A New Type Arab-Israeli War is Brewing

 

Everyone who knows anything about the Middle East knows about the Arab-Israeli conflict. There have been a number of wars where initially the Arab powers themselves, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the rest of the Arab League fought against Israel attempting to erase the Jewish State. Recently, we once again related just a few of the prophesies which actually predict the reestablishment of the Jewish State, Israel, in 1948 and how its growth and return to following the ways of Hashem and rebuilding his Temple would be a slow process. The Arabs are intent on proving that Allah is more powerful than Hashem and that Allah will once and for all extinguish Hashem from ever existing in their Middle East. Well, the old alliance which consisted largely of the nations above has finally been pressured by threats within Islam in putting aside their obsession with Israel, at least temporarily. But that is where the new problem comes for Israel. The new threat comes not from a purely Arab nation but from an old foe from deep into the history of the Jewish State, Persia. Yes, you read that right, Persia, known today as the Islamic Aryan State, Iran. They chose to name their country using the Farsi pronunciation of Aryan, Iran, and they are the new nemesis for Israel.

 

So, who will be in this new Iranian alignment against Israel, who claims to be the Islamic power that will inforce the will of Allah and destroy Israel, the Jewish State and remove the influence of Hashem from their Middle East? Iran will be the general using their proxies of Hezballah and Syria along with Lebanon, Iraq and Hamas with a potential inclusion of the Palestinian Authority who will join under their PLO terrorist nom de guerre (see map below). The war has already begun. Oddly enough, it was not anything Israel has done or not done that is pushing things faster towards conflict, it has been President Trump. When President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the eternal capital of Israel and began and soon will dedicate the new American Embassy being opened in Jerusalem, this is what dropped the proverbial gauntlet. President Trump has also placed his confidence and trust behind Israel by respecting their independence as a nation and reminding the world that Israel, as is true of every nation, has the right to defend themselves from all threats by whatever means are required. President Trump through that recognition also implied a promise to block United Nations Security Council condemnation of any legal defensive steps which Israel finds necessary to protect her people and nationhood. For his faith and friendship, Israel worked with the United States being advised and shared with them the treasure trove of records, information and definitive proof of Iranian cheating in all forms breaking their commitments under the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) reached with the P5+1+EU and Iran. The bond between President Trump and the Jewish State is very similar to the bond between the American People, especially those who supported Trump’s campaign, and Israel. There should be one warning for the Jewish State, President Trump will only be President for a fixed period, four years or eight years, the American People will hopefully make that choice, and after him, the possibilities are complex, complicated and nearly endless. Israel believed that they had a friend in President Carter only to later realize the harms he attempted to foist upon Israel such as returning the entirety of Gaza, the Shomron, and the Golan Heights as part of the treaty with Egypt. This almost had Egypt ready to leave the negotiations. Fortunately, Sadat and Begin worked beyond and around President Carter quietly and without causing him political harm allowing them to reach the agreement despite interference. Then we found out that President Carter was not the worst which could be placed into the American Presidency. We could find out that there are even worse surprises and that is one reason for Israel to make do with the opportunities of which she can currently take advantage.

 

Iranian Axis Aligned Against Israel

 

The conflict with Iran and her allies and proxies has been being waged for a few years ever since the first war with Hezballah in Lebanon. Since then Hezballah has gone from a terrorist group anchored in Lebanon to the main ruling force in Lebanon and now controls the Lebanese Army and all that entails. The war escalated just the past week as we discussed recently with the Quds Force launching at least twenty rockets at the Israeli forces and citizens stationed and residing within the region of the Golan Heights. Iron Dome intercepted many of the rockets, some fell short in Syria and others struck empty areas. Israel returned attack for attack striking numerous Iranian and Hezballah rocket launchers, stockpiles and other bases within Syria. The largest threat is any Iranian ICBMs tipped with thermonuclear or EMP weapons. Just behind those are the over one-hundred-fifty-thousand rockets and missiles of varying sizes, capabilities and range of effectiveness held by Hezballah in the Bekaa Valley and Southern Lebanon. These have been placed with Hezballah by Iran to be an existential threat to Israel. One can be assured that Israeli Intelligence knows the placement of the vast majority of those rockets and missiles. Imagine that a nation would arm a terrorist group with sufficient missiles and rockets to annihilate eight and a half million people consisting of over six-million Jews, over one and a half million Muslims, almost two-hundred-thousand Christians, almost one-hundred-fifty-thousand Druze and over three-hundred-fifty-thousand of various other faiths or no faiths plus whatever numbers of tourists. That is the level of evil within the leaders of Iran as well as a measure of their hate for Israel and Jews in general. Additionally, Iran has a similar loathing for the United States and honestly has been planning numerous differing scenarios with which to destroy America and replace them as the world leader. Iran is willing to almost destroy the world and everybody in it if that is what is required for them to be the rulers of the planet and to make Shia Islam the sole religion. They are willing to destroy the rest of Islam, all of Sunni Islam, if they cannot be converted and the same convert or die ultimatum is what Iran desires to impose on the entirety of our world. Their plans span all the time into the future and will not be quenched by anything less than complete victory over everything and everyone. This is how the Ayatollahs interpret Islam and the Quran.

