ISRAELI POSSESSION OF WMDs MAKES MIDEAST REGION VERY DIFFICULT TO REACH A PERMANENT PEACE

ISRAELI POSSESSION OF WMDs MAKES THE MIDEAST REGION VERY DIFFICULT TO REACH A PERMANENT PEACE

by Syarif Hidayat

The Israeli possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) has made the Middle East region very difficult to reach a permanent peace and Palestinian independent very far from being achieved. Possessing an overwhelming nuclear superiority allows Israel to act with impunity even in the face world wide opposition. Israel only wants Palestinian and Arab lands as well as hegemony in the world, but not peace with freedom and justice in the Middle East region.

According to Dr. Israel Shahak, "The wish for peace, so often assumed as the Israeli aim, is not a principle of Israeli policy, while the wish to extend Israeli domination and influence is." and "Israel is preparing for a war, nuclear if need be, for the sake of averting domestic change not to its liking, if it occurs in some or any Middle Eastern states... Israel clearly prepares itself to seek overtly a hegemony over the entire Middle East..., without hesitating to use for the purpose all means available, including nuclear ones."

The Israeli nuclear arsenal has profound implications for the future of peace in the Middle East, and indeed, for the entire planet. It is clear from Israel Shahak that Israel has no interest in peace except that which is dictated on its own terms, and has absolutely no intention of negotiating in good faith to curtail its nuclear program or discuss seriously a nuclear-free Middle East.

Israel Shahak (Hebrew: ישראל שחק‎; born Himmelstaub, April 28, 1933 – July 2, 2001) was a Polish-born Holocaust survivor and Israeli professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, known especially as a liberal political thinker, author, and civil rights activist. Between 1970-1990, he was president of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights and was an outspoken critic of the Israeli government. Shahak's writings on Judaism have been a source of widespread controversy.

Shahak first became concerned about Israel’s direction because of David Ben-Gurion's statement during the 1956 Suez War that Israel was fighting for "the kingdom of David and Solomon." In the 1960s he became involved in the Israeli League Against Religious Coercion. In 1965, he began his political activism against “classical Judaism” and Zionism.

The infamous Zionist leaders quotes:

Ariel Sharon, demonstrating the Israeli nuclear arsenal arrogance, says things like: "We are much more important than (Americans) think. We can take the Middle East with us whenever we go" and "Arabs may have the oil, but we have the matches."

“We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours." Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces - Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 13 April 1983, New York Times 14 April 1983.

“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” - David Ben-Gurion, founding father of Israel.

Moshe Dyan - 1969: "We came here to a country that was populated by Arabs and we are building here a Hebrew, a Jewish state; instead of the Arab villages, Jewish villages were established. You even do not know the names of those villages, and I do not blame you because these villages no longer exist. There is not a single Jewish settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab Village."

"I don't mind if after the job is done you put me in front of a Nuremberg Trial and then jail me for life. Hang me if you want, as a war criminal. What you don't understand is that the dirty work of Zionism is not finished yet, far from it." - Former Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, speaking to Amos Oz, editor of Davar, on Dec. 17, 1982.

I think American leaders are considering carefully Israel's nuclear weapons and its threats to use them if the United States ever withdraws its full backing or if Israel's possession of its stolen Palestinian lands is ever seriously endangered. Threats include retaliatory -- or even preemptive -- attacks on Muslim, Russian and even European and the US targets.
Any attack on Russia, of course, would quickly bring massive retaliation against Israel's greatest ally -- the United States.

No doubt this is a major reason U.S. political leaders approach Israel with fear and respect -- and rarely punish it for its violations of U.S. law, United Nations Resolutions, the Geneva Convention and a variety of other treaties. Israel has a nuclear knife to America's throat.

Israel's Arsenal of Mass Destruction

Today, estimates of the Israeli nuclear arsenal range from a minimum of 200 to a maximum of about 500. Whatever the number, there is little doubt that Israeli nukes are among the world's most sophisticated, largely designed for "war fighting" in the Middle East. A staple of the Israeli nuclear arsenal are "neutron bombs," miniaturized thermonuclear bombs designed to maximize deadly gamma radiation while minimizing blast effects and long term radiation- in essence designed to kill people while leaving property intact.

Weapons include ballistic missiles and bombers capable of reaching Moscow, cruise missiles, land mines(In the 1980s Israel planted nuclear land mines along the Golan Heights), and artillery shells with a range of 45 miles. In June, 2000 an Israeli submarine launched a cruise missile which hit a target 950 miles away, making Israel only the third nation after the U.S. and Russia with that capability. Israel will deploy 3 of these virtually impregnable submarines, each carrying 4 cruise missiles.

