Navigating Perilous Waters: An Israeli Strategy for Peace and Security

NAVIGATING PERILOUS WATERS Israel is a Jewish state in a Muslim Middle East. How can it survive in that region? This book answers that question by analyzing the dangers and threats that Israel faces today. The author analyzes the unstable character of the Middle East, and the agents of this instability. Looking at the relationship of Israel with each one of its neighbors—Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia—he discusses the potential risks and opportunities which each neighbor poses to Israel. The author suggests how Israel should prepare itself, militarily and politically, to maintain a balance of power with its adversaries, and to maintain its strategic deterrence. The book also highlights an important component of Israel’s strength: the endurance and the cohesion of its social fabric, which the author sees as the key to his country’s survival in the Middle East. The author’s final recommendation is a combined one: Israel has to preserve its military superiority in the region, to retain defensible borders, but to relentlessly pursue a comprehensive agreement with the Palestinian people, an agreement which he considers the key to a change in Arab-Israeli relations. Written by Israel’s former deputy minister of defense, Navigating Perilous Waters will be essential reading for all those interested in contemporary politics in the Middle East. Ephraim Sneh is one of the Israeli Labor Party leaders. He is a retired General of the Israel Defense Forces, in which he commanded the IAF combat rescue unit, the security zone in south Lebanon and the administration of the West Bank. He served four times in Israel’s cabinet as minister of health, minister of transport, and deputy minister of defense. In Parliament he chairs the subcommittee on defense planning and policy. He is co-author of several Israeli-Palestinian plans for peace and economic cooperation, and the author of Responsibility: Israel after the Year 2000 (1996).

ISRAELI HISTORY, POLITICS AND SOCIETY Series Editor: Efraim Karsh King’s College London ISSN: 13684795

This series provides a multidisciplinary examination of all aspects of Israeli history, politics and society, and serves as a means of communication between the various communities interested in Israel: academics, policy-makers; practitioners; journalists and the informed public. 1 PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST: THE CHALLENGE FOR ISRAEL Edited by Efraim Karsh 2 THE SHAPING OF ISRAELI IDENTITY Myth, Memory and Trauma Edited by Robert Wistrich and David Ohana 3 BETWEEN WAR AND PEACE Dilemmas of Israeli security Edited by Efraim Karsh 4 US-ISRAELI RELATIONS AT THE CROSSROADS Edited by Gabriel Sheffer 5 REVISITING THE YOM KIPPUR WAR Edited by P.R.Kumaraswamy 6 ISRAEL The Dynamics of Change and Continuity Edited by David Levi-Faur, Gabriel Sheffer and David Vogel 7 IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY: Jewish Aspects in Israeli Culture Edited by Dan Urian and Efraim Karsh 8 ISRAEL AT THE POLLS, 1996 Edited by Daniel J.Elazar and Shmuel Sandler 9 FROM RABIN TO NETANYAHU Israel’s Troubled Agenda

Edited by Efraim Karsh 10 FABRICATING ISRAELI HISTORY The ‘New Historians’, second revised edition Efraim Karsh 11 DIVIDED AGAINST ZION Anti-Zionist Opposition in Britain to a Jewish State in Palestine, 1945–1948 Rory Miller 12 PEACEMAKING IN A DIVIDED SOCIETY Israel after Rabin Edited by Sasson Sofer 13 A TWENTY-YEAR RETROSPECTIVE OF EGYPTIAN-ISRAELI RELATIONS Peace in Spite of Everything Ephraim Dowek 14 GLOBAL POLITICS Essays in Honor of David Vital Edited by Abraham Ben-Zvi and Aharon Klieman 15 PARTIES, ELECTIONS AND CLEAVAGES Israel in Comparative and Theoretical Perspective Edited by Reuven Y.Hazan and Moshe Maor 16 ISRAEL AND THE POLLS 1999 Edited by Daniel J.Elazar and M.Ben Mollov 17 PUBLIC POLICY IN ISRAEL Edited by David Nachmias and Gila Menahem 18 DEVELOPMENTS IN ISRAELI PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION Edited by Moshe Maor 19 ISRAELI DIPLOMACY AND THE QUEST FOR PEACE Mordechai Gazit 20 ISRAELI-ROMANIAN RELATIONS AT THE END OF CEAUŞESCU’S ERA Yosef Givrin 21 JOHN F.KENNEDY AND THE POLITICS OF ARMS SALES TO ISRAEL Abraham Ben-Zvi 22 GREEN CRESCENT OVER NAZARETH

The Displacement of Christians by Muslims in the Holy Land Raphael Israeli 23 JERUSALEM DIVIDED The Armistice Region, 1947–1967 Raphael Israeli 24 DECISION ON PALESTINE DEFERRED America, Britain and Wartime Diplomacy, 1939–1945 Monty Noam Penkower 25 A DISSENTING DEMOCRACY The Case of ‘Peace Now’, An Israeli Peace Movement Magnus Norell 26 ISRAELI IDENTITY In Search of a Successor to the Pioneer, Tsabar and Settler Lilly Weissbrod 27 THE ISRAELI PALESTINIANS An Arab Minority in the Jewish State Edited by Alexander Bligh 28 ISRAEL, THE HASHEMITES AND THE PALESTINIANS The Fateful Triangle Editedby Efraim Karsh and P.R.Kumaraswamy 29 LAST DAYS IN ISRAEL Abraham Diskin 30 WAR IN PALESTINE, 1948 Strategy and Diplomacy David Tal 31 RETHINKING THE MIDDLE EAST Efraim Karsh 32 BEN-GURION AGAINST THE KNESSET Giora Goldberg 33 TRAPPED FOOLS Thirty Years of Israeli Policy in the Territories Schlomo Gazit 34 ISRAEL’S QUEST FOR RECOGNITION AND ACCEPTANCE IN ASIA

Garrison State Diplomacy Jacob Abadi 35 THE HARP AND SHIELD OF DAVID Ireland, Zionism and the State of Israel, 1937–1963 Eliash Schulamit 36 H.V.EVATT AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF ISRAEL The Undercover Zionist Daniel Mandel 37 NAVIGATING PERILOUS WATERS An Israeli Strategy for Peace and Security Ephraim Sneh 38 LYNDON B.JOHNSON AND THE POLITICS OF ARMS SALES TO ISRAEL In the Shadow of the Hawk Abraham Ben-Zvi 39 ISRAELI DEMOCRACY AT THE CROSSROADS Edited by Raphael Cohen-Almagor 40 BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LAND The Jewish National Fund’s Finances and Land-Purchase Priorities in Palestine, 1939– 1945 Eric Engel Tuten Israel: The First Hundred Years (Mini Series) Edited by Ephraim Karsh 1 Israel’s Transition from Community to State 2 From War to Peace? 3 Politics and Society since 1948 4 Israel in the International Arena 5 Israel in the Next Century

NAVIGATING PERILOUS WATERS An Israeli Strategy for Peace and Security

Ephraim Sneh Translated by Haim Watzman

NEW YORK AND LONDON

Published 2005 by RoutledgeCurzon, an imprint of Taylor & Francis 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. Originally published in Hebrew in 2002 by Yediot Ahronoth © 2002, 2005 Ephraim Sneh All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,without permission in writing from the publishers. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibiliy or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-64614-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-67803-6 (Adobe E-Reader Format) ISBN 0-714-65633-X (hbk) ISBN 0-714-68518-6 (pbk)

CONTENTS

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Preface

ix

Perilous waters Between the Jordan and the sea Egypt: threat, danger, or ally? Jordan: the indispensable partner Syria: a tough neighbor Iraq's vague future Iran: the main threat Will the world change? A warning note Two essential conditions The new deterrence The United States: a slightly different alliance Regional alliances National resolve

1 5 17 21 25 31 35 41 45 48 56 59 65 68

Index

74

PREFACE In February 1996, when I was Israel’s health minister, I published a book entitled Responsibility: Israel after the Year 2000. In it, I analyzed the dangers and opportunities in this region, and laid out what steps Israel needs to take to live securely in a changed but unstable Middle East. In many senses, this book is an update of that previous work. In fact, I have inserted, almost verbatim, a few pages from the previous book in this one. Here, too, I sum up the threats and dangers facing Israel, point to its potential allies, and propose what Israel needs to do to navigate safely in territory that remains both hostile and perilous. The present book is less optimistic than its predecessor. The region has changed for the worse in the past six years. Israel now faces greater, more potent threats. Unfortunately, the process of rapprochement with the Palestinians, which brought hope and prosperity in the years 1994–1996, has withered into a bloody conflict that has so far claimed the lives of over three thousand Israeli and Palestinian men, women, and children. Some say that setting out these threats and dangers in detail frightens the public and causes people to despair. I disagree. On the contrary, the country’s leadership is obligated to tell the people the whole truth, as well as to propose solutions to these problems. I currently serve as the chairman of the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) subcommittee on defense planning and policy. In the former government I served as a member of the security cabinet. I had a career in the military before entering politics. Doing my job properly also requires me to be engaged in the larger issues of Israel’s defense and position in the world. It is of vital importance that leaders intimately involved with these issues tell the public just what Israel is facing, and what must be done. Hence this book, and its title: Navigating Perilous Waters. The territory is perilous, but if we are wise we may navigate it safely. An objective examination of the situation need not lead us to despair. This book has been written on the basis of familiarity with our strength. But it is also founded on a faith that the good, the positive, and the best qualities in Israeli society will prevail and will give us the fortitude to withstand any test that may come. I would like to thank Ze’ev Schiff and Professor Ehud Toledano for their enlightening comments on the manuscript. The Hebrew version of this book was published during the month marking thirty years since the death of my father and teacher, Moshe Sneh, may his memory be blessed. “All my life has been dedicated to the Jewish people,” he wrote in his last testament. And so it was. My father was one of the leaders of Polish Jewry before the Second World War, a commander of the Haganah, and one of the founders of the State of Israel. He was also one of the leaders of the Israeli Left and a member of the Knesset from its founding until the day he died, working there for social justice and peace. From my father I inherited a love for the Jewish people, as well as the belief that our most important task is to ensure

our people’s continued existence in this changing world. This belief, absorbed from my father, is the foundation of my worldview and the motivation for my actions. I miss him very much, and dedicate this book to his memory.

1 PERILOUS WATERS Israel must base its actions on the assumption that the Middle East will continue in the foreseeable future to be an unstable and even combustible region, even if the circle of countries with which Israel has signed a peace treaty widens. This is because the region contains permanent elements of instability. More precisely, three causes of imbalance may be discerned, and where there is imbalance there is instability. The first imbalance is the unequal distribution of wealth in the Arab world. Anyone wondering why Saddam Hussein received so much support in the Arab streets will find the answer in this imbalance. Saddam Hussein turned himself into the champion representative of the oppressed and the deprived of the Arab world. These people enthusiastically identified with him, and he with them. The Arab populace’s longstanding bitterness toward the petroleum magnates, those princely families in whose hands fabled wealth is concentrated, who live profligate and dissolute lives, is enormous and pervasive. It is directed toward the Western world as well, first and foremost the United States—a rich, modern, and permissive world, which excites their envy. This is why Osama bin Laden is now the hero of many in the Arab and Muslim world from Ramallah to Jakarta. The gap between the few very rich and the vast numbers of very poor in our region will not decrease significantly in the foreseeable future. As long as this gap exists, as long as the distribution of wealth remains so unequal, the region will remain unstable. There will always be someone able to exploit this bitterness, this feeling of deprivation, to his own ends. The rising tide of Islamic fanaticism, which found its most monstrous expression in the September 11, 2001 attacks by the al-Qaeda organization on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, is flooding the world. One of its important sources is the deep economic failure of the Islamic polities. Its source lies not only in the internal social imbalance in Islamic countries, but also in the frustration and envy excited by the rich, modern Western world. This failure is also the backdrop to the growth of the Islamic organizations that are at war with the State of Israel. For example, Iran founded Hezbollah in southern Lebanon among the Shi’ite population, which justifiably feels neglected by the central government in Beirut. The second imbalance is between the large radical states and the small conservative ones. This imbalance is most prominent along the Persian Gulf. On the one hand we have Iraq and Iran, the largest states in terms of territory, population, and resources; on the other, the Gulf states—small in territory and population, but also possessing great resources. There are 66 million people in Iran, whose annual GNP is $80 billion. In all of the Gulf States taken together there are 24 million people, and their GNP is $204 billion. Iraq’s