 

Israel is the initial target which Iran aims to destroy first. Their next target would likely be Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. Then they would probably set their sights on Jordan and Egypt. Eventually they would target even those who might be their ally for a period such as Turkey. Eventually they would target Europe and move from the MENA states of the Middle East and North Africa and move south across the remainder of the African continent. Iran has a base in South America where the IRGC and other terrorists train and plan future attacks located in the Tri-Border Region along the junction of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil, where the Iguazú and Paraná rivers converge. From such a base with airstrips, the Iranian conquest of the Americas could be planned and brought to fruition. What the exact order of conquest the Grand Ayatollah and Supreme Leader of Iran and presumably all of Shia Islam has in mind is beyond our knowledge. We can be fairly sure that Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Jordan and Israel top the list after they finish reestablishing their puppet Bashir al-Assad atop his throne in Syria. The other side of the problem is that should he be called to Allah and the Assembly of Experts then appoints a new Supreme Leader, despite the office presumably enforcing the will of Allah on Earth, the new Supreme Leader just might have a different plan for imposing Shia Islam on the world. The next Supreme Leader might decide not to take on Saudi Arabia, Jordan or the Gulf States as one of the most immediate conquests, but we can assure the world that Israel will still top the list with the United States closely behind. The masses who assemble every Friday afternoon after prayers in the main square of Tehran have worked so hard at perfecting their chants of, “Death to Israel,” “Death to Yahud,” and “Death to America,” that to try and alter their rhythm might prove quite a strain on the public.

 

But not to worry, President Trump has his plan on how to affect change in Iran. According to the New York Times, “President Trump has given full-throated support to the anti-government protesters in Iran.” There are numerous other sources touting this largely as the one nice thing they can say and then advising him that everything he does is wrong. Have to love the mainstream media, always just a few steps off of the straight and narrow and leaning way to the left. Meanwhile, according to Arutz Sheva and Mark Langfan, “Trump and Mattis are carrying out a grand strategy in Syria. Kurds and Arabs have formed a pincer that prevents Iran’s road to the sea and it will soon be apparent that everyone, except Iran, is in favor.” That just might put a kink in their Shiite Crescent (see map below). The only problem with this plan is that Iran could always fly what they require into Damascus International Airport or any other airfield in western Syria. The other question would be how long the Kurds and Arabs in eastern Syria could hold out against Russian air power and al-Assad using barrel bombs and chemical weapons. The thing is that al-Assad does not care about the people, civilian or fighters are all the same to him, targets. As far as the retaliatory strikes by NATO or just the United States and Israel, what does al-Assad care, Iran will resupply him. About the only threat which might have al-Assad worrying is the threat Israel has made to possibly kill al-Assad. Imagine that right now, al-Assad may be counting on President Trump to convince Israel that killing al-Assad would prove unhelpful. We cannot imagine what argument could possibly be made to support that position, but that just may be what al-Assad is currently having to depend. Sometimes life can be so stressful, just imagine having Israel threaten you and depending on President Trump to argue your cause.