The bombs themselves range in size from "city busters" larger than the Hiroshima Bomb to tactical mini nukes. The Israeli arsenal of weapons of mass destruction clearly dwarfs the actual or potential arsenals of all other Middle Eastern states combined, and is vastly greater than any conceivable need for "deterrence."

Israel also possesses a comprehensive arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. According to the Sunday Times, Israel has produced both chemical and biological weapons with a sophisticated delivery system, quoting a senior Israeli intelligence official, "There is hardly a single known or unknown form of chemical or biological weapon . . .which is not manufactured at the Nes Tziyona Biological Institute."

The same report described F-16 fighter jets specially designed for chemical and biological payloads, with crews trained to load the weapons on a moments notice.

Israeli “Ethno Bomb” - The Real Ethnic Cleansing Bomb

In 1998, the Sunday Times reported that Israel, using research obtained from South Africa, was developing an "ethno bomb; "In developing their "ethno-bomb", Israeli scientists are trying to exploit medical advances by identifying distinctive a gene carried by some Arabs, then create a genetically modified bacterium or virus... The scientists are trying to engineer deadly micro-organisms that attack only those bearing the distinctive genes." Dedi Zucker, a leftist Member of Knesset, the Israeli parliament, denounced the research saying, "Morally, based on our history, and our tradition and our experience, such a weapon is monstrous and should be denied."

Israeli Nuclear Strategy

In popular imagination, the Israeli bomb is a "weapon of last resort," to be used only at the last minute to avoid annihilation, and many well intentioned but misled supporters of Israel still believe that to be the case. Whatever truth this formulation may have had in the minds of the early Israeli nuclear strategists, today the Israeli nuclear arsenal is inextricably linked to and integrated with overall Israeli military and political strategy. As Seymour Hersh says in classic understatement ; "The Samson Option is no longer the only nuclear option available to Israel."

Israel has made countless veiled nuclear threats against the Arab nations and against the Soviet Union(and by extension Russia since the end of the Cold War) One chilling example comes from Ariel Sharon, the current Israeli Prime Minister "Arabs may have the oil, but we have the matches."  (In 1983 Sharon also proposed to India that it join with Israel to attack Pakistani nuclear facilities; in the late 70s he proposed sending Israeli paratroopers to Tehran to prop up the Shah; and in 1982 he called for expanding Israel's security influence to stretch from "Mauritania to Afghanistan.")  In another example, Israeli nuclear expert Oded Brosh said in 1992, "...we need not be ashamed that the nuclear option is a major instrumentality of our defense as a deterrent against those who attack us."

Possessing chemical and biological weapons, an extremely sophisticated nuclear arsenal, and an aggressive strategy for their ACTUAL USE, Israel provides the major regional impetus for the development of weapons of mass destruction and represents an acute threat to security, peace and stability in the Middle East and the world.

According to Israel Shahak, "The wish for peace, so often assumed as the Israeli aim, is not in my view a principle of Israeli policy, while the wish to extend Israeli domination and influence is." and "Israel is preparing for a war, nuclear if need be, for the sake of averting domestic change not to its liking, if it occurs in some or any Middle Eastern states.... Israel clearly prepares itself to seek overtly a hegemony over the entire Middle East..., without hesitating to use for the purpose all means available, including nuclear ones."

Israel uses its nuclear arsenal not just in the context of deterrence" or of direct war fighting, but in other more subtle but no less important ways. For example, the possession of weapons of mass destruction can be a powerful lever to maintain the status quo, or to influence events to Israel's perceived advantage, such as to protect the so called moderate Arab states from internal insurrection, or to intervene in inter-Arab warfare.

In Israeli strategic jargon this concept is called "nonconventional compellence" and is exemplified by a quote from Shimon Peres; "acquiring a superior weapons system(read nuclear) would mean the possibility of using it for compellent purposes- that is forcing the other side to accept Israeli political demands, which presumably include a demand that the traditional status quo be accepted and a peace treaty signed."From a slightly different perspective, Robert Tuckerr asked in a Commentary magazine article in defense of Israeli nukes, "What would prevent Israel... from pursuing a hawkish policy employing a nuclear deterrent to freeze the status quo?"

Israel can act with impunity

Possessing an overwhelming nuclear superiority allows Israel to act with impunity even in the face world wide opposition. A case in point might be the invasion of Lebanon and destruction of Beirut in 1982, led by Ariel Sharon, which resulted in 20,000 deaths, most civilian. Despite the annihilation of a neighboring Arab state, not to mention the utter destruction of the Syrian Air Force, Israel was able to carry out the war for months at least partially due to its nuclear threat.

