Date:   5/24/00 8:24:07 PM Pacific Daylight Time 

From:  BSaphir@aol.com  

THE COMING ARAB-ISRAELI WAR  

By Avi Davis

In polite Israeli society these days, it is both tactless and impolitic to talk about a future armed conflict with the Arab world. In fact, within the Israeli elite, there is an effective boycott of military commanders who warn of a future armed confrontation.

This state of relaxed psychological conditioning has it roots in the attempt of many Israelis to convince themselves that the rosy vision of peaceful coexistence, sold to it by the media and its more ambitious politicians, has cast existential threats into irrelevance. The reality that the country is inexorably drifting toward war, seems completely beyond their understanding or comprehension.

But the alarming facts are these:

On September 13, the seventh anniversary of the Oslo Accords, Yasser Arafat will fulfill his announced intention to unilaterally declare a State of Palestine. He will define  its borders as including  areas still under negotiation with his Israeli interlocutors and even those areas that are not, including many West Bank settlements and areas that the Israelis have established as security zones.  On that day, visitors traveling to Jerusalem

from the north and East will be stopped at roadblocks at intersections guarding the entrance to Jerusalem and asked to produce their passports and visas. The roads to East Jerusalem and many of the Jewish settlements will be blockaded by Palestinian police (now called "troops"), and a standoff between them and the IDF will follow.

Determined to win acknowledgement  for his unilateral action, Arafat will call on the United Nations and world governments to recognize Palestine.  A vicious battle will ensue in the United Nations General Assembly over a resolution recognizing Palestine.  Even in the unlikely event the resolution fails, governments throughout the world will recognize Palestine and pledge their support to the fledgling state in the event of an armed conflict.

Although committed to a peaceful resolution of the conflict, the Barak government, faced with the loss of East Jerusalem and the threat to many of its citizens, will be unable to view Arafat's action as anything other than a declaration of war. He will be forced to order immediate mobilization and will send Israeli troops to re-enter those areas it had formerly vacated.  The re-occupation of most of the West Bank will result not only in the resurrection of Israel's international status as a pariah state, but in a full and deadly resumption of the Intifada. This time, instead of rocks and stones, the IDF will face a heavily armed guerilla army. Meanwhile, avowedly friendly states such as Egypt and Jordan   will swiftly recall  their ambassadors and initiate a campaign  for the arming of the Palestinian militia - while, of course,  threatening a mobilization of their own. In the north, Hezbollah has shown no indication of ceasing its attacks against Israeli targets once Israel retires from southern Lebanon. On the contrary, northern Israeli settlements will continue to be bombarded by the puppet militia controlled from Damascus. With the Lebanese government unable or unwilling to exercise restraint and the SLA enfeebled by the loss of its allies, Israel, after trying everything else, will have no other choice but to hit Assad where its hurts - on Syrian territory. This of course leaves little option for either Lebanon, Syria, or Israel. Military escalation is inevitable.

No Arab leader is foolish enough to believe that he can win an armed conflict with Israel. The Arabs will seek to wear down Israeli reluctance to part with East Jerusalem or to cede most of the pre-1967 West Bank, including such heavily populated Jewish areas as Ma'ale Adummim, Ariel, and the Golan. Seen in this light, both Yasser Arafat's and Hafez el Assad's unwillingness to compromise in the present peace negotiations is no accident. Their deadly game, which may claim the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of their own people, has been carefully crafted and is now cynically wielded as a dagger at Israel's throat. The failure of Israel's leaders and public to recognize the threat, and to make the necessary military and diplomatic preparations in its likely outcome, may be Israel's most costly blunder since the beginning of the Yom Kippur War.

Avi Davis is a freelance journalist in Los Angeles. He may be reached at isdev@ix.netcom.com.