The Zionist conspiracy
to divide the Arab states into small units
In 1982 the Hebrew-language magazine Kivunim (Directions), the official organ
of the World Zionist Organization published an important article entitled, "A
Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties". The Editor of Kivunim is Yoram
Beck, Head of Publications, Department of Information, of the World Zionist
Organization. Also on the Editorial Committee of Kivunim is Amnon Hadary, a
member of the Palmach during the 1948 atrocities.
Israel Shahak, professor of organic chemistry at the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem, and chairman of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights
translated the article into English and wrote athe following foreword to it.
It was published in 1982 as a pamphlet by the Association of Arab-American
University graduates. Professor Shahak states:
The following essay represents, in my opinion, the accurate and detailed plan
of the present Zionist regime for the Middle East which is based on the
division of the whole area into small states, and the dissolution of all the
existing Arab states. I will comment on the military aspect of this plan in a
concluding note. Here I want to draw the attention of the readers to several
important points:
1 . The idea that all the Arab states should be broken down, by Israel, into
small units, occurs again and again in Israeli strategic thinking. For
example, Ze'ev Schiff, the military correspondent of Ha'aretz (and probably
the most knowledgeable in Israel, on this topic) writes about the ībestī that
can happen for Israeli interests in Iraq : "The dissolution of Iraq into a
Shi'ite state, a Sunni state and the separation of the Kurdish part"
(Ha'aretz, 2/6/1982). Actually this aspect of the plan is very old.
2. The strong connection with neo-Conservative thought in the USA is very
prominent, especially in the author's notes. But, while lip service is paid
to the idea of the īdefense of the Westī from Soviet power, the real aim of
the author, and of the present Israeli establishment is clear: To make an
imperial Israel into a world power. In other words, the aim of Sharon is to
deceive the Americans after be has deceived all the rest.
3. It is obvious that much of the relevant data, both in the notes and in the
text, is garbled or omitted, such as the financial help of the US to Israel.
Much of it is pure fantasy.
But, the plan is not to be regarded as not influential or as not capable of
realization for a short time. The plan follows faithfully the geopolitical
ideas current in Germany of 1890-1933, which were swallowed whole by Hitler
and the Nazi movement, and determined their aims for East Europe. Those aims,
especially the division of the existing states, were carried out in
1939-1941, and only an alliance on the global scale prevented their
consolidation for a period of time.
Israel Shahak
Kivunim“ s plan states that all the Arab states are fragmented as follows:
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 selfdestructive, 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 minorities 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, l l 8 million out of 170 million, live in Africa, mostly
in Egypt (45 million today). Maghreb States: 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: Sudan, the most torn apart state in the Arab Moslem world today is
built upon four groups hostile to each other, an Arab Muslim Sunni minority
which rules over majority of non-Arab Africans, Pagans and Christians.
Egypt: In Egypt there is a Sunni Muslim 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 īsecondī Christian Lebanon in Egypt.
Syria: 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 domestie trouble.
Iraq: 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.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and North Yemen: 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
United Arab Emirates, 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: Jordan is in reality Palestinian, ruled by a TransJordanian 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 loyality 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."
Israel's plan
by Kivunim :
OPPORTUNITIES FOR ISRAEL TO IMPLEMENT ITS PLAN
"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 time will become
achievable in the Eighties to an extent and along dimensions which we cannot
even imagine today. The īpeaceī 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."
PLAN TO RECONQUER SINAI PENINSULA 0F EGYPT
therefore a political priority which is obstructed by the Camp David and the
peace agreements. The fault for that lies of course with the 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
US 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 and we will have to act
in order to return the situation to the status quo which existed in Sinai
prior to Sadats visit and the mistaken peace agreement signed with him in
March 1979. 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 excuse to take the Sinai back into our hands
for the fourth time in our short history. What is left, therefore, 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 be driven back to the post 1967 war situation
in no more than one day."
Israel's plans to fragment the Arab States are outlined
"Egypt: Egypt, in its present domestic political picture, is already a
corpse, all the more so if we take into account the growing Muslim-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 govemment 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. Lebanon: Lebanon's total dissolution into five provinces serves
as a precedent for the entire Arab world including 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 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.
Syria: Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic 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.
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 than Syria. 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 times is 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.
Saudi Arabia: 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: Jordan constitutes an immediate strategic target in the short run but
not in the long run, for it does not constitute 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 ought also 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 co-existence and peace will
reign over the land 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. It is 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 stratcgic 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."
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