Another major use of the Israeli bomb is to compel the U.S. to act in Israel's favor, even when it runs counter to its own strategic interests. As early as 1956 Francis Perrin, head of the French A-bomb project wrote "We thought the Israeli Bomb was aimed at the Americans, not to launch it at the Americans, but to say, 'If you don't want to help us in a critical situation we will require you to help us; otherwise we will use our nuclear bombs.'"

During the 1973 war, Israel used nuclear blackmail to force Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon to airlift massive amounts of military hardware to Israel. The Israeli Ambassador, Simha Dinitz, is quoted as saying, at the time, "If a massive airlift to Israel does not start immediately, then I will know that the U.S. is reneging on its promises and...we will have to draw very serious conclusions..." Just one example of this strategy was spelled out in 1987 by Amos Rubin, economic adviser to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who said "If left to its own Israel will have no choice but to fall back on a riskier defense which will endanger itself and the world at large... To enable Israel to abstain from dependence on nuclear arms calls for $2 to 3 billion per year in U.S. aid." Since then Israel's nuclear arsenal has expanded exponentially, both quantitatively and qualitatively, while the U.S. money spigots remain wide open.

Regional and International Implications

Largely unknown to the world, the Middle East nearly exploded in all out war on February 22, 2001. According to the London Sunday Times and DEBKAfile, Israel went on high missile alert after receiving news from the U.S. of movement by 6 Iraqi armored divisions stationed along the Syrian border, and of launch preparations of surface to surface missiles. DEBKAfile, an Israeli based "counter-terrorism" information service, claims that the Iraqi missiles were deliberately taken to the highest alert level in order to test the U.S. and Israeli response. Despite an immediate attack by 42 U.S. and British war planes, the Iraqis suffered little apparent damage. The Israelis have warned Iraq that they are prepared to use neutron bombs in a preemptive attack against Iraqi missiles.

The Israeli nuclear arsenal has profound implications for the future of peace in the Middle East, and indeed, for the entire planet. It is clear from Dr. Israel Shahak that Israel has no interest in peace except that which is dictated on its own terms, and has absolutely no intention of negotiating in good faith to curtail its nuclear program or discuss seriously a nuclear-free Middle East,"Israel's insistence on the independent use of its nuclear weapons can be seen as the foundation on which Israeli grand strategy rests."

 According to Seymour Hersh, "the size and sophistication of Israel's nuclear arsenal allows men such as Ariel Sharon to dream of redrawing the map of the Middle East aided by the implicit threat of nuclear force." General Amnon Shahak-Lipkin, former Israeli Chief of Staff is quoted " It is never possible to talk to Iran about no matter what. Certainly about nuclearization. With Syria we cannot really talk either."Ze'ev Shiff, an Israeli military expert writing in Haaretz said, "Whoever believes that Israel will ever sign the UN Convention prohibiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons... is day dreaming,"and Munya Mardoch, Director of the Israeli Institute for the Development of Weaponry, said in 1994, "The moral and political meaning of nuclear weapons is that states which renounce their use are acquiescing to the status of Vassal states. All those states which feel satisfied with possessing conventional weapons alone are fated to become vassal states."

As Israeli society becomes more and more polarized, the influence of the radical right becomes stronger. According to Shahak, "The prospect of Gush Emunim, or some secular right-wing Israeli fanatics, or some some of the delerious Israeli Army generals, seizing control of Israeli nuclear weapons...cannot be precluded. ...while israeli jewish society undergoes a steady polarization, the Israeli security system increasingly relies on the recruitment of cohorts from the ranks of the extreme right."

 The Arab states, long aware of Israel's nuclear program, bitterly resent its coercive intent, and perceive its existence as the paramount threat to peace in the region, requiring their own weapons of mass destruction. During a future Middle Eastern war (a distinct possibility given the ascension of Ariel Sharon, an unindicted war criminal with a bloody record stretching from the massacre of Palestinian civilians at Quibya in 1953, to the massacre of Palestinian civilians at Sabra and Shatila in 1982 and beyond) the possible Israeli use of nuclear weapons should not be discounted. According to Shahak, "In Israeli terminology, the launching of missiles on to Israeli territory is regarded as 'nonconventional' regardless of whether they are equipped with explosives or poison gas." (Which requires a "non-conventional" response, a perhaps unique exception being the Iraqi SCUD attacks during the Gulf War.)