Navigating perilous waters

2

population is smaller than that of the Gulf States, at 23.7 million. But Iraq’s GNP before the war was eleven times smaller than that of the Gulf states: $19 billion. This imbalance is made worse by the fact that the large and militarily strong states of the Persian Gulf, whose annual income per capita in $1,200 (Iran) and $790 (Iraq), face small countries whose income per capita is $8,500, seven and ten times greater respectively. This imbalance is the objective basis for the ceaseless danger of conflict in the region; the temptation for the strong states to attack their richer but weaker neighbors is one cause of the ever-present risk of war. When a new Iraq emerges, even maybe years from now, no matter what its political structure may be, it will face the same temptation. The war in Iraq left the basic causes of imbalance in the region unchanged, uncorrected, and thus its instability has remained as well. The third imbalance is that between Israel and its surrounding countries, and I will discuss it at some length. It is important to understand this imbalance, and especially the fact that it will continue to exist even when there is peace between Israel and all of its neighbors, a distant dream these days. First of all, one must remember that Israel will always be different from its neighbors in the region. Israel is a Jewish state in the composition of its population, in its character, and in the fact that the Jewish people as such does not enjoy sovereignty anywhere else in the world. Israel’s surroundings, both close and farther away, will always be ArabMuslim, and the Middle East is known neither for its tolerance toward minorities nor for the ability of its minorities to survive here. The Lebanese Christians’ fate is but one example. Israel’s perennial “otherness” will not change even if a state of warm, true peace—full of practical measures that strengthen and stabilize the peace—is achieved. It seems obvious to me that we, the Israelis, have an interest in preserving this special identity, in not allowing it to disappear. Because Israel is, as I have noted, the only place where the Jewish people is sovereign, we must never forget that the difficulties Israel faces as a Jewish state in Arab-Muslim surroundings, even should they wane or fall dormant for many years, may one day reawaken. This is not paranoia, nor is it a desire to invent danger where none exists. It is, rather, the only responsible attitude for ensuring the continuation of a people that for most of its existence has not enjoyed sovereignty on its own soil, and was the victim of the most terrible and murderous cruelty known to the human race. Armed with this consciousness, we will be better able to discern just how inferior Israel’s position is to that of its neighbors, in terms of its population and its territory. Israel has today some 6½ million people, of whom 5½ million are Jews. Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon together contain 97 million people. The Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip number about 3 million. If we add Libya, the Maghrib states, Iraq, and Iran, there are about 260 million Arabs and Muslims living in this area. Israel’s territorial imbalance with its neighbors is revealed by a casual glance at a map. Israel’s territorial area is 11 percent of that of Syria, and about 2 percent of that of Egypt. The strategic significance of Israel’s small dimensions is made all the more serious by the density of its Jewish population, especially along the coastal plain between Acre and Ashkelon, or, as we say in Israel, from Hadera to Gadera. This density makes Israel extremely vulnerable, because not only is the majority of its population concentrated on

Perilous Waters

3

the coastal plain, but so too are its principal economic, technological, academic, and cultural assets. It is difficult to defend such a country, and even more so against weapons of mass destruction. This imbalance in territory and population is also expressed in the proportion of quantitative military forces between Israel and its neighbors. Even if we count, for this purpose, only Israel’s immediate neighbors (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon), the ratios of fighter planes, of tanks, and of regular soldiers are all to Israel’s detriment. On the face of it, Israel’s economic power balances out its quantitative inferiority in terms of population and territory. Israel’s GNP is equivalent to the sum of those of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, whose populations are together fifteen times higher than Israel’s. However, this enormous economic advantage, while far-reaching in its significance for Israel’s chances of enhancing and strengthening its status in the region and the world, cannot neutralize its quantitative inferiority and vulnerability under conditions of conflict with its neighbors. Only the combination of two factors can correct this disadvantage and grant Israel strategic balance with the countries surrounding it. One is the combination of military, techno-logical, and intelligence superiority. The other is a defensible border. This is perhaps the essence of the answer to the question of how to navigate safely in perilous territory, but in the following chapters I will address the details of the dangers and threats facing us—and of how to respond to them.

2 BETWEEN THE JORDAN AND THE SEA “The heart of the conflict”—that is the shopworn but true phrase that expresses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s place in the overall Arab-Israeli conflict over the land of Israel in the tapestry of relationships in the region, and the deep emotional element bound up in the struggle between the two peoples. This conflict is fundamentally a conflict between two national movements for rule over a narrow strip of land between the Jordan River to the east and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. The area is densely populated, both peoples are deeply attached to the land, and there is no solution other than to divide the land between them. Division of the territory, if final and accompanied by a general formula for coexistence between the peoples, will bring about a historic reconciliation. Continuation of hostilities means the terrible reality of thousands of casualties and the destruction of both the Palestinian and Israeli nations’ economies. Reconciliation and economic cooperation between these two energetic and educated peoples, on the other hand, bears an enormous potential for economic vigor. The gap between the two alternatives is extreme indeed. When I served as the head of the civil administration in the West Bank (1985–1987), I got to know the Palestinians from close up. Since then—especially since then—I have believed very strongly that reconciliation is inevitable, and I believe in the economic benefits of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation. I continue to hold to my belief even in the bloody times in which this book is being written. The war over the land of Israel, or Palestine as the Arabs term it, provided the Arab states with an excuse to reject the existence of the State of Israel during its first three decades. Even when, for lack of any realistic alternative, they accepted Israel’s existence, their solidarity with the Palestinian struggle continued to nourish their hostility to Israel. It provided the Arab radicals with a pretext for continuing to fight against Israel in various ways. For the moderates, it was a reason to slow down normalization of their relations with Israel. Moreover, the Palestinian question was the single moral cause around which the Arab world could unit. In fact, it is still the case that the Arab countries, hostile and suspicious toward each other, can unite, at the appropriate time, only on this subject. This is true even though the Arab regimes scorn and abuse the Palestinians. The Palestinians say that the Arab states treat them just as European societies once treated the Jews: with scorn born of envy. It is well known that Palestinians hold many of the highest management positions in the Gulf countries and provide a large and decisive contribution to the economies of Jordan and other Arab states. Palestinian businessmen belong to the elite of the Arab world’s business community. All this excites envy and hatred toward a people dispersed, like the Jews, throughout the world. Not a few heads of Arab states resent Yassir Arafat himself. The way they talk about him at closed meetings is

Navigating perilous waters

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uncomplimentary, to say the least. But at every Arab summit he makes masterful use of the code words of the Palestinian plight—and by doing so gets his way. Hence, it is clear why Israel’s relations with the Palestinians decisively influence its relations with the other Arab states. At the height of the Oslo accords’ implementation, when there was an atmosphere of Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement and reconciliation, the peace agreement with Jordan was signed. Following this, we established diplomatic relations with the states in the Persian Gulf and North Africa. As our relations with the Palestinians have worsened, however, our relations with these countries have become cold to the point of being frozen, and in some cases relations have even been severed. An Arab regime cannot afford to risk infuriating its masses too much—and the masses’ fury rises when they see televised confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, which are always presented in a manner extremely hostile to Israel. At such a time, the Arab public, principally the radical religious opposition that exists in every Arab country, considers normal relations with Israel—however diluted—to be moral treason against the Palestinian cause in particular and the Arab cause in general. Thus, we have no chance of improving our relations with Jordan, Egypt, the Gulf States, Tunisia, and Morocco without improving our relations with the Palestinians. The Palestinian question is the spark vital to every regional anti-Israel conflagration. I will address this issue later in the chapter. Before addressing the dangers deriving from our prolonged conflict with the Palestinians, I feel I should very briefly take stock of the agreements we have signed with them. To put it simply, were the Oslo accords a historic achievement or a tragic mistake? In the big picture, the Oslo accords were not mistakes. Overall, signing these agreements with the Palestinians was the correct thing to do. Correct—but not the most correct. The historical greatness of the Oslo pact lies in the fact that within its framework, the Israelis and the Palestinians—Rabin and Peres on the one side and Yassir Arafat on the other— decided to move the solution to the conflict between them from the battlefield to the negotiating table. They did not ignore the conflict, or its malignancy, but decided that it should be resolved through compromise and reconciliation. The basis of the Oslo accords was not the formula of “territories for peace,” but rather that of “sovereignty for security.” Reading the text of the Oslo agreements, one immediately comprehends that the pact is in effect a simple bargain: the Palestinians will receive a state (by implication, more or less within the 1967 borders), and in return will sincerely and effectively fight Palestinian terror. They will gain their own state, and we will gain security from terror. In addition to this fundamental agreement, the pact contains very detailed provisions concerning cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, beginning at its formative stage. The agreement provided for economic cooperation as well as collaboration in the fields of health, energy, agriculture, and some twelve other subjects—in short, in all areas of life. This multidisciplinary collaboration was to have created the practical foundation for good neighborly relations from which both sides would benefit. The Paris accord, signed by Abraham Shochat, Israel’s minister of finance, and Abu ‘Ala (Ahmed Qurie), a top Palestinian official, in April 1994, provided the basis for health economic relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. These relations were to have strengthened and complemented the political agreement signed at the White House on September 13, 1993. It should be remarked that the

Between the Jordon and the sea

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cooperation that took place among experts in various fields and among military personnel from both sides brought hundreds of people from each side into a routine of businesslike and professional communication, the kind that leads to the fall of barriers, cordial personal relations, and the reduction of hatred. The Western Wall tunnel riots, in which the Palestinians responded violently to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s decision in September 1996 to excavate a tunnel abutting the Temple Mount, set this positive phenomenon back for a certain time, and the outbreak of the second Intifada in September 2000 brought it to an end. What, then, was the flaw in the Oslo agreement? It was not conditional. Arafat gained recognition by Israel in return for signing it, and not in return for practical measures taken against terror. Only later did Rabin defer the transfer of the Palestinian cities to Arafat’s authority until such time as Arafat stopped the murderous attacks of Islamic Jihad and Hamas by real action. By the time the first Palestinian city, Jenin, was handed over to full Palestinian control in the framework of the interim agreement, Rabin was no longer alive. It must be recalled that in return for his promise to fight the extremist opposition groups, Arafat received Israel’s agreement to the establishment of police and intelligence forces with tens of thousands of armed members. The three withdrawals in which the greater part of the West Bank was to be transferred to Palestinian Authority control were meant under the Oslo agreements to serve as reward to the Palestinians for their satisfactory progress in the permanent status negotiations. When these negotiations withered during the Netanyahu era, these withdrawals also metamorphosed from a response to what the Palestinians had already done into an incentive for what they might perhaps do in the future. Any future Israeli-Palestinian agreement will be based on the Oslo equation: effective Palestinian action against terror and against the extremists, in return for Israeli agreement to a Palestinian state and assistance in its development. When the first and second Oslo accords were signed, both sides envisioned a similar, even identical, permanent solution: two states coexisting in peace and economic cooperation. It was already clear then that there was not complete agreement as to the details: What exact percentage of the West Bank’s territory would eventually be transferred to Palestinian sovereignty? What would be the fate and eventual status of the settlements Israel had established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since taking control of those territories in 1967? How would control and sovereignty be divided in Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighborhoods and sacred places? How would the refugee problem be solved? Rabin assumed that the five years that would pass before Israel would need to decide on these details would be ones of confidence-building that would prepare the hearts and minds of both populations for compromise solutions. What happened after his murder was the exact opposite. During the four years between Netanyahu’s victory in the May 1996 elections and the failure of the Camp David talks in July 2000, confidence was destroyed rather than built. Prime Minister Ehud Barak came to Camp David with fair offers, but after a year in power during which almost no progress had been made in the dialogue with the Palestinians, and their trust in his sincere goodwill had been totally eroded. Arafat remained intransigent on all the points that remained controversial. He maintained his old rhetoric that gave preference to victory over compromise and struggle over achievement, and his image of a uniformed and uncompromising leader. This eventually brought about the violent crisis in the relations

Navigating perilous waters

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between Israel and the Palestinians. But it was the Palestinian leadership, not flaws in the Oslo accords, that brought about this crisis. Were the Oslo accords Yitzhak Rabin’s dream of a perfect agreement with the Palestinians? Rabin was my mentor, so I feel an obligation to tell of his attempts to obtain a better deal. In his book Touching Peace, Yossi Beilin relates that on June 6, 1993, at the height of the talks in the Oslo back channel, which were taking place behind the scenes as the deadlock in the official negotiations in Washington persisted, Rabin suddenly ordered Shimon Peres to halt them at once. The oral order was backed up by a personal letter to Peres in which Rabin stated his opposition to the draft declaration of principles. Four days later, Rabin allowed the Oslo talks to proceed. “I did not understand Rabin’s change of mind…. Even today I have no answer to this conundrum; apparently there will never be an answer,” writes Beilin. What in fact happened is that in May 1993 I convinced Rabin that it was vital to offer the Palestinians an arrangement that would bypass the existing formulations and break the impasse in the Washington talks. The idea was to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), but conditionally, after a real cessation of terror for half a year. At the same time, we would take a series of confidence-building measures to ease conditions in the territories, hold elections there for a Palestinian parliament, and transfer the Gaza Strip to Palestinian control as a model for a later transfer on the West Bank as well. Each stage of the plan would be conditional on the successful implementation of the previous stage, the main test being effective action by the PLO against terror. We decided that the basis for rapprochement would be the amendment to the declaration of principles proposed to the parties by the United States at the Washington talks on May 12, 1993. I arranged to meet Nabil Sha’ath, Arafat’s confidant and senior diplomat, in London, where we were both supposed to stay at the St James Hotel while attending the UN conference on the Middle East conflict. I left for London on June 7 after receiving detailed instructions from Rabin. Sha’ath and I left the conference session and went to my room to draft a joint declaration. My wife, Tikki, and my daughter Hava were staying in London at that time, celebrating Hava’s completion of her military service in a paratrooper unit with some shopping on Oxford Street. I explained my absence from the conference meetings by saying that I had to join their shopping expedition in order to make sure they did not make too generous a contribution to the British economy. It wasn’t long before the U.S. delegate remarked on the fact that Sha’ath and I were “skipping” the meetings at exactly the same times. So we moved our meetings to the night hours. There being no air-conditioning at the London hotel, Nabil and I sat in our undershirts, sweating onto the pages of the draft. Late at night on June 9, we arrived at a joint formulation, and we each took it home with us—Sha’ath for Arafat’s approval and I for Rabin’s. When I came to Rabin to report on the talks, he presented me with the report of one of our intelligence agencies. The report, which was clearly based on access to the most reliable sources, stated that Arafat was interested only in the Oslo talks and would never allow any other channel to make progress. It was already clear to Arafat that all other channels, and the formulations they might produce, would offer him fewer gains and would require him to commit himself to much more. Rabin told me a few days later that Peres was furious at the attempt to open another channel with the Palestinians, and that Peres’s people had scolded Abu Mazen, head of