 

Shiite Crescent including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran

 

Concluding, Iran is currently the threat in this world and to a large number of nations. The world sits around pretending that the only real problem is Israel when they know that it is Israel standing between them and serious threats. They rely on the fact that Israel is target one for Iran, especially throughout Europe where they have enough problems. The only nation which faces an equal threat from Iran as Israel logistically is Saudi Arabia, as Iran would dearly love to take the oil fields in northeast Saudi Arabia as well as the Red Sea coastal area which include Mecca and Medina. That would be approximately where the star is in the map above, which is almost prophetic in nature as it denoted the jewel in the equation. Should Iran take the oil fields they would gain an incorruptible economy and if they should take Mecca and Medina, they could claim the right as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. This would also remove the justification the Saudi Royal family has used as their fig leaf covering their actions as the title infers great respect and without the title, they might face a revolt. This would also serve Iran well as they might use such an uprising as their invitation to take over all of Saudi Arabia or at least place a leader who is a follower of Shia Islam. Further, causing problems for Saudi Arabia would weaken the position of the United States should Saudi Arabia become unstable. There is one last fly in the ointment, and that is Russia. Currently Russia is being used by Iran to reestablish their hold on Syria and this is making problems for Putin back home as the war drags on and continues to drain their economy. Further, Iran and Russia are not exactly historically allies in any sense of the word. This has mostly to do with the long memories of the Persian People and the wars fought between the Russian Empire and the Persian Empire over the years. Iran actually still holds a grudge which eventually they will act upon, the only question being when. Do not think for a minute that the Russians do not remember these conflicts as they probably do not sit well with many Russians any better than with the Iranians. This would be an entire article for some history buff and will only serve here as our final thought.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

How Will the Arab-Israeli Conflict Finally End?

 

There has never been a conflict which ended while both parties were still capable of continuing the fight, neither side has achieved their ultimate goal and neither side has decided the fight is no longer viable militarily, monetarily, politically or publically supported. The Arab-Israeli conflict will not be any different. There will not be any peace agreement no matter the publicity about how it solves the differences in a means which is amicable for both sides. The reason for this comes down to the basic and mutually opposed, antithetical and the sides are inimical. The root of the problem is not territorial which has been how all attempts have been based for settling the differences. The differences are religious as well as political and social. The Arab side is based partially on the Quran and further on their self-conceived belief that they are undefeatable. The Israeli side is based on the Biblical promise that there would come a time when the Jewish People would be gathered by Hashem returning to the lands promised to Avraham in Genesis. What the central problem boils down to is the Jews believe that they are to return to their biblical homeland while the Arabs believe that they are superior in all things military and cannot be defeated and thus no lands which they have held be permitted to be occupied by another people. So the Jews have this Zionist belief that their return to Israel is a promise from Hashem and thus cannot be prevented and once returned will last through the coming of the Moshiach while the Arabs believe that the existence of Israel is an affront to them as a people and against the Quranic promise that they will never lose lands once they have implanted Islam on that land. The simplest explanation is the Jews believe in Israel as permanent and the Arabs believe Israel must be destroyed and obviously, these are incompatible and mutually opposed.

 

What needs to be understood is that these same Arab nations forced out their Jews between 1948 and 1972, most before 1960 (see map below). This is the problem as it exists and will continue to exist until one side proves victorious in their desire and the other side accepts that reality. If the Arabs permit peace with the existence of Israel, then peace is possible. As the Arabs have already made very clear, that will never happen and they will continue to pursue the destruction of Israel and the death of the Jews until the end of time. That brings us to the Arab version of peace where Israel has been exterminated and millions of Jews have fallen before the marauding victorious Arab armies, charred remains of a nuclear holocaust or corralled into camps to be exterminated or converted to Islam. Israel will simply take whatever measures she needs to keep Israelis alive and protected which means that there is no solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict and the world should simply walk away and leave us to one another. Obviously, only one side will get their way when all is said and done. The next question is one which requires some thought and hopefully the world can find an answer. Why is the outcome of this conflict seemingly so important to the world that a nation about the size of the state of New Jersey, a rather small nation as far as square kilometers are concerned, yet Israel is an obsession for the United Nations, European Union, and much of the rest of the world and, lastly, the United States. Does anybody have any ideas as to why this little nation of Israel takes center stage for so much of the world? There is a simple reason which the leaders of the world understand and some are taking what would appear to be a counterintuitive position. According to doctrines written in numerous societies’ compendiums from ancient histories from the beginning of writing including stories even older which were passed down through oral rote memory up to some of the most recent philosophical political theorems have equated the existence of the Jewish People and their final permanence in the Promised Lands with the survival of human civilization. The Jewish Bible told of the eventual return of the Jews to their lands as was also reported in other ancient histories. In the Bible, the return of the Jews would be a permanent return and within a short period of time, all the Jews would return to their promised lands.

