policy, will bring about a situation after April 1982 in which Israel will be forced to act directly or indirectly in order to regain control over Sinai as a strategic, economic and energy reserve for the long run. Egypt does not constitute a military strategic problem due to its internal conflicts and it could bedriven back to the post 1967 war situation in no more than one day.

The myth of Egypt as the strong leader of the Arab World was demolished back in 1956 and definitely did not survive 1967, but our policy, as in the return of the Sinai, served to turn the myth into “fact.” In reality, however, Egypt’s power in proportion both to Israel alone and to the rest of the Arab World has gone down about 50 percent since 1967. Egypt is no longer the leading political power in the Arab World and is economically on the verge of a crisis. Without foreign assistance the crisis will come tomorrow. In the short run, due to the return of the Sinai, Egypt will gain several advantages at our expense, but only in the short run until 1982, and that will not change the balance of power to its benefit, and will possibly bring about its downfall. Egypt, in its present domestic political picture, is already a corpse, all the more so if we take into account the growing Moslem-Christian rift. Breaking Egypt down territorially into distinct geographical regions is the political aim of Israel in the Nineteen Eighties on its Western front.

Egypt is divided and torn apart into many foci of authority. If Egypt falls apart, countries like Libya, Sudan or even the more distant states will not continue to exist in their present form and will join the downfall and dissolution of Egypt. The vision of a Christian Coptic State in Upper Egypt alongside a number of weak states with very localized power and without a centralized government as to date, is the key to a historical development which was only set back by the peace agreement but which seems inevitable in the long run.

The Western front, which on the surface appears more problematic, is in fact less complicated than the Eastern front, in which most of the events that make the headlines have been taking place recently. Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precendent for the entire Arab worldincluding Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unqiue areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi’ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, andcertainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today.

Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger thanSyria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman timesis possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi’ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. It is possible that the present Iranian-Iraqi confrontation will deepen this polarization.

The entire Arabian peninsula is a natural candidate for dissolution due to internal and external pressures, and the matter is inevitable especially in Saudi Arabia. Regardless of whether its economic might based on oil remains intact or whether it is diminished in the long run, the internal rifts and breakdowns are a clear and natural development in light of the present political structure.

Jordan constitutes an immediate strategic target in the short run but not in the long run, for it does notconstitute a real threat in the long run after its dissolution, the termination of the lengthy rule of King Hussein and the transfer of power to the Palestinians in the short run.

There is no chance that Jordan will continue to exist in its present structure for a long time, and Israel’s policy, both in war and in peace, ought to be directed at the liquidation of Jordan under the present regime and the transfer of power to the Palestinian majority. Changing the regime east of the river will also cause the termination of the problem of the territories densely populated with Arabs west of the Jordan. Whether in war or under conditions of peace, emigration from the territories and economic demographic freeze in them, are the guarantees for the coming change on both banks of the river, and we ought to be active in order to accelerate this process in the nearest future. The autonomy plan oughtalso to be rejected, as well as any compromise or division of the territories for, given the plans of the PLO and those of the Israeli Arabs themselves, the Shefa’amr plan of September 1980, it is not possible to go on living in this country in the present situation without separating the two nations, the Arabs to Jordan and the Jews to the areas west of the river. Genuine coexistence and peace will reign over theland only when the Arabs understand that without Jewish rule between the Jordan and the sea they will have neither existence nor security. A nation of their own and security will be theirs only in Jordan.

Within Israel the distinction between the areas of ’67 and the territories beyond them, those of ’48, has always been meaningless for Arabs and nowadays no longer has any significance for us. The problem should be seen in its entirety without any divisions as of ’67. It should be clear, under any future political situation or military constellation, that the solution of the problem of the indigenous Arabs will come only when they recognize the existence of Israel in secure borders up to the Jordan river and beyond it, as our existential need in this difficult epoch, the nuclear epoch which we shall soon enter. Itis no longer possible to live with three fourths of the Jewish population on the dense shoreline which is so dangerous in a nuclear epoch.

Dispersal of the population is therefore a domestic strategic aim of the highest order; otherwise, we shall cease to exist within any borders. Judea, Samaria and the Galilee are our sole guarantee for national existence, and if we do not become the majority in the mountain areas, we shall not rule in the country and we shall be like the Crusaders, who lost this country which was not theirs anyhow, and in which they were foreigners to begin with. Rebalancing the country demographically, strategically and economically is the highest and most central aim today. Taking hold of the mountain watershed from Beersheba to the Upper Galilee is the national aim generated by the major strategic consideration which is settling the mountainous part of the country that is empty of Jews today.

Realizing our aims on the Eastern front depends first on the realization of this internal strategic objective. The transformation of the political and economic structure, so as to enable the realization of these strategic aims, is the key to achieving the entire change. We need to change from a centralized economy in which the government is extensively involved, to an open and free market as well as to switch from depending upon the U.S. taxpayer to developing, with our own hands, of a genuine productive economic infrastructure. If we are not able to make this change freely and voluntarily, we shall be forced into it by world developments, especially in the areas of economics, energy, and politics, and by our own growing isolation.

From a military and strategic point of view, the West led by the U.S. is unable to withstand the global pressures of the USSR throughout the world, and Israel must therefore stand alone in the Eighties, without any foreign assistance, military or economic, and this is within our capacities today, with no compromises. Rapid changes in the world will also bring about a change in the condition of world Jewry to which Israel will become not only a last resort but the only existential option. We cannot assume that U.S. Jews, and the communities of Europe and Latin America will continue to exist in the present form in the future.

Our existence in this country itself is certain, and there is no force that could remove us from here either forcefully or by treachery (Sadat’s method). Despite the difficulties of the mistaken “peace” policy and the problem of the Israeli Arabs and those of the territories, we can effectively deal with these problems in the foreseeable future.