Monday, July 24, 2006

ISRAEL - DOOMED TO DISAPPEAR OFF THE MAP

Israel, a flyspeck on the global map. is slightly smaller than the State of New Jersey. It has a population of 7.1 million living within its pre-1967 borders of 8,550 square miles. Its "gooseneck," which borders the occupied West Bank and includes Tel Aviv (Israel's largest city), is less than nine miles wide. With the Mediterranean on one side, Israel is surrounded on three sides by hundreds-of-millions of Muslims who dream of pushing Israel and its Jews into the sea. The two largest Muslim sects, Sunni and Shiite, hate and kill each other, but both are united in their hatred of Jews and of Israel, which they prefer to call "The Zionist Entity."

Israel's war with Hezbollah in Lebanon has shown that the State of Israel is very vulnerable to destructive attacks. During the "Six Day War" of 1967, Israel's army defeated the combined armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and other Arab countries. Since then, Israel's military has been considered one of the best in the world for fighting a conventional war. However, Hezbollah - the Army of God - is a guerrilla force, not a conventional army. (The political wing of Hezbollah is the Party of God.) As we have learned from Viet Nam and from Iraq, you cannot defeat a guerrilla force by conventional war tactics. Guerrillas do not maintain definitive battle lines and they have the ablility to meld in and out of the local civilian population. Civilian casualties cannot be avoided whenever a military force engages in battle with a guerrilla group.

Hezbollah, a Shiite militia which was formed in the early 1980s, is highly disciplined, well trained, and well armed with anti-personnel and anti-tank weapons. During the 18 years that Israel occupied a 15-mile deep buffer zone in Southern Lebanon, Hezbollah was able to fight a war of attrition which resulted in Israel's withdrawal from that country in 2000. Because Lebanon's army is laughable, Hezbollah has been able to establish a state-within-a-state in Southern Lebanon, with its leadership ensconced in Southern Beirut. It has been funded by Iran and supplied with weapons by Iran and Syria. Israel's air force has destroyed much of Lebanon's infrastructure in an attempt to weaken Hezbollah. However, these air attacks cannot, by themselves, defeat Hezbollah. A full-scale invasion of Lebanon will be needed to defeat the Army of God, but the United Nations, the European Union, and the United States will not allow that.

Until now, Israel had to worry only about attacks by Palestinian Shuhada (suicide bombers) and by very inaccurate homemade Palestinian Qassam rockets, as well as occasional Katyusha rocket attacks by Hezbollah. While one Shahid (suicide bomber) can kill scores of innocent civilians, the Qassams and Katyushas cannot do that. They are short-range unguided missles without any accuracy and often fall harmlessly in areas unoccupied by civilians. They have no military value and their sole purpose is to terrorize the civilian population. Now, however, Hezbollah has been able to expose Israel's soft underbelly - an easy missle target with a population quick to panic and with its superior military forces failing to defeat a guerrilla militia.

During the first twelve days of Israel's war with Hezbollah, the guerrillas have been able to fire some 2,000 rockets, mostly Katyushas, into Israel. However, Hezbollah has also fired a number of mid-range Iranian FAJR-3 military missles which have been able to strike as far south as Haifa (Israel's third largest city) and Nazareth, both over 20 miles from the Lebanese border. While these rocket attacks have killed only around 35 civilians (during the first twelve days), they have created panic throughout Northern Israel, with some 300,000 plus Israelis fleeing to other parts of the country. The Israeli air force has been unable to destroy Hezbollah's mobile rocket launchers. Fortunately for Israel, Hezbollah does not appear to have any sophisticated guided missles and so, for now, it is immune from attacks by missles capable of causing severe damage and a high number of casualties.

Now, to the "Road Map to Peace," the plan for two states living side by side - Israel and Palestine - which was cooked up by the European Union, Russia, and the United States. This is really a "Road Map to the Destruction of Israel." That plan will serve only as a rest stop on the road to Israel's annihilation. Once a Palestinian state has been established, it will not be long before guided missles will find their way into that state. Those people, including "experts" on the MIddle East, who believe that "moderate" Muslims are willing to live in peace with Israel, are dreaming. Let's not forget that the Palestinians consider Israeli Jews to be living on land stolen from them. And, several analysts have noted that the Islamists want to kill all Christians and all Jews, whereas the moderate Muslims only want to kill all the Jews.

Even if Israel eventually neutralizes Hezbollah, the fierce resistance it has been meeting while trying to uproot that Shiite militia, and Hezbollah's ability to continue with its rocket strikes on Haifa and other Jewish towns while battling Israel's powerful army, will only embolden the multitudes who are intent on destroying "The Zionist Entity." When a Palestinian state is firmly in place, tiny Israel will be vulnerable to missle attacks from three sides, and the Muslim dream of driving the hated Zionists into the sea will become a reality. In all likelyhood, by the end of the next decade there will be Islamic nuclear bombs and that development will neutralize Israel's nuclear arsenal. When Islamists finally launch a massive attack on Israel with powerful sophisticated missles, only military intervention by the United Sates and the European Union will be able to save the Jewish state, and that will never happen. Thus, there is a good chance that by mid-century, a doomed Israel will have been wiped off the map.

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