 

Jews forced from Arab World Between 1948 and 1972

 

Many have claimed that this is impossible as such a complete return would virtually double the population of Israel. Well, if that were true it would be wonderful. First a little bit of Jewish history in relation to their former returns, the exodus from Egypt and their return after Cyrus the great freed the Jewish People from Babylonian occupation and granted them semiautonomous rule. Historians have estimated that somewhere from twenty to thirty-five percent of the Jews left Egypt with the remainder deciding that a life under Egyptian rule to be preferable to the responsibilities of freedom and these Jews disappeared into the stretching of time. The end of the Babylonian Exile resulted in twenty to thirty-five percent of the Jews returning to the Promised Lands to build the Second Temple while the remainder were dazzled by the advance Persian civilization and remained with the Persians and these Jews disappeared into the stretching of time. The current return to the Promised Lands will result in double the response of the former returns from exile thus the Jewish People can expect forty to seventy percent of the total numbers of Jews returning. This would result in a mere twenty percent to a maximum of forty to forty-five percent of the European and American Jews returning to Israel with the rest disappearing into the stretching of time. Disappearing into the stretching of time can also be used to describe what happened to the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel which were the Northern Kingdom of Israel which fell first with the Kingdom of Judea which included the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. Basically we are using that phrase to describe the tribes and peoples of the Jews who disappeared from the known collection of the Jewish People. What has been amazing has been that numbers of these tribes have reemerged and proven their lineage and have been reincorporated into modern Israel. The return of these lost tribes has added much variety of peoples to the population which will serve the Jewish People as we face our future.

 

There are those who continue to claim that soon there will be thousands, possibly tens or hundreds of thousands of Jews returning to Israel very soon placing an economic strain as well as making the housing situation dire until sufficient housing can be built. Many claim that such an influx will require extensive use of lands in the south in the Negev Desert. Currently there are approximately seven and three-quarter million Jews outside of Israel. Almost five and three-quarter million reside in the United States, another half million in France, just over a third million in Canada and just over a quarter million in Britain. Currently the majority of the Jews coming to Israel are from France, the Ukraine and Russia. Looking at this and one will notice that of the three nations from which the majority of Jews making Aliyah, only one is amongst the four largest populations of Jews outside of Israel. The Jewish population in the United States, as well as Canada to some extent, lives in insular communities where much of their neighborhoods all belong the same synagogue or ones of similar denomination, Reform, Conservative and Orthodox. The Orthodox Jews are probably in the most tightly knit communities.

 

World Religious Population Distributions

 

Due to their tightly knit communities and their use of private Yeshiva schooling, their children marry within the community. With Conservative and Reform, and other smaller offshoots of Judaism outside the Orthodox communities, often use the public schools and reside in more mixed neighborhoods, there is a higher rate of their children marrying outside their community. The Conservative and Reform Jews make up the majority of Jews in the United States and with the intermarriage rate reaching almost seventy percent of their children, how much longer will their children and grandchildren continue to follow Judaism? Many of these intermarried children choose to try to raise their children in both Judaism and Christianity. This leads to confusion and due to peer pressure and the basic Christian dominance in American society, the Christianity wins out in most cases and these children are even more likely to intermarry and simply leave the Jewish faith completely. There is something which could alter the adopted non-Jewish identity some of these Jews will adopt. It is the same thing which has occurred to Jews over history many of the times when they become overly assimilated. It happened in Persia with Hamas, it happened in Germany with Hitler and the Nazis and it could even happen in the United States. What happens is the steep rise in anti-Semitism which looks at the grandparents or even further back and decide who is Jewish by this determination. This makes many Jews who had adopted to leave Judaism suddenly returned to their Jewish roots not by any choice of their own.