Between the Jordon and the sea

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the Palestinian negotiating team, when he asked to meet with me as Rabin’s representative. Rabin then understood that Oslo was the only game in town and that if he delayed any further, he would not reach an agreement with the Palestinians within the first nine months of his tenure, as he had promised during his 1992 election campaign. In retrospect, Rabin could have avoided this situation. In October 1992, two men approached me separately on Abu Mazen’s behalf, requesting a channel of communication to Rabin, who had been elected Israeli prime minister a few months earlier. One was the businessman David Susskind, one of the leaders of Belgian Jewry and a long-standing peace activist. The other was a Palestinian businessman living in Europe, through whom I had conducted secret contacts with Arafat since 1989. Rabin adhered at that time to the Washington talks, at which Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip who were affiliated with the PLO negotiated with an Israeli delegation headed by Elyakim Rubinstein. These talks were actively brokered by the Americans. Meticulously honest by nature, Rabin was determined to honor his commitment to the Israeli public and the U.S. administration to reach an agreement with the Palestinians using the Washington track. The Washington talks barred any direct communication between Israel and the PLO leadership in Tunisia, and were conducted between Israel and PLO activists from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. “Not yet,” Rabin told me, and I politely declined the invitation issued by Abu Mazen’s representatives. By December, Arafat’s people had already created the Oslo track through two associates, Ron Pundik and Yair Hirschfeld, of Yossi Beilin, an Israeli politician who is a leading proponent of the peace process. The result was that the Palestinian ended up communicating with the Israeli government through a channel that was less suspicious in its approach to them, less cautious, and more anxious to reach an agreement—any agreement—and more willing to make concessions to them. I do not say this to detract in any way from my great appreciation for Pundik and Hirschfeld, who had for years been seeking to find a way to an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. I myself had conducted secret contacts with the Palestinian leadership since August 1988 on behalf of Rabin and Peres. My criticism is of my own failure to press Rabin harder to take advantage of the opportunities that he had soon after being elected prime minister, even though I known that my chances of convincing him to take shortcuts were slight. Another question that I feel obliged to answer is whether and, if so, where Ehud Barak erred during his brief tenure as prime minister, which ended in political disillusionment and armed conflict with the Palestinians. I was Barak’s deputy at the Ministry of Defense, but this does not prevent me from giving an objective and fair answer. In my opinion, we lost precious time when we deferred intensive negotiations with Arafat for a year after the establishment of the Barak government. Even without this delay, we had already lost about three years during the tenure of the Netanyahu government (for a description of that miserable time, interested readers are referred to Yossi Beilin’s book Guide for a Wounded Dove). Those were wasteful and destructive years for the peace process, and we did not need to augment them with yet another year’s delay. The delay resulted from concentrating on negotiations with the Syrians before dealing with the Palestinian channel. This was an error that must not be repeated in the future: there is no chance of achieving peace with Syria as long as the Palestinian issue churns and bleeds. And were we to achieve such an agreement, it would be a guaranteed recipe

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for yet further inflaming the Palestinians, who always suspect that a “Syrian-IsraeliAmerican conspiracy” will leave them out in the cold. True, the reason we concentrated on the Syrians was the justifiable aspiration to withdraw from Lebanon as part of an agreement with Syria rather than without one, as we ended up doing. Syria had, however, no incentive to cut a deal with us, because Barak had made the fundamental error of promising the Israeli public that he would withdraw our soldiers from Lebanon by July 7, 2000. I vainly tried to keep Barak from making this error, but in vain. I will further address this subject on p. 000. Barak’s basic approach to the negotiations was correct. He did not want to give Arafat significant territorial gains before being assured that Arafat intended to conclude a true agreement between peoples, and an end to the conflict. Similarly, Barak should not be condemned for his ambition to end the conflict with the Palestinians during his first term in office. As I mentioned, too much time had been wasted, many had paid with their lives, and if the other side had been interested in closing a deal, it could have been accomplished in a short time. I was in the middle of a lengthy conversation with Arafat in Gaza when he received an invitation from President Clinton to the Camp David talks. My impression from our conversation was that Arafat was going to Camp David in order to sign an agreement, and I reported this to Prime Minister Barak. However, it seems I was mistaken. Barak went to Camp David imbued with a sense of history, with a powerful desire to conclude an agreement. In his proposals to Arafat he went to the very limit of the possible. His concessions emboldened Clinton to offer a bridging proposal that contained provisions very hard for Israel to accept. Limiting our military presence in the Jordan Valley for example, would entail a security risk that cannot be taken. But in the final analysis, in the Camp David process Israel took a daring and correct step that authenticates our claim to be a people that is willing to pay a painful price for peace. Barak’s behavior towards the Palestinians at Camp David has been criticized. This criticism is somewhat justified. The negotiations were conducted in fits and starts, sometimes clumsily and sometimes incompetently. But Camp David’s failure—the failure of negotiations with the most dovish Israeli government ever—was mainly Arafat’s fault. I cannot see into minds and hearts. I don’t know what went on in his head, I don’t know why he insisted on evicting us totally from the Temple Mount, why he again insisted on the right of return after his closest associates indicated to me that they would be “pragmatic and flexible” on this critical question. Indeed, we went from a situation in which the gap between our positions was narrow and bridgeable into a sustained and bloody conflict. Arafat not only hardened his positions, but responded to the Barak government with an onslaught of terror, which caused the majority of Israeli citizens to despair of the chances for peace with the Palestinians in the foreseeable future. I am sure that there are many in Arafat’s circle who believe that he should have grabbed Barak’s offers at Camp David. I also know that in the field there is a radical leadership that threatens to frustrate any concession by force. Arafat is now aligned with this camp. According to some, Arafat never intended to give up the right of return, 100 percent of the territories, and absolute control of the holy places. This opinion holds that even when he met with Rabin and Peres after the Oslo accords were signed, he never gave up these

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demands. To the best of my knowledge, his positions became more extreme over time. Early on in the process he was amenable to reasonable arrangement on the “hard questions”—that is, Jerusalem, the refugees, and permanent borders. Yet he has now cast himself as a historic national-Muslim leader who seeks victory and not compromise. He wants to go down in history as a warrior, not a diplomat. The Karine-A, the ship full of offensive weapons—Katyusha rockets, mortars, and missiles—that was sent to the Palestinian Authority from Iran is grave and worrying evidence of how Arafat collaborates with the most extreme and dangerous of our enemies. What are the dangers of our struggle with the Palestinians over the strip of land between the Jordan and the sea? The first danger is that of “Bosnia-ization”—that is, a descent into a state of war between peoples holding onto each other’s necks without being able to let go. Should the conflict become a war between communities, between Jews living in the territories and the Palestinians there, it will be brutal, cruel, and ugly, as was the war in Yugoslavia as it disintegrated. This kind of war, if it develops, will strengthen and deepen yet further the hatred between the two peoples, which is already profound. It will also harm Israel’s international image, effecting our isolation and quickly bringing closer an additional danger, that of the “internationalization” of the conflict. “Internationalization” is the code word for direct intervention in the Palestinian territories by foreign armies, most likely in the framework of United Nations or some other multinational force. The justification would be the necessity of defending the Palestinians in the territories from the violence of armed settlers or from excess force by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which the police and security forces of the Palestinian Authority are too weak to resist. An act of violent retribution by the settlers or an armored action or air strike by the IDF that injured many civilians would be the most likely trigger for such international intervention. The UN Security Council has already deliberated on proposals to send a multinational force to defend the residents of the territories several times in recent months, but these proposals have been vetoed by the Americans. Yet a brutal and deadly attack on the Palestinians in the territories will create an international atmosphere that will make it difficult for the United States to exercise its veto. We might call such a situation the Kana syndrome. In April 1996, after Hezbollah launched a series of Katyusha attacks on Israel’s settlements in the Galilee, the IDF launched a response called the Grapes of Wrath operation. This operation mainly involved artillery. The IDF shelled not only Hezbollah hideouts, but also the vicinity of villages that provided shelter for the terrorists. The idea was to send a wave of hundreds of thousands of refugees from southern Lebanese villages to Beirut, so that these would pressure the Lebanese government to ask Syria to prevent Hezbollah activity from Lebanese territory. Despite the brutal character of the operation, Israel was not condemned. In fact, there was considerable understanding throughout the world for Israel’s position. The prime minister and defense minister at the time was Shimon Peres, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. The government was made up of the Labor Party and the left-wing Meretz Party, whose desire for peace none could doubt. The Katyusha attacks on Kiryat Arba, Shlomi, and the other northern villages and towns justified the action even in the eyes of the

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world’s self-righteous. When the operation was close to its end, Hezbollah located an IDF force in Lebanese territory and began to fire at it with mortars. The mortar fire became more and more precise, and the force was in danger of being wiped out once the range was finally determined. The force’s commander requested artil-lery support, which he received. The terrorists had positioned their mortar next to the fence of a U.N. camp in the village of Kana, east of Tyre. It was packed with hundreds of refugees from the surrounding villages. Unfortunately, the IDF’s operational maps did not delineate the entire perimeter of the U.N. camp, and showed it as being smaller than it actually was. When 155mm shells fell near the Hezbollah mortar, a few of them fell in the UN compound, killing and wounding many scores of innocent civilians. This tragic mistake moved the world’s attitude to Israel from one end of the spectrum to the other. For several days the world’s television networks did not stop broadcasting the scenes of horror, and the festival of condemnation and denunciation of “murderous Israel” did not pass over even the most loyal of Israel’s friends. No one remembered the shells that fell on Galilee anymore. No one asked why Hezbollah had been firing from a position so close to the miserable refugees, and Israel suffered heavy political damage. The repetition of the Kana syndrome in the territories is a guaranteed recipe for increasing pressure for international physical intervention. Foreign intervention is not in Israel’s interests, because it would be an alternative to, rather than an incentive for, direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The two sides would, after all, be separated by an international force. A real peace agreement can result only from determined and intensive negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. An international force would serve as a cover for an imposed arrangement concocted by the rest of the world. An imposed agreement would not satisfy either of the sides, and would almost certainly be skewed against Israel. The international force itself would not be able to stop the terror instigated by the rejectionist Palestinian organizations, which will not be satisfied by any agreement. We have already experienced at first hand, in southern Lebanon, the helplessness of an international force to stop the operations of guerrilla and terror organizations, ever since the arrival there of United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) forces in 1978. The international observer force in Hebron, where it has been stationed since 1998, has yet to prevent a single act of terror in that city. Its activity has been restricted largely to writing reports about such incidents. Either the “Bosnia-ization” or the internationalization of the conflict could lead to Israel’s political isolation. Should pressure for a political solution to the conflict with the Palestinians be applied while Israel is isolated, the conflict will be “resolved” to our detriment. Vital Israeli interests will be harmed in an imposed arrangement. The only way for us to reach an agreement that we can live with is to sit down face to face with the Palestinians. What should Israel do now? How should it defend itself against the dangers presented by the continuation of military conflict and of diplomatic stalemate? I will present four imperatives. First, we must conduct the war against guerrilla terror wisely. “Wisely” means taking every possible action to intercept terrorists and to eliminate the terror organizations’

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heads. These actions should be limited, surgical operations striking most of the time at guilty parties—and only those whose elimination will make it difficult for their successors to immediately launch new attacks. In open areas and along the roads, we should increase the antiguerrilla actions of our infantry and special units. Intelligent management of the guerrilla war means not using force in a way that appears brutal to outside observers. This means making sure not to cause damage to wide areas around our specific targets, and ensuring that all operations are pinpointed. It means that tanks and air strikes should be used only in special cases, when their use is the only way to achieve the desired operational result. We should avoid causing superfluous brutal damage to property, uprooting trees, and destroying houses. The damage to Israel’s image caused by these actions almost always outweighs their operational benefits. Striking at trees and stones is really only a release of frustration by one who has failed in his true mission: striking at the enemy. If Israeli settlers in the territories launch revenge attacks or provocations, they must be dealt with harshly. These actions not only violate the rule of law and the IDF’s monopoly on the use of power, but also cause severe political damage. They can lead directly to the Bosnia-ization and internationalization of the conflict. The second imperative is always to have a reasonable plan ready for a fair final status agreement. Israel must be seen by the world and by the Palestinians as ready at all times for a historical and fair compromise. In my opinion, such a plan must include the following components: • Borders. The principle of determining final borders is based on the Security Council resolutions 242 and 338. The final border would be based on the 1967 line. Israeli settlements that are close to this line would be annexed to Israel, and the Palestinian state would receive another area as compensation (“swap”). The settlements in the Gaza Strip, as well as those in the West Bank that are not among the annexed, will be evacuated. • Security. The Palestinian state will be demilitarized, under effective monitoring. Israel will maintain control of its airspace, as well as a military presence in the Jordan Valley. • Jerusalem. Jerusalem, including the Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and adjacent Israeli settlements, will be the capital of Israel and recognized as such throughout the world. The Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem will be under the sovereignty of the Palestinian state. A special status will be established for the Old City of Jerusalem, which will be ruled by an international council made up of the three religions. • Refugees. A solution for the refugee problem will be achieved through a regional economic development plan, benefiting all those countries with a Palestinian refugee population. The return of refugees within the borders of Israel will not be allowed. They will have the right to return to the Palestinian state. A peace plan based on these principles was presented by me to the national convention of the Israeli Labor Party and was approved by the vast majority of its 4,000 delegates. When these principles are accepted by a Palestinian leadership, the plan will gain the support of most Israelis as well.