Israeli possession of WMDs could trigger a world conflagration

Meanwhile, the existence of an arsenal of mass destruction in such an unstable region in turn has serious implications for future arms control and disarmament negotiations, and even the threat of nuclear war. Seymour Hersh warns, "Should war break out in the Middle East again,... or should any Arab nation fire missiles against Israel, as the Iraqis did, a nuclear escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now be a strong probability." and Ezar Weissman, Israel's former President said "The nuclear issue is gaining momentum(and the) next war will not be conventional."

Russia and before it the Soviet Union has long been a major (if not the major) target of Israeli nukes. It is widely reported that the principal purpose of Jonathan Pollard's spying for Israel was to furnish satellite images of Soviet targets and other super sensitive data relating to U.S. nuclear targeting strategy. (Since launching its own satellite in 1988, Israel no longer needs U.S. spy secrets.) Israeli nukes aimed at the Russian heartland seriously complicate disarmament and arms control negotiations and, at the very least, the unilateral possession of nuclear weapons by Israel is enormously destabilizing, and dramatically lowers the threshold for their actual use, if not for all out nuclear war. In the words of  Mark Gaffney, "... if the familiar pattern (Israel refining its weapons of mass destruction with U.S. complicity) is not reversed soon- for whatever reason- the deepening Middle East conflict could trigger a world conflagration."

The actual Nuclear World War could be easily triggered by the illicit agreement between the crazy American President and the deranged and adventurous Israeli Prime Minister.

Please take a close look at the example of the actual Israeli nuclear threats to the world security: In 2002, while the United States was building for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon threatened that if Israel was attacked “Israel will react. Is it clear?”

Israeli defense analyst Zeev Schiff explained: “Israel could respond with a nuclear retaliation that would eradicate Iraq as a country.”  It is believed President George W. Bush gave Sharon the “Green-Light” to attack Baghdad in retaliation, including with Nuclear Weapons, but only if attacks came before the American military invasion.

The Middle East and World Peace Activists

Many Middle East Peace activists have been reluctant to discuss, let alone challenge, the Israeli monopoly on nuclear weapons in the region, often leading to incomplete and uninformed analyses and flawed action strategies. Placing the issue of Israeli weapons of mass destruction directly and honestly on the table and action agenda would have several salutary effects:

- First, it would expose a primary destabilizing dynamic driving the Middle East arms race and compelling the region's states to each seek their own "deterrent."

- Second, it would expose the grotesque double standard which sees the U.S. and Europe on the one hand condemning Iraq, Iran and Syria for developing weapons of mass destruction, while simultaneously protecting and enabling the principal culprit.

- Third, exposing Israel's nuclear strategy would focus international public attention, resulting in increased pressure to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction and negotiate a just peace in good faith.

- Finally, a nuclear free Israel would make a Nuclear Free Middle East and a comprehensive regional peace agreement much more likely. Unless and until the world community confronts Israel over its covert nuclear program it is unlikely that there will be any meaningful resolution of the Israeli-Arab conflict, a fact that Israel may be counting on as the Sharon era dawns.

PEACEFUL END or HORRIBLE END!!

I think the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would and could end, if : ...

1. The Zionists have become PEACE loving humans (peaceful end).

2. All Arab countries have nuclear weapons backed up by the sophisticated delivery systems (it could be horrible end (if one of the opposing sides pushes the button)  or peaceful end  (if the nuclear weapons are used for deterrent force only!)

3. God (Allah SWT) intervenes. The Creator has unlimited power, ways and means to intervene in worldly problems effectively like He did on Sodom and Gomorrah case. Allah SWT could applies the same solution against the intransigent Israel.

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

Lut or Lot (Arabic: لوط‎) (circa 1900 BC?), the Biblical Lot, is a messenger and an Islamic prophet mentioned in the Qur'an. He also appears in the Bible, but the Biblical stories of Lot are not entirely accepted within Islam. Lot is one of the few Old Testament figures who is venerated as a prophet in Islam but not in Judaism or Christianity.

According to Islamic tradition, Lut lived in Ur and was a nephew of Ibrahim (Abraham). He migrated with Abraham to Canaan in Palestine. He was commissioned as a prophet to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. His story is used as a reference by Muslims to demonstrate Islam's strong disapproval of homosexuality. He was commanded by God to go to the land of Sodom and Gomorrah to preach to his people on monotheism and to stop them from their lustful and violent acts. According to both the Qur'an and the Bible, Lot's messages were ignored by the inhabitants and Sodom and Gomorrah were subsequently destroyed.

One major difference between the story of Lot in the Qur'an and the story of Lot in the Bible is that the Biblical version has Lot's wife leave the city with her husband, yet she turns back in curiosity and is turned into a pillar of salt. In the Qur'an, Lot's wife stays behind in the city and is destroyed. The Hebrew text also includes the subsequent story of Lot being induced to incestuous relations with his own daughters. The Qur'an says that Lot is a prophet, and holds that all prophets were examples of moral and spiritual rectitude. Though it is not altogether clear in the Bible story that Lot consented to his action, in Islam these stories of incest are considered to be false.

