Palestine, More of a Threat to Israel than The Uprising

The below is an article written by Louis Rene Beres, Professor of International Law at Purdue University, in 1989.

The following article appears exactly as it was written by Professor Beres ten years ago this month. Events have proven his predictions to be entirely correct.

Louis Rene Beres - Professor of International Law
February 1989

A pair of prominent Israeli commentators have recently pointed out that continued control of the territories would have grave consequences for Israel's security. In this connection, Yehoshafat Harkabi, a former chief of military intelligence, argues in his newest book, ISRAEL'S FATEFUL HOUR, that refusal to end occupation of West Bank (Judea/Samaria) and Gaza will produce escalating terrorism and further incentives for war by neighboring Arab states. And Abba Eban, Foreign Minister of Israel from 1966 to 1974, insists in a January 2, 1989 editorial in THE NEW YORK TIMES ("Israel, Hardly the Monaco of the Middle East") that Israel would have nothing to fear from an independent Palestine. Such a state, he claimed, "would be the weakest military entity on earth."

In these assessments, Harkabi is certainly correct, but nowhere does he compare the risks to Israel of ongoing "occupation" with those of a Palestinian state. If he had offered such a comparison, perhaps he would understand that continuing Israeli control of Judea/Samaria/Gaza has its risks, but that a bordering state of Palestine would be far worse. As for Mr. Eban, he is wrong altogether. If there were to be an Arab-ruled state in Judea/Samaria/Gaza, its danger to Israel would lie less in its own army than in the several other Arab armies and insurgents that would soon burrow themselves into a new form of occupation. To suggest that the risks to Israel can be ascertained by simply comparing the Israeli army to the far more modest forces of a prospective "Palestine" is to assume a totally static condition in the new state, one that naively offers only the "best case" scenario for Israel.

These assessments, therefore, are hardly in Jerusalem's best interests. Israel is surely not "the Monaco of the Middle East," but neither would Palestine be as benign a ministate as Abba Eban suggests. Before Israel can reasonably conclude that the "occupation" is intolerable, its leaders will first have to determine whether it is actually less tolerable than Palestinian statehood. If it isn't less tolerable, then rationality would require continuing control, however painful, costly and unfortunate. And such rationality would not even take into account the overwhelmingly important fact that Judea and Samaria are inherent parts of the Jewish State.

What, exactly, are the major strategic risks to Israel posed by an independent Palestine? To answer this question, one must first understand that several of the Arab states are still preparing for war with Israel and that a new Arab state in Judea/Samaria/Gaza would open another hot border for the Jewish state. As a result, the Arab-Israeli balance of forces could change decisively, possibly even providing the needed incentive for Arab first-strikes.

Ballistic missiles that could carry chemical warheads now exist in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Saudi Arabia. Significantly, Syria - which is now, together with Iraq - the most serious country threat to Israel - has also been receiving massive stocks of new conventional weapons, including main battle tanks, combat aircraft, anti-aircraft systems and tactical missiles. Still anxious to recover the Golan which it lost in 1967, the regime of Hafez al-Assad has already deployed 4,200 tanks on its border with Israel.

Ballistic missiles could also carry nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia recently purchased CSS2-class surface-to-surface missiles from China that could reach any part of the Middle East from Riyadh. Iraq, even after Israel's highly-successful 1981 air attack against the French-built Osiraq nuclear reactor, still possesses about 12.5 kilograms (27.5 pounds) of French-supplied highly-enriched uranium, enough for at least one nuclear weapon. During its recent "War of Cities" with Iran, the Baghdad regime consistently violated the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibitions against chemical weapons.

What about delivery systems? Iraq has several types of aircraft that would be capable of meeting these needs, including the Soviet-supplied TU-22, TU-16, and MiG-23, and the French-supplied Mirage F-1. Iraq has also acquired the SCUD B from the Soviet Union, a 300-km ballistic missile with inertial guidance, and - also from the Soviets - the FROG-7, an unguided free rocket over ground with a 60 to 70-km range. It has also been reported that the Soviets have exported an unknown number of SS-21s to Iraq, a replacement for the FROG with improved guidance capability. For now, the principal impediment to Iraqi nuclear weapons is the temporary incapacity to manufacture or acquire nuclear missile warheads.

Let us turn to Iran. Until the revolution in January 1979, Iran's nuclear program was the most ambitious in the entire Middle East. In addition to open, commercial activities, the Shah most likely initiated a full-scale nuclear weapons research program. This program included work on two technologies for producing weapons-grade nuclear materials, enrichment and reprocessing, and on the actual design of nuclear weapons.