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The third imperative is that we demonstrate at all times our willingness for economic cooperation with the Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian society has no chance of developing economically without cooperating with Israel. Before the second Intifada, the annual GDP per capita in the area controlled by the Authority was $1,600, about one-tenth of Israel’s GDP per capita. After the Intifada, this number dropped to below $1,000. If the Palestinians depend economically on Egypt or Jordan, they have no chance of improving their national income. Only through the Palestinian Authority’s economic integration with Israel, including a free labor market, will the Israeli economy pull its Palestinian counterpart upwards. We should remember that Israel, too, has a clear interest in integration. Annual Israeli exports to the Palestinian Authority areas before the Intifada were about $2 billion; it is vital to develop this export market. Economic opportunity for the Palestinians is an incentive of the first order to stop the violence and take a different path, one of cooperation and peace. There is tremendous potential in such cooperation, and if the Palestinians are wise, they will prosper with us. If they refuse, Israel will at least gain international support for its constructive approach. The fourth imperative is to stop the expansion of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. We must half the destructive demographic process of mixing populations, which has made the conflict with the Palestinians much harder to solve. The ever-increasing number of settlements, and the growth of existing ones, has made it difficult, if not impossible, for us to detach ourselves from the Palestinians. This attempt to settle Jews in areas densely populated by Palestinians, and which will eventually be part of the Palestinian state, is a major obstacle to reaching a solution. The settlements should be constrained to their present borders, and not be allowed to expand any further. The settlers and the political parties that support them claim that the settlements must be allowed to expand in accordance with the natural rate of population increase. Yet the fact that a baby has been born in a settlement does not mean that a new house must be built for it. If the growing number of children in a settlement require the expansion of schools, kindergartens, and community institutions there, on the other hand, such facilities should be provided. But new neighborhoods for new settlers should not be allowed. We have to remember that in a final peace agreement about half of the Israeli settlers in the West Bank would be resettled inside Israel. Their relocation might cost Israel about 1 percent of its GNP every year for four consecutive years, but the economic growth that would follow such a peace agreement would be much higher. If we observe these four imperatives we will minimize the dangers Israel faces on the Palestinian front. I must not neglect to address the idea of unilaterally separating ourselves from the Palestinians without an agreement. Some people have the illusion that this is possible; at times, when there seems to be no hope for an agreement, there are those who grasp at this idea. But the 140 settlements that Israel now has in the West Bank mean that such a separation is impossible. While Israel could annex de facto such settlement blocs as Gush Etzion or the Ariel area, this could not be done with the scores of settlements scattered on the mountain tops in areas densely populated by Palestinians. Only a government with the political power to evacuate such settlements and resettle them in those areas of Israeli settlement in the West Bank that will be annexed to Israel can speak of unilateral separation. For the moment, Israel has no such government.

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Even if such a government were to be elected—one that could annex some settlements and dismantle others—such a unilateral move could not bring security and tranquility. “Unilateral separation” in the absence of an agreement would mean the annexation of some 30 percent of the West Bank’s territory. Though this would keep important strategic positions under Israeli sovereignty, it would leave at least 50,000 settlers outside Israel’s area of control. Furthermore, the international community would react harshly to such an annexation. Annexation would legitimize the activities of Palestinian terrorists, who would fight to foil Israel’s unilateral move. The furious response of the international community to the construction of the security fence east of the “Green Line,” which might hint at “unilateral separation,” is an alarming example. The Gaza Strip provides a good test case. We have completely fenced Gaza off from Israel, using the most sophisticated methods. The barriers have indeed succeeded in preventing theft from Israel, once a serious problem. But Israel did not evacuate its settlements in the Gaza Strip, where 6,500 settlers live, and the result is that we are now conducting a war there that is tying down thousands of soldiers. We are obliged to fight in order to ensure the security of 7,000 settlers in Gush Katif and other Gaza settlements. That is to say—there can be no “unilateral separation” without dismantling settlements. Any Israeli government with the political strength and courage to do so would better invest its efforts in securing a final bilateral agreement, which would also require painful concessions. As of this writing, there is no agreement on the horizon, and the danger of deterioration of which I have warned is hanging over our heads. From now until this book is published, many things may happen. My proposals for intelligent military and political behavior and for the principles of a final status agreement are, in my opinion, valid and correct in any event. We must not despair of the possibility of an agreement; we must keep the historical context in mind. From 1967 until the 1982 Lebanon War, we went through a period of Palestinian terror and guerrilla warfare in Israel, in the territories, and abroad. Next came a period of attempted dialogue, which lasted from 1983 to 1987. The pinnacle of these attempts was the April 1987 London agreement between Peres and Jordan’s King Hussein. Our political inability to implement that agreement led to a new period of bloodshed: the first Intifada broke out in December of that year. After five years of violent Intifada, which cost hundreds of lives, a new period of dialogue began in 1992. In 1993 came the Oslo breakthrough, but the failure of the Camp David talks in July 2000 ended this period of dialogue, despite the promise it had held. The second Intifada broke out in September 2000; yet another period of violent confrontation has begun. This period too will end sometime, again to be followed by a period of dialogue. This is the way of ethnic conflicts: they shift from the negotiating table to the battlefield and back again. The same will happen in our case. Living in the Middle East, we must aspire to a reality in which the next stage of dialogue will be the last, not to be followed by another round of violence and bloodshed. The emergence of a pragmatic Palestinian leadership, after the death of Arafat, turns this hope to a more realistic prognosis.

3 EGYPT Threat, danger, or ally? No event changed Israel’s strategic position more significantly than the peace treaty with Egypt. It broke the chain of the Arab boycott against Israel at its largest and strongest link, opening a new chapter in Israel’s life in the Middle East. However cold the peace with Egypt may be, its arrival after five wars has allowed us to hope that one day we will also be able to coexist with the other nations of this region. Despite its ups and downs (mostly downs), the peace with Egypt is an important asset for Israel. President Hosni Mubarak shows no sign of regretting this peace. On the contrary, the Egyptian president tries to play an active and constructive role in the attempts to maintain an active peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, and to diffuse tensions on our northern border. Mubarak’s responsible behavior, however, has not removed the shadow that hangs over Israel’s relations with his country. The Egyptian political establishment, media, and intelligentsia are strongly hostile to Israel. The grossest and ugliest expression of this hostility can be found in the caricatures that appear in the Egyptian press, which are as venomous and repugnant in their antipathy to all that is Jewish as any that appeared in the German press in the 1930s. The “Israeli” portrayed in these cartoons has a crooked nose and a greedy, lustful expression; blood drips from his hands. The most material and dangerous expression of Egyptian hostility is its indefatigable diplomatic war against the nuclear capability attributed to Israel. For years, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry has been waging a political crusade against Israel on the nuclear issue, until recently inspired and personally led by ‘Amr Mussa, formerly Mubarak’s foreign minister and now secretary-general of the Arab League. The Egyptians have left no international forum unused in their attacks on Israel’s alleged nuclear weapons. The Egyptians’ immediate goal is to institute international inspection of Israel’s nuclear facilities. Their strategic goal is to disarm Israel of what the Egyptians see as its nuclear capabilities. In the caricatures in the Egyptian press and Egypt’s obsession with Israel’s nuclear program, all the heavy emotional and political baggage of its hostile attitude to Israel may be discerned. It is important to understand the different components of this hostility. The first is the refusal on the part of the Egyptian intelligentsia—the professionals, intellectuals, writers, and shapers of public opinion—to accept the Egyptian government’s official recognition of the legitimacy of Israel’s existence. Most of them see Egypt’s recognition of Israel as a violation of some moral code of Arab solidarity in which they believed for years. The collapse of the agreements between Israel and the Palestinians has only reinforced their view that they are right to deny the possibility of

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peaceful coexistence with Israel. But even during the period when the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was progressing well, they latched on to every unresolved problem— Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Lebanon—as a basis for their outdated worldview. The second component is the myth of “Israeli domination,” which is of course connected to the first one. The fear of “Israeli expansion” is rooted even among senior Egyptian figures, knowledgeable and experienced members of the establishment. It is a deep, almost mystic fear. For example, they call Israel’s desire for mutual economic development in the region “economic neocolonialism.” When I was health minister in the Rabin government, I visited Cairo. I asked some of my interlocutors why the purchase by an Egyptian hospital of a Siemens or General Electric diagnostic imaging device is not colonialism, whereas the purchase of an Elscint device, made in Israel, would be colonialism. I did not receive an answer. Israel’s GDP per capita exceeds $17,000, while Egypt’s is some $1,400. But these Egyptians see economic cooperation with Israel not as a blessing, as a collaboration that would also improve their country’s economy, but rather as a danger. I once spoke at one of the important Cairo think tanks. My audience included ambassadors, generals, and intellectuals who had served in senior positions in the Nasser and Sadat governments. “Israel’s entire population,” I remarked, “is equal to that of one Cairo neighborhood. That being so, what domination are you afraid of?’ I did not receive a reply. However, under these two layers of Egyptian hostility, which are essentially emotional, lies a third, deeper layer. This layer is connected not to how the Egyptians see Israel, but rather to how they see themselves. The Egyptians’ concept of their country is based on national pride in Egyptian tradition and in Egypt’s historical weight in the Arab world. They refer to their homeland as “the heart of the Arab nation.” And indeed Egypt, as the largest and most important Arab state, led the Arab struggle against Israel. It fought five wars against Israel in twenty-five years. As the Egyptians see it, it was their valor and partial success in the Yom Kippur War that won them back every last meter of the Sinai. Egypt also led the peace process in the Middle East, for which it paid a heavy price in its protracted isolation and delegitimization in the Arab world. When the region is at a crossroads, with one road leading to military conflict and the other to economic growth and cooperation, the question arises—what is Egypt’s place in the picture? In a Middle East dominated by the Israeli-Arab conflict, Egypt’s contribution was unique and dominant. It contributed its military power, its size, its ability to suffer many losses, and its ability to sacrifice the public’s well-being for the Arab cause. Today’s Egypt is still struggling with many economic problems. If the region were to change such that the Arab-Israeli conflict is no longer dominant, if the regional dividing line were to become that between moderate and crazy rogue states, what role would Egypt play in this changed Middle East? The answer to this question conceals a deeper Egyptian fear: that strong, modern Israel will become the dominant power in the Middle East, at Egypt’s expense. I can say from experience that it is very difficult to convince Egyptian statesmen and intellectuals that Israel does not aspire or intend to compete with Egypt for its premier status in the Arab world. The extent of the hostility to Israel in the Egyptian media and public opinion is in and