The story of Lot according to Al Qur’an

 According to the Qur'an, Lot was a prophet and a nephew of Prophet Abraham PBUH. A group of angels visited Prophet Abraham PBUH as guests and gave him glad tidings of a son "endowed with wisdom", they told him that they had been sent by God to the "guilty people" of Lot to destroy them with "a shower of stones of clay (brimstone)" and deliver Lot and those who believed in him, except his wife saying "she is of those who lag behind". The Qur'an also draws upon Lut's wife as an "example for the Unbelievers" as she was married to a righteous man but cheated him by not believing in his words and was thus condemned to Hellfire.

The people of Sodom and Gomorrah, the twin cities which Lut was sent to with God's message, transgressed consciously against the bounds of God. Their avarice led to inhospitality and robbery, which in turn led to the humiliation of strangers by mistreatment and rape. It was their abominable sin of homosexuality which was seen as symptomatic of their attitudes, and upon Lut's exhorting them to abandon their transgression against God, they ridiculed him, threatening with dire consequences; Lut only prayed to God to be saved from doing as they did. With reference to this event an Arabic expression for homosexuals is derived from the name for the people of Lot or Lut (in Arabic), i.e. Luti.

Angels appear to Lot

Then three angels in the disguise of handsome young boys came to Lot, who became distressed knowing the character of the people, and feeling himself powerless to protect the visitors; he said: "This is a distressful day." When the people - overjoyed at the news of new young boys in the village - came to snatch them away from Lot, he tried to convince them to refrain from practising their lusts on the visitors, and offered his own daughters to them in return for the boys' free release, but they were unrelenting and replied "we have no need of your daughters: indeed you know quite well what we want!" The Qur'an remarks "... they moved blindly in the frenzy of approaching death".

 Lot was powerless to protect the boys, but they revealed to him that they were indeed angels sent by God to punish the people for their transgressions. They advised Lot to leave the place during the night and not look back, informing him that his wife would be left behind on account of her sinful nature and that they "...were about to bring down upon the folk of this township a fury from the sky because they are evil-doers". Keeping his faith in God, Lot left his home and the cities during the night with his family and others who believed in him, and only his wife stayed behind.

When morning came, God turned the cities upside down, and rained down on them brimstones hard as baked clay, spread, layer on layer' putting an end to the lives of the people and describing it as "So taste ye My Wrath and My Warning!" in the Qur'an. The Qur'an refers to the sites of Sodom and Gomorrah as 'signs for those who understand by example', those who 'care to understand' and those who 'fear a grievous penalty or a painful doom'. The Qur'an also uses the story as an example stating "And most surely you pass by them (the cities) by the day, and at night; do you not then understand?"

Burial place

Bani Na'im houses the tomb of the patriarch/prophet Lot in the center of the town. The tomb is located within a rectangular mosque with an inner court and minaret. Lot's tomb is first mentioned by catholic scholar Saint Jerome of Jerusalem in the 4th century CE. The tomb of his daughters are on an opposite hill nearby. To the southeast of Bani Na'im is a shrine dedicated to Lot, known as Maqam an-Nabi Yatin ("Shrine of the Truthful Prophet"). Local legend claims Lot prayed at the site and imprints of his feet in a rock there are visible. According to Muslim legend and Catholic tradition, Bani Na'im is the place where the patriarch/prophet Abraham, after the departure of the angels, saw the smoke of Sodom and Gomorrah rising as the smoke of a furnace.

The World citizens who are concerned about sanctions against Iran, Peace with Freedom and Justice in the Middle East and The World Stability as well as The Nuclear Disarmament in the world, have an obligation to speak out forcefully against the Israeli weapons of mass destruction programs. (HSH)

Bibliotheque:

1. “Israel Shahak” from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2. “Israeli Weapons of Mass Destruction: a Threat to Peace” by John SteinbachCentre for Research on Globalisation (CRG),  globalresearch.ca,  3  March 2002

3. Seymour Hersh, The Samson Option: “Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy,” New York,1991, Random House, p. 319 (A brilliant and prophetic work with much original research)

4. Mark Gaffney, Dimona, The Third Temple:The Story Behind the Vanunu Revelation, Brattleboro, VT, 1989, Amana Books, p. 165 (Excellent progressive analysis of the Israeli nuclear program)

5. The story of Lot (Prophet Lut PBUH) according to Al Qur’an