Because of Washington's unwillingness to undermine the Shah in the days preceding the final overthrow, Khomeini inherited substantial nuclear assets. The precise configuration of this nuclear infrastructure, including weapons-relevant technology and equipment, is still known only to selected persons within the Messianic Khomeini regime. What is known is that this regime is diligently reactivating the nation's nuclear program.

From Iran's point of view, nuclear weapons must appear as an essential counterweight to Iraq's superiority in conventional armaments. Moreover, nuclear weapons would seem to have special value in enhancing the Khomeini regime's status in the region and its associated capacity to advance the objectives of militant Islamic fundamentalism. It should not be surprising, therefore, that Iran, in 1984, opened a new research center at Isfahan.

What delivery systems are available to Iran? At the moment, the Tehran regime has two lines of advanced combat aircraft that can deliver a nuclear bomb: the F-4D/E Phantom II and the F-5E/F Tiger II. It also has a ballistic missile force to deliver nuclear warheads. Although there is no available information that Iran is making substantial progress in the manufacture of such warheads, that country has maintained and expanded its very costly nuclear research program at a time of increasing economic dislocation and hardship. Iran remains a potential nuclear power that should not be dismissed out of hand.

What about Syria? Recognizing that they cannot rely on their air force to penetrate Israeli air space, Syria knows that its Soviet-designed Scud-B missile could, if fired from Syria, reach all of Israel, except the southern Negev, in six minutes. A direct descendant of the German V-2, the Scud is a weapon that could do enormous damage to civilian populations. In this connection, it could carry, if Syria should ever acquire nuclear warheads - the implements of atomic war.

If Palestine provided the essential incentive for Arab war against Israel, a war that ended with the use of nuclear weapons, then it could wind up as Armageddon. But even if there would be no escalation to nuclear warfighting, Palestine could still become another Lebanon. Here, many different Palestinian factions, both within and outside the P.L.O. umbrella, would contend for control over the new Arab state. Various insurgents that do not threaten Israel's very survival in the intifadah would now be able to inflict great harm on their neighbor to the west.

Let me be more precise. Should an independent Palestine be created from Judea/Samaria/Gaza, its President would almost certainly be Yasir Arafat, and its principal leaders would be drawn from the P.L.O. chairman's faction, Al Fatah. Probably within hours of the new state's effective beginnings, its government and its ruling elite would be targeted by P.L.O. radicals and by Palestinian parties opposed to P.L.O. Among the radicals, some (e.g., Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine) might represent Syrian interests and others (e.g., Arab Liberation Front and Palestine Liberation Front) might front for Iraq.

Among the anti-P.L.O. parties, most (e.g., Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command; Popular Struggle Front; the Abu Musa organization and Saiqa) are tied intimately to Syria and one (Fatah Revolutionary Council) - known popularly as the Abu Nidal group - is linked to Libya. Samir Gosheh's Popular Struggle Front currently displays more independence from Syria than Ahmed Jebril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command, and Saiqa is essentially an integral Syrian force with only nominal Palestinian identity.

Even the mainstream Fatah organization could spawn anti-Arafat cells. Saleh Khalef, Fatah's second-in-command (nom de guerre: Abu Lyad) was closely associated with Black September and is far more radical than Arafat. Farouk Kaddoumi (nom de guerre: Abu Lutf) has close ties to the Soviet Union and eastern bloc countries and Khaled al-Hassan frequently challenges Arafat in search of more collective leadership.

We see that many factions, including some newly developing Islamic fundamentalists spun off from Egypt's Moslem Brotherhood, would contend for control over a new state of Palestine and that all of these factions would resort unhesitatingly to high levels of violence. Before long, the resident Palestinian population would suffer far more than it had under Israeli rule and anarchy would pose a real threat to Jordan. Over time, it is likely that Jordan would be undermined altogether and become part of a "greater Palestine. Of course, Iraq, too, could gain a controlling position in Palestine, but this would depend upon the power of its Palestinian surrogates vis-a-vis those in other places. Ironically, the result of these events - of another Lebanon - would be enormously tragic for both Palestinians who seek a homeland and for Israelis who seek secure frontiers.

It follows from all of this that Palestine could pose a serious security risk to Israel, and that this risk may be far greater than that of maintaining possession of "the territories." This does not mean that Israel and the Palestinians should steer clear of meaningful negotiations or that Israel should avoid concerning itself with protecting the essential human rights of the Arab populations under its control. But it does mean that reasonable assessments of Israel's security compare the expected costs of both principal options for Judea/Samaria/Gaza: further IDF military administration and independence. In the absence of such a comparison, Israel could go from bad to worse, from a situation that is debilitating and demoralizing to one that is altogether intolerable.

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