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of itself enough to cause concern. But another concern exists as well: Egypt’s increasing military power. Since signing the peace agreements with Israel, Egypt has received $1.3 billion in annual U.S. military aid. Thanks to this aid, over more than two decades Egypt has built up an impressive military force, based principally on U.S. weapons and military systems. And this power is growing not only in quantitative terms, but qualitatively as well. In recent years the United States has permitted its weapons manufacturers to export to Arab states in general, and Egypt in particular, advanced military technological weapons of kinds that were previously not certified for export to these countries. These include advanced AMRAAM air-to-air missiles and improved ground-to-ground rocket systems. I will give only three examples: on the ground 750 Ml Al tanks; in the air, over 200 of the highest-quality F-16 fighter planes; and on the sea, some twenty missile boats armed with advanced Harpoon missiles. Egypt has built itself into the strongest and most modern military power in the Arab world. And as if U.S. were not enough, an Egyptian-North Korean deal has recently come to light (Jaffe Center report) for the purchase of twentyfour Nodong missiles, whose range is 1,000 kilometers. This also illustrates Egyptian effort to build a strategic beyond-the-horizon ballistic missile capability. If we examine this combination of emotional hostility to Israel and such impressive military power, there is clearly good reason to worry-and all the more so when the highest echelons of the Egyptian Army continue to see Israel as the “reference threat,” a euphemism for a potential enemy. Does Egypt presently pose a threat to Israel? Certainly not. President Mubarak’s adherence to the peace agreements and his activities in support of the peace process and regional stability totally rule out this possibility. However, if we keep in mind the basic assumption that we live in a fickle, unstable, and unpredictable region, we must conclude that Egypt’s growing military strength does pose a certain risk to Israel. This risk will increase if Egyptian policy changes for the worse, if the prophets of enmity with Israel gain the upper hand in the Egyptian government. The danger will decrease if greater numbers in the Egyptian elite and influential circles become convinced that Egypt’s national interest requires a strategic partnership with Israel. Egypt was the target in recent years of several terror attacks by militant Islamic groups. This terror caused many billions of dollars worth of damage to the Egyptian economy, principally to the tourism industry. President Mubarak himself miraculously escaped an attempt on his life. The Egyptians now understand that the real danger to the regime’s continued existence derives from radical Islam, centered in Teheran, and not from Zionism or Israel. This recognition has not yet been translated into an understanding that in the reality of the new Middle East, in which the real conflict is between crazy states and all the other states, Egypt and Israel are unavoidably allies: both lie on the same side of the fence. Thus, there is no contradiction or competition between Egypt’s and Israel’s strengths, but rather advantage to both in cooperation, with each complementing the other. Mubarak’s government is presently strong and stable. A change in the Egyptian regime, should it take place, would be a disaster for the region and a catastrophe for the world. Should the largest Arab state, with its renewed military power, fall into the hands of another—radical and religious—regime, the regional balance would be tipped in favor

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of the radical camp. In such a case, Israel would also face a new and difficult military challenge. No effort should be spared in attempting to convince the Egyptian leadership, business community, and shapers of public opinion (as initially hostile as they may be) of Egypt’s and Israel’s common strategic interest. Israel’s long-range capabilities are also aimed in effect at deterring states and regimes that are hostile to Egypt as well. Consequently, the Sisyphean efforts of ‘Amr Mussa and company to undermine Israel’s special status are senseless. At the beginning of 2000 I met with the Egyptian ambassador to the United States, Nabil Fahmi, at the home of a mutual friend in a Washington suburb. I asked particularly to meet him, a rising star of Egyptian diplomacy, because I knew that he was one of the spiritual fathers of Egypt’s attempts to force Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and one of those who condemn Israel for its refusal to do so. I spent two hours with him. I implored him to “change tracks” in Egyptian thinking such that Israel would be seen as a strategic ally rather than as a strategic threat, but my words fell on deaf ears. Worse yet, Fami interpreted my frankness as “Israeli arrogance.” I tried to breach the wall at its most fortified section, and failed utterly. I mention my own unsuccessful effort only to note that we must not give up on the need to change the Egyptian leadership’s attitude, and at least to ease their fear of our nonexistent desire to dominate, to expand, and to eject their country from someplace. Perhaps it will be the Egyptian business community, which is well aware of the blessings that could arise from cooperation with the Israeli business community as a source of investment and partnership in large projects, that will breach the wall of alienation from Israel. As noted, it is imperative that we transform Egypt from a potential risk into a definite ally; however, at the same time, when building up our own military force, we must take the other possibility into account. Responsible policy requires no less.

4 JORDAN The indispensable partner In August 1998, Ehud Barak, Yossi Beilin, Shlomo Ben-Ami, and I went to Washington as a delegation of the Labor Party’s leadership. Barak was at that time the head of the opposition; Beilin, Ben-Ami, and I had competed against him in the party’s primaries a year before. The trip included meetings with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and with senior members of Congress and the Senate, an impressive event organized by Washington’s Jewish community in support of the Israeli peace camp, and meetings with the American press. Close to our departure, my political aide, Bruria Na’im-Arman, suggested that while in the United States we visit King Hussein, who at the time was being treated for cancer at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. My colleagues were very excited about the idea. A generous friend of ours, Dan Abraham, lent us his private plane, and on August 3, at twilight, we landed at the small Rochester airfield. U.S. Secret Service cars took us to the building in which the king was hospitalized. We found Hussein so thin that his cheekbones protruded. Chemotherapy had caused him to lose his hair, but he still had his characteristic twinkle in his eyes. He was keenly interested in the progress of the peace process, although, as members of the opposition, we could tell him little he did not already know. During the course of the conversation he asked whether we could ever return to November 3. At first we didn’t understand, but he explained. Could we ever go back to the situation that had prevailed before Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination? Hussein was obviously deeply moved when he mentioned Rabin’s name. His eyes misted over in the hospital room lit by the last rays of the setting sun and filled with the sadness of farewell. At last, when we got up to leave, the king recomposed himself. He would soon have his strength back, he said, yet he was willing, even before fully recovering, to return to the region or to any other place if his presence would serve the cause of peace. None of us ever saw the king again. The memory of this meeting has remained with me not only because it was so special and so moving. I bring it up here because it demonstrates King Hussein’s full and personal commitment to the cause of peace, which he bequeathed to his son Abdullah and indeed to the entire Hashemite family. This commitment is not only the fruit of the king’s wisdom, but also derived from the deeper essence of Jordan’s Hashemite dynasty. A glance at the map reveals Jordan’s geographical plight. It is surrounded by four countries: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, and Israel. It has one tiny outlet to the sea: the port of Aqaba on the Red Sea. Its territory is large but its population small, and it does not have many natural resources. By virtue of its precious location, it must lean on one of its

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immediate neighbors: Syria, Iraq, or Israel (Saudi Arabia, though bordering Jordan, cannot be its support). For obvious reasons, Jordan prefers Israel. This is a historical preference, which explains the special relationship that King Hussein maintained with Israel for three decades. Jordan’s demography is mixed. Palestinians—refugees and the descendants of refugees who fled from the west side of the Jordan River to its east bank in 1948 and 1967—make up a majority of its population. King Hussein succeeded, during his reign, in creating a unique Jordanian identity that includes both the original Bedouin population from the east of the Jordan and the Palestinian population. Both the economic and the political establishments contain members of both groups. This combination is personified by the current royal couple: Jordan’s King Abdullah II, of the Hashemite line, is married to Queen Rania, a Palestinian from Tulkarem in the West Bank. The two banks of the Jordan are strongly connected by vigorous family and commercial ties, a fact that is of immediate political significance. The distress of the Palestinians in the territories, especially in the West Bank, directly affects the Palestinians in the East Bank. Any worsening in the conflict with Israel creates tension on the Jordanian streets. In better days—more precisely, when it seemed that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was progressing toward resolution - the Jordanian populace did not feel enmity towards Israel, and Israeli tourists could visit Jordan without fear. I myself walked freely with my wife on the streets of Amman and other Jordanian cities without a single bodyguard, even though some of the clients at the cafés recognized me as Israel’s deputy defense minister. This was the case only three months before the second Intifada broke out. Now, however, things are completely different. The Jordanian government is caught between its strategic and economic need for good relations with Israel and the fear that a policy that is overtly friendly to Israel will cause its own populace to become hostile to the Hashemite regime, perhaps to the point of riots and violence. The Hashemite regime, which maintains a politically moderate line and good relations with the United States, is a thorn in the side of the Arab world’s radicals. Many of these are waiting for the Jordanian monarchy to fall and for Jordan to become another radical state, most likely an Islamicist one, under Iran’s, Iraq’s, or Syria’s influence. A change of regime in Jordan is one of Israel’s strategic nightmares. It is one of the possibilities that make the waters we are navigating perilous. A radical Islamic regime in Jordan would be dangerous for Israel for several reasons. The first is that it would create a radical Islamicist territorial contiguity stretching from the Jordan River all the way to the Irani-Afghani border. Second, Jordan would become an ideological and logistical base of operations for the terrorist organizations currently active in the territories and in Israel proper. Third, Jordan would open its border to foreign armies and allow its territory to be used as a staging ground for a major offensive against Israel, or at least for artillery attacks as in 1968–1970. Fourth, Syria would be able to rebuild the “eastern front,” which would stretch from Rosh HaNikra on the Mediterranean end of Israel’s border with Lebanon to Aqaba on the Red Sea, making it easier for Syria to launch a major contest with Israel on the Golan Heights front. Fortunately, Iraq is no longer an available partner for such a coalition. Every political and military effort should be made to prevent such an eventuality. When Syria was about to invade Jordan in 1970, Israel massed its forces east of the Beit

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She’an valley, and made it clear that it would frustrate such an invasion by force. The principle is no less true today. Given Israel’s experience over the past thirty-one years, it must prevent—at any price—a foreign army’s entry into Jordan. As long as there is fighting between the Palestinians and the IDF, Israel cannot expect its relations with Jordan to thaw. They must, however, be preserved, and economic ways must be found to strengthen them. We must bear in mind that even before the second Intifada, some Jordanians expressed regret at having made peace with Israel. The economic benefits they had been promised were meager at best. “Shu istifadna?”— “What have we gained from this peace?” asks the typical Jordanian, who barely swallowed Jordan’s acceptance of Israel in the first place. Certainly one of the disappointments of the peace process has been its failure to lift the Jordanian economy. This is by no means entirely Israel’s fault, but we could certainly do more than we have done up until now. In fact, we must do more, as strengthening the Jordanian economy is clearly in the interest of regional stability and of peace. Joint projects in transportation, tourism, industry, and energy may provide the hopedfor momentum. Neither should we scorn smaller initiatives. As the newly appointed transportation minister, I investigated the complaint of an important Jordanian minister that Jordanian cement was not getting to West Bank markets. It transpired that the Jordanian trucks unload their sacks of cement at a depot located about 1½ kilometers into the area between the Jordan River and Jericho, which is under Israeli sovereignty. Department of Motor Vehicles employees were inspecting the Jordanian trucks according to Israeli criteria, and only trucks meeting Israeli strict safety standards were allowed entry into the depot. This was not arbitrary discrimination against Jordanian trucking— after all, these trucks pass through Israeli territory, and if they were not in good working order they could cause an accident. Yet the result was that no Jordanian truck passed inspection, and Jordanian cement did not reach its West Bank markets. I ordered the inspections to be cancelled immediately. This seemed a reasonable risk-it seemed unlikely that there would be a catastrophe along the 1,500 meters of lightly traveled Israeli road traversed by the cement trucks. So far, nothing has happened. This is a simple example of how an over-zealous bureaucracy can frustrate a national interest. We must seek every way to create joint projects with the Jordanian business community, and the state’s job is to assist and encourage such projects. Economic cooperation is the simplest way of strengthening our relations with Jordan and justifying them in the eyes of the Jordanian people. I will discuss the regional strategic aspects of our relations with Jordan in Chapter 13.

5 SYRIA A tough neighbor Syria is a much-courted state. No head of state on a visit to the Middle East would dream of skipping Damascus. Syria is an active player in regional politics, and even our friends admonish us that we shouldn’t stubbornly insist on “trifles” (such as the Golan Heights or the waters of the Sea of Galilee). It is time, they say, to cut a deal with our northern adversary. Recently, Syria was elected to the U.N. Security Council by the vote of a huge majority. Yet what kind of country is Syria? It does not have a free press. Election results are dictated in advance, and the president and his party receive over 99 percent of the votes. In a country of some 17 million, only 8,000 people use the Internet, which is also censored by the government; for example, one cannot reach Israeli or Jewish news sites in Syria. There are no credit cards or checkbooks in Syria, as banking services are, for all intents and purposes, nonexistent. The picture is clear. Syria is an economic failure (its annual GDP per capita is about $1,000). It is also backward from the standpoints of culture, modernity, openness to the outside world, and, most important—democracy. However, Syria’s military capabilities, which it does its utmost to cultivate, are far from backward. According to the data of the Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies of Tel Aviv University, Syria possesses some 500 fighter planes, nearly 3,000 pieces of artillery and some 3,700 tanks. Syria has also built up a store of SCUD-C and SCUD-D ballistic missiles. It possesses hundreds of these missiles, which it manufactures domestically on a production line purchased from North Korea. Some of Syria’s ballistic missiles can be armed with chemical warheads, including VX nerve gas. Nothing much has changed when Hafez Assad, Syria’s long-serving president, died and was replaced by his son, Bashar. While many observers predicted that Assad the younger, a British-educated ophthalmologist, would open Syria to the West, he has not, to date, instituted any economic, social, or democratic reforms. Most likely he has realized that such changes would put him in conflict with the ruling elite, made up mostly of members of his own minority ‘Alawite sect. This is his power base, and he still needs to prove to this group that he is fit to govern. The younger Assad has thus chosen a policy of continuity. Syria is not changing under his rule. Indeed, in a sense it is the North Korea of the Middle East—an autocratic, unenlightened state, well armed with long-range missiles. After the war in Iraq, Syria borders with allies of the United States, and on its eastern side is a massive U.S. presence. It does not anymore enjoy territorial contiguity with Iran, its strategic ally. Under these new circumstances Syria is behaving more prudently. So long as there are U.S. troops in Iraq, Syria will not annoy Washington. But the core principles of Syrian policy remain unchanged: rejection of a Palestinian-Israeli