 

The more recent of the historical examples is the easier one to describe. The German Jews were well accepted in their society and it was in Germany where Reform Judaism was born. This led to a split of the Jewish population with the Reform Jews often being the most assimilated amongst the Jewish population. There were Jews teaching in Universities and schools, as judges and lawyers, as doctors, technicians, physicists, chemists, tailors, actors, directors, writers and every other field of endeavor. They lived in mixed neighborhoods and some lived in neighborhoods apart (mostly the Orthodox). When the Nazis began to rise to power, the most assimilated Jews felt safe as they were proper Germans and Hitler meant those other Jews, the ones who lived apart and dressed in peculiar clothing and practiced a different life than the average German. Many claimed that the statements and anti-Semitism was simply an election ploy to garner votes, not something the government of Germany would ever allow to happen, after all, the Jews were amongst the highest percentage of those who fought for Germany in the Big War (World War I) and were proven real Germans. They were very much as the modern Jews in the United States are today; they denied the rise in anti-Semitism and continued on with their denial right onto the trains to the Concentration Camps.

 

Before we made Aliyah, we belonged to a Conservative Synagogue and these Jews mostly resided in an oval of our city which was anchored by our Conservative Synagogue at one pole and the reform Synagogue at the other pole. One could almost apply the formula for drawing an oval and they would incorporate well over ninety percent of the Jews in our little city. We were outliers as we resided miles outside these neighborhoods where our house was probably the only Jewish house within five to ten miles. Where we did not witness much if any outright anti-Semitism, we did hear some anti-Semitic thoughts which were part of the general beliefs and came out in idle conversations. As the area was predominantly Christian, the majority supported Israel but there were some very wrongheaded beliefs about whom and what Jews were. If you had asked these people if they were anti-Semitic they would deny even the wisp of a possibility, yet there were things they believed about Jews which were less than honest. One example was that Jews were wealthy and stuck to living with their own. Where we could not refute the living amongst their own, we easily refuted the wealth canard, as we would ask that they explain why we lived in their moderately priced neighborhood which was far from upper-middle-class, but was comfortable with older homes and white picket fences everywhere. Could these people be turned against the Jews of America, not all or even many of them but the Nazis were a minority with all the guns.

 

It does not take a majority of the people to turn an entire society into darkness, it just takes an overtly active minority of a mere fifteen to twenty-five percent with weapons and willingness to use violence and fifty percent who would start being complacent and before they could realize that things had become beyond their control, it would be too late to prevent the inevitable. The actual vote received by the Nazi Party received was thirty-seven and two-fifths percent of the popular votes. We can figure that some of these votes were made by people who were not hardcore Nazis but voted for them to remain safe as their neighborhood had so many Nazi flags in their lawns that to vote otherwise might prove to make them suspect. We need to remember that the Nazis were not exactly adverse to the use of violence, and that can persuade people to vote differently. For those who will claim that such things could never happen in the United States, then how would they explain the Philadelphia Black Panther intimidation at a voting station intimidation threats (see video below). Then there has been the use of the FBI and Justice Department as weapons against the Trump campaign during the last election which included a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court warrant sought and received using knowingly tainted evidence. The misconduct and weaponizing of the government is still being pealed back and who knows how many layers this onion will end up having and who else will tumble out before everything is done including possible foreign intervention against Trump from Russia and even some European allies. America is not a sacred and saintly as our sanitized school history taught us back in school, so never say that it cannot happen here.

 

 

We hope the United States continued in perpetuity as the protector of liberty and freedom for the world. We have seen one item which Israel should take to heart, that the United States is not and should never be believed to be the protector for the nation of Israel. President Obama allowing the passage of a Security Council resolution which placed almost everything beyond the Green Line as forbidden for Israelis to reside should have served as a wake-up call to the leaders of Israel from this time into the future. This would make the Palestinian Authority demand that no Jews be permitted on the lands they claim enforced by the United Nations under a Security Council resolution. This introduced a new day where support of Israel has become a partisan position where much, if not a large majority, of the Democrat Party will refuse to protect Israel without Israel meeting demands for sacrificing to the Arabs, something which would become such a threat that Israel would become difficult to defend. This is the new reality as things now appear. And the majority of non-Orthodox Jews support the Democrat Party blindly believing that it supports everything they support, and that may be valid as a measurable number of these same Jews do not actively support or care about Israel.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Commentary on the Twin Perils, Iran and Palestine

 

We recently read Professor Louis René Beres’s article Twin perils for Israel: Iranian nuclear weapons and “Palestine” and thought perhaps we might discuss what was presented. Professor Beres wrote in his normal manner with deep thought and high reference to numerous experts and historical exposes on warfare and other pertinent subjects. There was also the almost obligatory reference to the difference between the principal adversaries and whether they are presumably rational, irrational, or mad. We figured we would relate that which we were able to discern from the article interspersed with our own ideas on this subject. We hope we can do Professor Beres, his article and thoughts justice.