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peace process and using Hezbollah and other terror organizations to derail it; and improving Syria’s military capabilities for a possible confrontation in the future. Despite its military power and its store of missiles equipped with chemical warheads, Syria does not pose an existential threat to Israel. Should it enter alone into an all-out war with Israel, it would be beaten badly. Nevertheless, Syria has the power to cause Israel not inconsiderable damage, especially to the civilian sector. The danger posed by Syria lies not in its own power, but rather in two other factors: its ability to serve as a central link in the anti-Israel coalition, and its use of terrorist organizations. Syria’s national goal is, as it has been since 1967, to regain sovereignty over the entire Golan Heights. The elder Assad understood, toward the end of his life, that it would be preferable to attain this goal by negotiation rather than war. When he had the opportunity to do so in January 2000, however, he refused a generous offer by Prime Minister Barak, because he uncompromisingly stuck to his own conditions. I will discuss the possibility of peace with Syria at the end of this chapter, but first let’s take a look at what measures Syria has taken in the meantime to attain its goal of regaining the Golan Heights. First, it continues to pursue the military option—that is, it is preparing for war with Israel. Syria has undertaken a thorough study of the IDF’s strengths and how they can be circumvented. Syria is seeking to get around the superiority of Israel’s armored forces by upgrading and expanding its antitank weaponry. It is trying to circumvent the Israel Air Force’s advantage by building a ballistic missile capability and by upgrading its antiaircraft system with the purchase of SA-10 antiaircraft missiles from Russia. This will be a great leap forward in Syria’s air defense capability. The outgoing Syrian chief of staff, General Aslan, has worked diligently on the Syrian Army’s training system for both its regular troops and its reservists. He has also made every necessary preparation for the eventuality that Syria will try to retake the Golan Heights on its own. In parallel, Syria employs terror was a weapon whose purpose is to enable it to regain the Golan Heights on its own terms. It will do so by weakening the Israeli people’s will to stand firm on their own conditions for peace. Syria assumes that it can wear down the Israeli public with drawn-out guerrilla warfare claiming a large number of Israeli victims. It is for this reason that Syria enabled Hezbollah to operate in Lebanon for sixteen years against the IDF and Israel’s northern towns and villages. Syria is using the Lebanese playing field in its real struggle: for the return of the Golan Heights. The IDF’s withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000 reduced Syria’s ability to employ terror and pro-Iranian guerrillas to wear Israel down. But by the same token, it left Hezbollah free to operate in the “Shaba’a Farms” on the slopes of Har Dov, a spur of Mount Hermon that lies on the Israeli-Lebanese border. Syria also allows Hezbollah to deploy long-range artillery, rockets, and guerrilla units in all of southern Lebanon, along Israel’s northern border, ready to be activated. It is important to remember that it is clearly in Syria’s interest to instigate terror from Lebanese territory. Syria will use this terror extensively and at its own convenience when the balance of deterrence created after the IDF’s withdrawal from Lebanon is eroded. During the IDF’s stay in the southern Lebanon security zone, Israeli governments refrained from directly pressuring Syria, so that Syria would stop allowing Hezbollah to

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operate there. As a minister in Rabin’s government, I demanded (in discussions following attacks in Lebanon that cost the lives of many Israeli soldiers) that we use the means of pressure available to us not on Lebanese villagers, and not on the Lebanese puppet government, but rather on Syria, the real power in Lebanon. I did not demand a direct and immediate attack on Syria’s military forces in Lebanon, but rather an attack on its economic interests in that country. My reasoning was that if Syria saw fit to damage the vital Israeli interest of quiet on its northern border, then Israel should pressure Syria by striking at one of Syria’s own vital interests. Every year, Syria earns about $4 billion as a result of its rule over Lebanon and its economy. A strike at these revenues would directly hit the pockets of the Syrian elite. Israel began to strike at targets such as these only toward the end of the Netanyahu government’s rule, and thus achieved a lull in attacks for a not inconsiderable time. During the time when Israeli forces were deployed in Lebanon, I was of the opinion that if we are not willing to continue the guerrilla war in the south of that country, we should strive to reach one of two positions in our relations with Syria. The first and preferable one is peace, deriving from the conclusion of a peace treaty. This would result in Syria’s losing its need to instigate terror in and from Lebanon. It would also result in Syria’s expelling Hezbollah from the southern portion, if not all, of the state; this would be one of the provisions of the treaty. The second option is to reach a state of direct conflict, or at least a balance of fear of conflict, with Syria. This would happen if Israel’s response to Syria’s continued use of Hezbollah as a proxy in its fight against Israel were a direct and severe Israeli strike against the Syrians themselves. By withdrawing the IDF from Lebanon, Israel in effect chose this second option. As of this writing, Israel has already twice struck Syrian military targets in Lebanon in response to Hezbollah attacks on the IDF. These Hezbollah attacks have been infrequent and limited to the “Shaba’a Farms,” because Syria partly reined in the militia. The “Shaba’a Farms” is a small piece of territory that Lebanon (under orders from Damascus) continues to claim, even though the United Nations has certified that Israel has completed its withdrawal from Lebanese territory. Israeli deterrence has been effective in neutralizing the factors that goad Hezbollah to act. These factors will be addressed in subsequent chapters. How should Israel act toward Syria? I have already given one answer: we should preserve our deterrent capability. Our precise and devastating operations against Syrian targets in Lebanon have given the Syrians a preview of what they would suffer in an allout war. However, military deterrence is not enough. Syria should be isolated from the Arab world as far as possible, in order to prevent it from forming a coalition with other Arab states. Israel succeeded in this during the Rabin era by concluding agreements with the Palestinians and with Jordan. The more our relations with other Arab states improve, the harder it will be for Syria to unite the Arab world around a militant anti-Israel policy. As it becomes less reasonable for Syria to employ its military option, it will come to the negotiating table with less arrogance and belligerence. This is clearly yet another reason for getting onto the track of dialogue and compromise with the Palestinians. But this is not sufficient. Israel must always leave the door open to a fair compromise

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with the Syrians, as it must with the Palestinians. I have already mentioned that as recently as January 2000, at a meeting with President Bill Clinton, Hafez al-Assad rejected a very generous, perhaps even overly generous, offer by the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak. It would be mistaken to interpret Syria’s rejection of Barak’s offer as mere intransigence on Assad’s part. For Assad, the issue was not just getting a strip of land a few meters wide on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Syria’s conception of peace is completely different from Israel’s view. For the Syrians, peace means, first and foremost, receiving the Golan Heights back from Israel. In their view, this includes land that Syria seized by force from Israel prior to June 1967. In return, Syria offers a formal, cold peace. Syria maintains that the security arrangements laid out by a peace treaty must be symmetrical. In other words, if Israel wants the area between the border and Damascus to be a reduced-force zone, Syria will insist that Israel establish a reduced-force zone of equal depth on its own territory. Such symmetry ignores the fact that Syria has attacked Israel three times and that the Golan Heights would give it a major topographical and strategic advantage. According to this Syrian concept of peace, the headwaters of the Jordan River would not be controlled by Israel, even though they are the major source of the water of the Sea of Galilee, Israel’s major fresh-water reservoir. When we say that Syria is ready for peace with Israel, but on its own terms, we must understand that these are its terms. No responsible Israeli government could accept them in their current form. Therefore, we must define the main provisions of a future peace agreement with Syria in advance. These are “red lines,” and ceding on any one of them would make any agreement with Syria into one that Israel could neither accept nor sign. The first is a defensible border. Such a border is vital in all Israeli sectors, and all the more so when facing a state with a military potential as significant as Syria’s. I will not delineate the exact contours of this border, but I will say exactly what requirements it must fulfill. A defensible border does not only mean a convenient topographical delineation. Other components too make a border defensible. Early warning capability as to the enemy’s preparations for attack, the defending side’s ability to quickly concentrate ground forces sufficient to repel an enemy attack, the ability to make it difficult for the attacking side to concentrate its forces and advance to the line of contact—all these must be taken into account when drawing the border. What requirements must a defensible border on the Golan Heights fulfill? The line, as well as its attending security arrangements, must both prevent the possibility of a Syrian surprise attack and, in the case of a Syrian offensive on the Golan Heights, deny it an initial advantage. The security arrangements must include early warning stations that will ensure that Israel would receive available and reliable information concerning Syrian preparations for attack. No one should be able to censor this kind of information or delay its receipt by Israel. What this means is that these stations must be manned by Israelis. Early warning has value if it enables its recipient to take appropriate defensive measures. That is, the arrangements for demilitarization must be such that in the event of a breach of the peace, the IDF will be able to advance sufficient ground forces and to deploy them on the Golan Heights in positions that will give them a tactical defensive advantage. These demilitarization arrangements must

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enable the IDF to reach these positions before the Syrians. This means that demilitarization on the Syrian side must be very deep, whereas on the Israeli side it must be minimal. Where will the final border run? I will only say that the more satisfactory the demilitarization and early warning arrangements are to Israel, the more deeply it will be able to allow itself to withdraw from the Golan Heights. Israel must not agree to a border that will deny it an advantage in case of war. In any event, even if all of Israel’s security and other requirements are met, it must not agree to a border west of the 1923 international border between Mandatory Palestine and Syria. When the Barak government agreed to withdraw from Lebanon and thus comply, unilaterally as it turned out, with Security Council Resolution 425, the question arose: to what international border should Israel withdraw? The United Nations sent teams of surveyors, equipped with the best mapping and positioning equipment, to establish the location of the border according to old maps. The UN people were precise to the point of absurdity in delineating the border. They did not permit Israel to deviate even 1 meter from their conclusions. This led to some anomalies. For example, the tomb of the Talmudic sage Rabbi Ashi lies next to Kibbutz Manara, right on the border. The UN staff did not agree to include it in Israeli territory, so the tomb is divided between Israel and Lebanon. Antennas and posts were moved a few meters at a cost of millions of dollars just to satisfy the precise measurements of the sacred 1923 border. If the border set in 1923 is so sacred for the purposes of the IDF withdrawal from Lebanon, why should it not be equally sacred in delineating the same border with Syria, should Israel be willing and able to withdraw to it some day? The second requirement is full normalization. The degree of normalization has tremendous importance for the strength and stability of any peace treaty with Syria. What is a durable peace? A peace from which there is no return to the path of war. A peace that neither side is interested in violating. Normalization as Israel understands it is the creation of economic, cultural, and social relationships between the two peoples. Such a relationship creates a web of mutual economic interests built on joint projects in the fields of tourism, transportation, energy, and infrastructure, as well as by joint investments in business ventures. Cultural and social ties are created by youth and student exchange programs and by professional meetings among physicians, computer specialists, university faculty, and artists. The human and commercial interaction created by these contacts is normalization as Israel understands the concept. It is normalization that breaks the psychological barrier of past hate and that creates practical incentives to solidify and extend peace rather than return to war. It is the most solid guarantee that peace will be irreversible. Israel must therefore insist on normalization as one of the fundamental terms of any agreement with Syria by which it is to cede strategic assets in the Golan Heights. We must make every effort to ensure that we will not one day regret having ceded these assets in return for a peace from which it will be easy to revert to the path of war. True normalization is one of the most solid guarantees of this. The Syrians claim that normalization must be a result of peace rather than a term of the agreement. In this, they are trying to avoid committing themselves to relations beyond formal diplomatic ties. Of

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course, normalization may not be forced on a people that does not want it. However, an agreement with Syria must include all of the practical measures that will at least ensure that the road to normalization will be clear and secure for anyone who wishes to take it. The third condition for peace with Syria is Israeli control of Israel’s vital water sources. Water is a precious commodity in the Middle East, and it is a resource that is being exhausted as the thirsty population continues to grow. Before the Six Day War, Syria controlled the sources of the Jordan River, and in January 1964 even began forcibly to divert the river to its own territory. This attempted diversion was the cause of several border incidents between Syria and Israel prior to the war. Only the IDF’s massive response in July 1966 motivated Syria to stop trying to divert the river. Syria also controlled the northeastern quarter of the Sea of Galilee’s shore, and shooting incidents also occurred there, in this case due to Syrian attacks on Israeli fishermen. Today the Sea of Galilee is the principal reservoir of freshwater for the State of Israel, and the source of about a third of the water consumed in Israel. Israel must not allow any foreign entity, and Syria specifically, to have access to this vital reservoir. A peace treaty with Syria must ensure not only our legal control of the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, but also the preservation of its water’s quality. Because the Golan’s streams drain mainly into the Sea of Galilee, the treaty must include solid guarantees that will prevent the possibility of its pollution with wastewater, of an ecological mishap, or of intentional sabotage. The sources of the Jordan must also remain under Israeli control. It would seem at first glance that once there is peace, there will be no reason to fear damage to the Jordan’s sources. But this water is such a precious strategic commodity that it would be irresponsible to entrust it to a foreign entity. These are my three “red lines” for a peace treaty with Syria. If we stick to them, we will be able to begin to build a new relationship with that nation. Implementation of such an agreement must be based on a gradual and staged approach. We will need a break between each stage and the next in order to appraise Syria’s intentions. The more closely the agreement’s terms fit our requirements, the shorter the “time-outs” we will be able to allow ourselves. We must never return to negotiations with Syria under pressure from the loss of life Syria and its proxies have caused us, and while negotiating we must never voluntarily set a timetable for achieving an agreement. The strategic assets at stake in our negotiations with Syria are so vital that we have no margin of error.