 

One of the main ideas we caught was Israeli planners in the IDF, intelligence and political leadership need to weigh the threats collectively and assign the sum and realize that their collective threat could far surpass their individual parts. Quite true just as engaging two people in a fight is far more difficult than taking each one at a time on separate days, or preferably weeks. Three, four or even more starts to reach into the multiple risks and more can reach exponential level of additional risks. Professor Beres is knowledgeable and has very deep and good counsel with much of it aimed at the leadership of the IDF and intelligence community. This was where we started to take a diverging path from the good professor. Where his advice may well be very wise and even sagely, whether or not it would be of use to the current IDF command could be debated. If we have judged these leaders fairly, few of them came from infantry combat units and they are too often subjected to second-guessing by legal teams of lawyers well versed in the international rules of warfare. These legal analysts strictly interpret these guidelines and follow them to the very last letter of the law and when in doubt, they countermand orders preventing actions which could end conflicts faster and even potentially prevent future conflicts. Then there have been instances where the Israeli Supreme Court has countermanded orders given during times of war. With such strictly enforced guidelines and oversight of their every act and order, it is a wonder that the IDF manages to operate at all. The IDF is cast by military experts of the Western World, as being the most moral army in the world setting a standard well beyond what other militaries even envisage attaining in their conflicts. Below is a presentation by Colonel Richard Kemp who gave this lecture at MIFF Forum in Stavanger September 24, 2016. Colonel Kemp has given testimonies before the Human Right Commission as well as the General Assembly of the United Nations. His record with the British military in Special Forces and as a Unit on through Brigade Commander in Afghanistan and Iraq makes his testimony both valid and given from the position of an expert.

 

 

Because of the restrictions imposed by legal and moral restraints, the IDF often is prevented from taking some of the exact precautions prescribed by Professor Beres. Still, the coming predicaments which Israel might be facing are exactly what Professor Beres has postulated. Even though, perhaps it is time to examine the perils of the article. Fortunately, we hopefully will never realize one-half of the presumed threat, the State of Palestine. It is to be hoped and prayed for that even the most leftist liberal leadership have finally realized that an independent Palestinian State would be tantamount to suicide for Israel. Gaza and Southern Lebanon have proven beyond any further doubt that any lands surrendered by Israel immediately, or soon thereafter, become terrorist cesspools used to launch attacks through rockets or tunnels into Israel. There is but one question remaining to finish the currently existing puzzle, where will Trump position himself on the Israeli-Arab fourteen-hundred-year on again off again and finally on again conflict. The recent March 13 meeting in the White House with twenty nations including many Sunni Arab countries and Israel may have much to tell and potential effect on where Trump comes to rest. With the United Nations, European Union, numerous amongst the European nations, Qatar, the United States National Security Council (NSC) staff and the Department of State all having input while it is quite probable that President Trump has only requested a report and had not attended the entire meeting leaving the particulars along with the fighting, arguing, disputing, lying, abuses, ridicules, insults and general ruckus which was sure to break out, and that all before the Israeli representatives even spoke a word. There was a single bright spot in the White House confab, the PLO and Mahmoud Abbas rejected the invitation declaring President Trump unfit and far too partial to be a fair moderator between the Palestinians and Israel. Why not double down once more Mahmoud and really get Trump to hate you. Please, do keep it up.

 

As long as Israel retains military control and political ambiguity on the future of Judea and Samaria, then the threats from those areas will be hopefully mitigated. Should Israel do what is wise and annex the areas of Judea and Samaria and exile the PLO and leadership of both the Palestinian Authority and their security forces thus the Arabs being permitted to decide to sell their holdings and leave to start their lives over elsewhere, research has shown that anywhere from one-third to at least half of them would take advantage of such an opportunity. If Israel were to offer them a bonus to relocate, as they are the illegal immigrants, the estimates rise to two-thirds to three-quarters. The remainder could then be offered to remain as resident aliens for as long as they obey Israeli laws and should they or any member of their family participate in terrorism, they should understand that the entire family would be immediately deported. Once this has been made clear in as many languages as necessary, the remaining Palestinian residents should be given a final opportunity to take the financial offer to relocate. As far as Gaza, estimates have placed the estimated numbers of those desiring to relocate at seventy-five percent who also claim the only reason they remain is due to the threats made by Hamas should they attempt to leave. Apparently, the majority of the Arabs residing under the semiautonomous rule of the Palestinian Authority and even higher numbers residing under the direct rule of Hamas desire to restart their lives, most likely returning to their original home country where they have family and friends as well as a stronger governance which prefers caring for the people rather than spending the vast majority of funds to attack Israel bringing only more misery upon their people.