6 IRAQ’S VAGUE FUTURE The overthrowing of Saddam Hussein’s regime by the U.S.-British coalition removed a serious danger to Israel. Though this danger does not exist anymore, it is important to understand it. Actually, there were two types of threats: an immediate, tangible threat and a potential, existential one. The immediate threat had three components: • A residual capability to launch ten to twenty SS missiles targeted at Israel’s center, possibly armed with chemical warheads. • To use, directly or by proxy, i.e., through a terror organization, biological weapons. Hussein had several strains of such weapons. • To join with Syria in a fully-fledged war against Israel in the Golan Heights or through Jordan’s territory. Three to four armored Iraqi divisions could have participated in such an expedition force. The future danger could have been an existential one. Saddam Hussein had two ingredients necessary for the development of nuclear weapons: know-how and money. Moreover, he had voracious ambition to have a nuclear bomb of his own. He proved it after the destruction of his nuclear plant by the Israel Air Force in 1981, and to our knowledge after his defeat in 1991. What he failed to sufficiently acquire and rebuild is the hardware, the industrial infrastructure essential for producing a nuclear weapon. He might have obtained it had he remained in power a few more years. In his war against his Kurdish country-men, Saddam proved that he had no inhibitions against using weapons of mass destruction. Solid evidence, including what his two sons-in-law testified during their short exile in Jordan, clearly indicates that Iraqi scientists developed and tested several kinds of biological weapon. It was a matter of time before Saddam would have achieved nuclear weapons. From that point on, Iraq would have become a concrete, tangible and intolerable threat to Israel. The thirty-nine missiles that Saddam Hussein launched into the heart of Israel were the ultimate proof that we must always regard any military power in the Arab world, even if not built a priori for use against Israel, as being potentially aimed at us. Saddam’s need to be portrayed as the defender of the Palestinian cause and his need to unite the Arab masses’ support around his struggle against the West were what caused him to launch his missiles against central Israel in 1991. The lesson is that even a far-off Arab country with a long-range missile capability will strike at Israel when it has a political interest in doing so. Ideological justification will be found after the fact. Any weaponry in the Middle East that is technically capable of striking Israel must be included in the “threats” column of Israel’s strategic balance sheet. Today, no direct Iraqi threat to Israel exists. Moreover, there are three further changes

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in the regional strategic balance that the war in Iraq brought about that affect Israel’s security: • Syria no longer has the strategic backing of Iraq. • The U.S. military presence in Iraq serves as a buffer between Iran and Syria, making cooperation between them, as well as reinforcing and supplying Hezbollah in Lebanon, a much more complex operation. • The United States has a solid and sound base in the region, which is an ideal springboard for operations against terror organizations and states that support them. The last two changes are valid as long as U.S. troops stay in Iraq. Israeli strategic planning should not be based on the assumption that they are there forever. As I write this chapter, the situation in Iraq is volatile, even explosive. The United States is paying a blood toll for its presence there, and faces the following list of problems that intelligence services should anticipate: • How to establish an effective governmental framework capable of keeping all the ethnic groups together, with a great deal of federalism, thereby preserving Iraq’s territorial integrity. • How to cope with Sunni and Shi’ite terror in Iraq’s central and southern regions without increasing the hostility of the civilian population toward the United States. • How to prevent southern Iraq from turning into another Islamic republic, inspired by Iran. • Given that the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq is relatively well governed and stable, the closest thing to a normal federal state, how to prevent a preemptive action by a concerned Turkish government against an independent Kurdish state on its eastern border. • How to reactivate the Iraqi oil industry, which is the main source of income needed to finance the maintenance and reconstruction of the Iraqi state. The refurbishment of this industry requires huge investments. Should the oil industry be privatized or nationalized? Both options are complicated. These problems will face every U.S. administration that decides to shape the future of Iraq and to stay there until this mission is accomplished. The longer these problems persist, the heavier will be the burden on the decision makers in Washington. What, then, is the future for Iraq? There are three basic scenarios. Scenario 1: the United States manages to resolve the problems mentioned above, with the help of the international community or without it. It turns Iraq into a democratic federal state with a free economy, using the oil wealth for growth and prosperity. For Israel this would be a golden opportunity. In this case, Iraq would be a senior partner, with Egypt and Jordan, in the regional peace process. It would reinforce the regional coalition of moderate states, allies of the United States, committed to combat terror and extremism. From an economic point of view, both Israel and Jordan would benefit most. Israeli companies would take part in the reconstruction of Iraq. Iraq’s trade would use Jordan’s and Israel’s seaports and highways. As Minister of Transportation, I ordered in 2002, before the war in Iraq, that a railway line be planned from Haifa seaport to BeitShan, with a connection to Jordan. In the future, Haifa seaport may serve as the

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Mediterranean outlet of Jordan and Iraq. A democratic and peace-loving Iraq is the best scenario, though not the most likely one. Scenario 2: Iraq emerges as less democratic, less committed to peace. Let us say— another Pakistan. Such an Iraqi government might take stringent and harsh measures to impose law and order, and would avoid any rapprochement with Israel in order not to annoy Islamist radicals. Such an Iraq would not play any positive role in the region, but neither would it pose a military threat on Israel, at least not in the next few years. Later, after rebuilding its military capacity, Iraq might again join with those Arab states still remaining hostile to Israel. Scenario 3: no central government is established in Iraq. Only the Kurds in the north continue to maintain a well-organized administration. In southern and central Iraq, no effective local government manages to rule without permanent U.S. military support. Violence and terror continue. Local warlords and religious leaders become the only rulers. In such a chaotic situation, Iraq would not be a risk for Israel. But the creation of another focus in the region of Arab extremism, Islamist fanaticism, and terror would have an adverse effect on regional stability, mainly in the Gulf region. A U.S. failure to prevent this scenario would encourage terror organizations and rogue states, and discourage the more moderate states. From a strategic perspective, a chaotic Iraq would constitute a threat to Israel. If the U.S. effort to build a new Iraq fails, if terror in Iraq continues, the failure may lead to an ideological reorientation in the United States to neoisolationism or to incompetent multilateralism. To sum up, in the foreseeable future Iraq should not be regarded as a direct threat to Israel. Continued U.S. military presence between Syria and Iran complicates the operations of terror organizations based in these countries and makes cooperation between them more difficult. A moderate, democratic Iraq would serve the security interest of Israel, as well as the interests of other moderate states in the region. All other possibilities, mainly involving permanently chaotic conditions, would accelerate destructive, destabilizing forces in the region.

7 IRAN The main threat The most salient strategic threat to Israel’s existence is Iran. I had the privilege of being the first to place this danger on Israel’s national agenda, on January 26, 1993, in a parliamentary question I submitted. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin confirmed my own determination in his response from the Knesset podium, saying: MK Ephraim Sneh’s remarks on the Iranian nuclear threat are relevant and worthy of attention. We must be concerned about the possibility that Iran will gain nuclear weapons. Perhaps in the middle and long terms the goals of Iran’s rulers goals may be even more dangerous than those of Iraq’s ruler in his present diminished situation. I have not ceased warning of this danger in Knesset committees of which I have been a member, in the media, in Washington, and in other global capitals. Gradually, mainly thanks to the findings and standing of the IDF’s intelligence branch, the danger of an Iranian nuclear missile has become common knowledge. I was no longer considered a lonely prophet of doom. Special credit for this change goes to General Amos Gilad, who during his five-year tenure as head of the research division of army intelligence took pains to instill, among the highest levels of Israel’s defense establishment and among the heads of foreign intelligence services, awareness of the full severity of the Iranian threat. Yet even today, many Israeli politicians prefer not to think about Iran. This is an almost psychological repression of an unpleasant fact, cloaked in a lack of knowledge and a very superficial understanding of what is really happening in Iran. What is, in fact, happening in the “Islamic Republic of Iran”? The regime of the ayatollahs (the supreme clergy in Iran) is in crisis. Economic distress is increasing. Even the 3.5 percent increase in GDP during 2000, the result of rising world prices for oil, did not keep up with the increase in population. Annual GDP per capita is about $1,200, inflation is running at 25 percent, and unemployment is very high, especially among educated young people. Corruption is endemic: government employees cannot live on their salaries, and bribery is the norm. An expatriate Iranian general told me that his colleagues who are still serving in the army are forced to work as taxicab drivers at night in order to supplement their incomes. The clerical class, which is close to the government, lines its pockets with the nation’s riches while the people, including the middle class, live in poverty. This is the bitter end of the Islamic revolution. Iran has enormous economic potential. But more than twenty years after the fall of the Shah and the seizure of power by the fanatical Islam of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the populace is much worse off than it

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was before the revolution. The most discontented groups in the population are Iran’s women and youth. Women suffer severe discrimination, because Islamic religious law, which has become the law of the land, limits women’s rights in all areas of life. For example, women must wear the traditional garment that completely covers them and leaves them only a slit to see through. At Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris I once saw the passengers of Iran Air airlines who had arrived on a direct flight from Teheran. Immediately after passport control, the female passengers removed the veils that covered their heads and faces. Members of the younger generation are even more frustrated. Young people long not only to work for their living, but also to connect to the Internet and to share the lifestyle of their Western peers. They scorn the backwardness forced upon them by the rule of the ayatollahs, the prohibitions on contact between the sexes, their forced isolation from Western culture. The theocratic rule of their religious sages offers them nothing in return, either materially or spiritually. It is therefore unsurprising that when Ayatollah Khatami, who is considered moderate and reformist, ran for election as Iran’s president in 1997, he won about 70 percent of the votes. He was reelected with a similar majority in June 2001, with most of his support coming from women and young people—even though these groups were bitterly disappointed with his failure to bring about major reforms. In fact, the Iranian president’s power is very limited. The country’s true ruler is the council of religious sages, headed by the zealous, radical supreme spiritual leader Ayatollah ‘Ali Khamenei. Khamenei can veto legislation, and exercises complete control over the courts, over Iran’s intelligence and security services, over its military and nuclear industry, and in effect over every important center of power in the country. Since 1999 he has frustrated most of the reforms initiated by Khatami. During the first year of his second term of office, not only did Khatami fail to implement the reforms he promised, but most of the leaders of the reform camp were imprisoned and the whole of the pro-reform press shut down. Khamenei’s extremist camp dealt the reform camp one humiliating blow after another. Khatami remains popular despite his failure. There simply isn’t a more moderate figure who is permitted to engage in public political activity without being sent to prison. Moreover, there is a certain symbiosis, or tacit cooperation, between Khamenei and Khatami. Khatami, who is an integral part of the religious leadership, serves as a lightening rod, a shock absorber, for Khamenei. Khatami provides an outlet for opponents of the regime while still keeping them within the framework of the “rule of the religious sage,” which is the ideological and legislative foundation of Muslim theocracy. This was apparent during the student riots of 1999, when at the hour of crisis Khatami stood not with his student voters but with Khamenei, who sent out his squads of thugs to punish and subdue the protesters. President Khatami is hardly the ideal of the turbulent Iranian younger generation. Indeed, there is a very powerful and deep stream in Iran striving to change the entire system. When revolution breaks out in Iran, it will sweep away not only Khamenei and the heads of the conservative camp, but the entire religious establishment, including Khatami. But in the meantime the ayatollahs’ regime uses Khatami for an additional purpose. He serves as a “moderate” cover for the obscurantist. By any Western criterion, Iran should

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have been shunned and ostracized. The Teheran regime has engaged in the sadistic and brutal torture of its opponents, the muzzling of the free press, and the murder of the regime’s expatriate opponents. Despite this, the industrialized states of the West, mostly Western Europe but Japan as well, have sought every possible way to appease and flatter Iran’s rulers. They reschedule Iran’s enormous debts, improve its conditions of credit, and negotiate agreements for the development of Iran’s oil and gas fields. From the point of view of these countries, a market of 66 million consumers, poor as they may be, is still an export market not to be disdained. It is the profit motive that causes Western business organizations and their governments to turn a blind eye to the Iranian regime’s character and deeds. Khatami, as Iran’s moderate façade, serves as a cover for this hypocritical policy. Alerting the world to the Iranian threat is very frustrating. I continue to try because of the issue’s huge importance. Unfortunately, I am one of the very few who are doing so. As I repeatedly encounter the conspiracy of forgiveness, silence, and greed in the world’s capitals, I understand how Hitler rose to power in Germany in the 1930s. When I sit with some European statesman and tell him of Iran’s attempts to torpedo the peace process through terror, and to prepare nuclear weapons and missiles that can reach his own country, the response is “Yes, but it is different with Khatami; there is a possibility of change and we are encouraging the moderates by conducting a dialogue with them.” This is absurd. Khatami has not changed the character of the Khomeinist regime, and has certainly not ended its sponsorship of terror. The legitimization of the Teheran regime makes it easier for it to acquire parts, materials, and knowledge for the production of weapons of mass destruction. Disturbingly, this toadying attitude to the ayatollahs is moving westward. Until recently it was confined to continental Europe, but now the British government, too, is telling us that “we are being too inflexible towards Iran.” In the United States, the oil companies are pressuring the current administration to take a softer and more conciliatory line toward Iran. They do this through the think tanks they finance, which issue learned reports whose purpose is to prepare the way for reconciliation with Iran. The fact that President Bush included Iran in his “axis of evil” indicates that the administration does not accept this position. Moreover, there are more indications that the United States understands not only that Iran is the regional powerhouse of terror, but that it is close to having a nuclear weapon of its own. When the Iranian deception about its nuclear projects is fully unveiled, Washington may even take some real measures. Israel can hope for this, even ask for it, but not rely on it. In existential matters Israel should rely on itself. What is the Iranian regime’s strategic ideology? The Iranian defense minister, Admiral Ali Shamkhani, expressed it in a speech on his country’s Revolution Day in August 1998. Iran sees itself as obligated to directly assist, with military force, every Muslim minority or organization in every corner of the earth. This aspiration to serve as the global defender of Islam is Iran’s justification not only for constructing long-range ballistic missiles that can reach the heart of Europe and Russia, but also for stirring up subversion in far-off countries such as Bosnia and Uzbekistan. The two states defined as enemies of Islam are the United States (the “Great Satan”) and Israel (the “Small Satan”). Hatred of Israel—negation of its right to exist on Muslim