 

That leaves Iran which Professor Beres claims will easily become a nuclear power soon after the ten years agreement President Obama made with Iran. President Obama agreed to a ten year agreement, a Hudna, rather than a longer treaty potentially pushing Iran’s program theoretically even further into the future. Now, there are certain precepts in a Hudna which bare mention at this time. The Islamic side of such an agreement is required to live by the terms unless they feel their position is stronger than their enemy and thus they then break the Hudna and resume their hostilities. We firmly believed that the Iranians had atomic weapons which could probably be placed into warheads even before the negotiations had begun. There is even a fairly decent probability that Iran had miniaturized thermonuclear warheads capable of being placed atop missiles. Iran also had numerous different missiles fully capable of reaching Israel and beyond (see map below). The Iranians were probably stalling the nuclear agreement by extending negotiations as they produced more and more warheads before they would be required to stop production for a period of time. The actual agreement that President Obama likely reached with Iran was they would not use their nuclear arsenal until a set period, probably two to three years after he had vacated the White House. In this means, it would likely be his successor who would be blamed for any nuclear weapons use by Iran. There may have even been a sub-clause where Iran would wait for the next President had Hillary Clinton won the election. This will likely be another item blamed on Trump and the American deplorables who elected him, at least on social media, that is. Professor Beres is completely right when listing Iran as a great peril. They are already such if we are even partially correct. Even if they have not perfected nuclear weapons, a highly doubtful concept as they have very intelligent and well-trained and highly educated physicists and nuclear scientists and have been running several levels of centrifuges for quite some time before the treaty was reached, plenty sufficient to produce weapons of any sort they choose. But the world really does not care if Iran were to fire missiles at Israel regardless of the warheads. But what if Iran chose a different target than Israel, how much would the world care then?

 

Ranges of Iranian Missiles

 

The real problem is that Iran has others they also desire to subjugate other than Israel, who they desire to utterly destroy. Iran also has a great degree of hatred for Saudi Arabia, the Sunni giant in the Iranian mindset. Iran has all but encircled Saudi Arabia much as they are close to doing to Israel. For Israel they only need Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, another reason Israel cannot allow a Palestinian State as Iran would become their new best friend and place troops and weapons at their command to use against Israel as part of a concerted effort which would include Hamas in Gaza, Hezballah in Lebanon and Syria with IRGC troops engaging from the Golan Heights. With Saudi Arabia, they have Iraq, Qatar, Yemen and would probably also like to add Jordan, Kuwait, UAE and Oman to go with Qatar which could be a staging area for Iranian forward troops. The Iranians probably would prefer to take out Saudi Arabia before Israel simply because tactics dictate taking the weaker target out first, and even more so when it would provide staging areas and additional resources, such as captured weapons systems. Saudi Arabia has airbases in the northwest which have a close proximity to the Israeli border and would also be very useful should Iran desire taking out Egypt later on. The real problem which Professor Beres never did get to cover is the eventual intentions of Iran in the longest term. Iran has an initial desire to become the leader of all Islam and making Shia Islam the predominant form in the world through defeating the leaders of the most prominent Sunni countries which include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan for starters. They already have a fair amount of control in Iraq and Afghanistan. Once they have conquered the Muslim World, their next target is the rest of the world starting with Europe. Iran also has a visceral desire to strike Russia but that will wait until after Russia has provided them the backing they need to take over the Muslim world and then Europe, then Iran will likely turn their attention to Russia. Where would Israel fit into their schedule, the secret for Israel is to prevent the first set of targets such that Iran never reaches the point where Israel is the next target. This may have been in the back of Professor Beres mind in writing his critique.

 

Beyond the Cusp