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land and the obligation to annihilate it—is a basic element of the Iranian regime’s ideology. It is no wonder, then, that the 1998 Revolution Day parade in Teheran included a display of Shihab-3 missiles, whose range is 1,300 kilometers. Two slogans were written in English on the missiles: “Israel must be destroyed,” and “The United States can do nothing.” The hatred toward Israel is more concrete than that toward the far-off United States. Israel, which is involved in a struggle with the Palestinians in the territories and with Hezbollah on the Lebanese border, is a tangible enemy. Hatred toward it is the only ideological issue left with which to inflame the disappointed domestic masses. A final status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians would remove the last justification for Islamic militarism for its loathsome religious dictatorship. Israel-Palestinian reconciliation is thus the ayatollahs’ nightmare, and they are therefore making an enormous effort to frustrate any possibility that it might happen. Iran’s hostility and danger to Israel is implicit in its actions. First, Iran is developing nuclear weapons, with Russian technological assistance. Russian assistance is critical to the project’s progress. According to Western intelligence estimates, Iran may be able to produce a nuclear weapon as early as 2006. Furthermore, Iran continues to stockpile and produce chemical and biological weapons. Iran has already built, mainly with North Korean and Russian assistance, several Shihab-3 missiles, whose range covers Israel. In August 2003 they were officially delivered to operational service, and Iran intends to begin serial production of this missile. The Shihab-4 missile, with a range of 2,000 kilometers, and the Shihab-5 missile, with a range of 5,000 kilometers, are now in various stages of development and will apparently be operational in 2006. This missile will be able to bear nuclear warheads. What this means is that in the second half of the current decade, Iran will have the capability to launch a nuclear missile strike at Israel even from deep within its territory, as well as at targets in Europe, Russia, India, and Africa. Iran has founded a consortium comprising four terror organizations: Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front—General Command (Ahmad Jibril’s organization). Until 2000, Iran supported each such organization separately, with increasing levels of support: finance, arms, instruction, and guidance. It founded Hezbollah as a military arm to take over Lebanon and to make war directly against Israel. It gradually took over the Palestinian terror organizations, and the more it gave them, the harder it pressed them to carry out attacks that would suit its own needs. Since 2000, Iran has begun tightening operational coordination and cooperation among these organizations. This cooperation is expressed in joint instruction, and in operational and logistic assistance. For example, members of Jibril’s Popular Front have carried out for other organizations major arms-smuggling operations to Gaza by sea, such as the case of the ship Santorini, which was captured by the Israeli Navy. Iran encourages these organizations to carry out terror attacks and rewards them financially for successful attacks. Iran uses Hezbollah to set up terror cells among Israel’s Arab citizens, with the goal of opening an additional terror front within Israel that will undermine Israeli society even more. If at first Iran directed Palestinian terror organizations to disrupt the peace process with Israel and make future reconciliation impossible, today its purpose is to undermine

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Israeli society from within by committing mass terrorist attacks that, it believes, will bring about despair and demoralization in Israel. Hezbollah did just this when Israeli forces were deployed in southern Lebanon. Its attacks caused serious losses of Israeli soldiers and led to public pressure to withdraw the army to the international border. Iran seeks to repeat that success in Israel itself. Iran estimates that Israel’s Arabs are potential recruits for this program. Furthermore, this is the context in which Iran’s attempt to deliver rockets and mortars to the Palestinian Authority on the arms ship the Karine-A must be understood. It was Iran’s attempt to use Arafat to menace the Israeli populace, especially that of its central and southern cities, with the threat of rocket and mortar attacks from within the West Bank and Gaza. A special arm of Iranian intelligence maintains, in cooperation with Hezbollah, an infrastructure for terror against Israeli and Jewish targets abroad. The most deadly of these attacks were the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires on March 17, 1992, and the bombing of that city’s Jewish community center on July 18, 1994. This infrastructure exists in other parts of the world as well, and catastrophic attacks in some of those places have been frustrated. Iran achieved its greatest success against Israel through Hezbollah in Lebanon. For years, Iran cultivated its organization as its religious, political, and military representative in that country. It transferred hundreds of millions of dollars directly to Hezbollah, and channeled, through Hezbollah, about $100 million a year to Lebanon’s Shi’ites for infrastructure, education, and welfare. Thousands of tons of weapons and ammunition were transferred from Iran to Lebanon, principally by air to the international airport in Damascus, from where they made their way through the Syrian Army’s checkpoints to Hezbollah’s warehouses in the Lebanon Valley, Beirut, and the south of the country. It was Iranian equipment and training that enabled Hezbollah to fight a guerrilla war against the IDF and to strike at Israel’s northern towns. Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000 without an agreement, accompanied by the collapse of the Israeli-allied South Lebanon Army, was seen by the Arab world as a victory for Hezbollah against the omnipotent IDF. It is hardly surprising that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah brags that he is the only Arab commander to have defeated the IDF. Even if the IDF held the advantage in the field during the actual fighting, even if the decision to leave Lebanon was due to Ehud Barak’s promise a year and a quarter before the withdrawal, the impression in the Arab world was of a Hezbollah—and, through it, an Iranian—victory. The IDF withdrawal strengthened the Iranians’ assumption that by causing an incessant trickle of casualties they can break Israeli society’s spirit. Thus, when the IDF left Lebanon, Hezbollah deployed its fighters along the border, as well as hundreds of Katyusha rockets. Iran’s strategic measure was the deployment of hundreds of long-range rockets in southern Lebanon: Fajar-3 rockets with a range of 43 kilometers and Fajar-5 rockets with a range of 70 kilometers. According to a report by the Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, Iranian Revolutionary Guards stationed permanently in Lebanon operate the Iranian missiles. This is an unparalleled provocation and threat. One in five Israelis resides within these missiles’ range. Since the end of the Cold War, no state has placed missiles in the territory of another state and aimed them at the civilian population of a third state. The United States almost went to war over a similar incident in 1962,

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when the Soviet Union placed its missiles in Cuba and aimed them at Florida. Ultimately it did not do so because the Soviets withdrew their missiles. More than anything, Iran’s deployment of strategic weapons in Lebanon indicates that Israel and Iran are on a collision course. A force such as that which Iran has deployed 1,200 kilometers from its borders will ultimately be used. The temptation for Iran to strike a stinging blow at the hated Israel is too great to withstand. Even if we are on a collision course with Iran, this does not mean that the collision will necessarily take place. It can be avoided by political action and by military deterrence. In the political arena, we must make clear the significance of such a collision for regional stability, for the global energy market, and for the states that will directly bear the consequences of such a collision: Syria and Lebanon. If these countries only understood what price they will pay for being a base, providing transit, and assisting aggression against Israel’s citizens, they would certainly act immediately to remove the rockets and the Katyushas, and put pressure on Hezbollah not to act. In our contacts with Europe and Russia, we must continue to highlight Iran’s instigation of terror, its plans for large-scale attacks on northern Israel, and its potential deployment of long-range nuclear missiles. These actions will turn Europe and Russia into targets of blackmail by Iran’s obscurantist theocracy. It is of particular importance to bring this home to the United States. Only that country has the means of pressuring and influencing Russia to stop providing Iran with technological assistance for its military nuclear program. The cessation of this Russian assistance would bring about a significant delay in Iran’s schedule for producing a nuclear bomb. To date, the U.S. government has not succeeded in persuading the Russians to cut off their nuclear assistance to Iran. The concern is that Russia’s closer relationship with the United States after the September 2001 attacks will remove this issue, so vital to us, from the two states’ common agenda. Realistically speaking, Israel must make every effort with Washington on this subject. Political activity is important and necessary, but it is utterly impossible for us to rely only on such activity. Other responses to the Iranian strategic threat will be discussed in the following chapters.

8 WILL THE WORLD CHANGE? On September 11, 2001, at 6:30 in the morning, I landed at La Guardia Airport after a night flight from Los Angeles. Alon Pinkas, the Israeli consul-general in New York, accompanied me to the city. On the way, he pointed out New York’s distinctive skyline, which we beheld—like a picture postcard—by the light of the rising sun. To the north, the slanted roof of the Citicorp Building stood out, and behind it the sculpted shape of the Empire State Building. And there, in the south, stood two gleaming white twin towers presiding over southern Manhattan’s business district. I could hardly have imagined at the time that this would be the last time I would ever see the New York skyline as it was then. About two hours later, I stood on the lecturer’s podium at the B’nai Brith AntiDefamation League (ADL), updating this important Jewish organization’s activists on our struggle against terror in Israel. As I was about to answer the last question from the audience, Simona Frankel, the vice consul in New York, handed me a note in which she requested that I stop speaking in order to enable our host, Ken Jacobson, the ADL’s vice president, to make an important announcement. I was a bit taken aback at this apparent lack of courtesy, but stepped down from the podium. Jacobson told the stunned audience that, a few minutes before, two planes had crashed into the twin towers. I returned to the podium and added one concluding comment to my talk. I am not at all sure the shocked audience understood it. The Jews are the first victims of evil, I said, but not the last. Whoever begins by harming the Jews ends up harming the entire world. It happened with the Nazis, and it is now happening with Islamic terror. I hazarded a guess that two planes exploding into the symbol of U.S. economic power was no random accident, but rather had been diabolically planned by a terror organization. Only a few minutes later, news of the Pentagon crash arrived, and there was no more room for doubt. I went out to the street and looked south. The entire horizon was covered by the smoke pouring from the towers. After they collapsed, the cloud of dust and smoke reached gigantic proportions. Shimon Peres, Israel’s foreign minister, called me and asked me to coordinate as many aspects of Israel’s activity in New York as possible. I spoke by telephone with General Dan Halutz, commander of Israel Air Force, and together we decided on the closure of Israel’s airspace until it could be ascertained that this was not a worldwide terror operation involving Israel as well. I hurried to our consulate on Second Avenue and convened the senior staff headed by Ambassador Pinkas. Our first priority was to find out what Israeli companies had offices in the twin tower buildings. To our relief, we found that there were no such companies; the Zim shipping company had moved out only a few weeks before. The consulate staff quickly organized a thorough search that “mediated” between Israelis staying in New York and their families back in Israel. We knew

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definitely of only two Israelis who had worked in the collapsed buildings and with whom contact had been lost. Thousands of people began walking northward through New York’s streets. The subway had stopped running, as had the trains. Offices closed, and their workers began to walk to their homes in northern Manhattan and over the bridges to the city’s other boroughs. Some of these people’s clothes and hair were covered with the white dust scattered by the explosion and the subsequent collapse of the towers. By the afternoon, the city had emptied, and even the crowds gathered around the television screens in electronics stores had dispersed. Times Square, usually packed, was as empty as an Israeli street at the height of Yom Kippur. I walked about the square without seeing a single vehicle pass, feeling as if I were in a surrealistic dream. The dimensions of the catastrophe, and the depth of the terrorist underground that had burrowed into the heart of U.S. society, became clearer by the moment. The people of the United States now grasped in a single moment just how vulnerable their open and democratic society is, and how fragile their security. I hoped that now they would at last understand what we in Israel have experienced all our lives, and even more so over the previous year. I remember from my childhood in the 1950s our terror of the fedayeen, the Arab terrorists who crossed the border and attacked civilians. As a career officer in the Army, I was personally involved for almost sixteen years in every operation against Palestinian terror. And now here I was, an eyewitness to the biggest terror attack in history—on the United States’ home ground. On July 4 of the same year, two months and one week before the attack on the twin towers, I published an article in the Jerusalem Post. It was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Entebbe rescue operation, in which I had participated as commanding officer of the medical teams. In my article I explained that three changes in terror have taken place in the years since Entebbe. First, terror has shed its national character and taken on a religious nature. Second, terror has become more massive, as the use of suicide bombers and powerful explosives has vastly increased the number of victims in any one incident. Finally, terror operations are no longer aimed at drawing international attention to a national goal or furthering its attainment. Destruction and death are now in and of themselves the terrorists’ purpose—the end, not the means. I concluded the article with the hope that the United States would take the leading role in the worldwide war on terror. As I said, I was nine weeks early. In the past, terror was defined as a nuisance that, except for the price it exacted from its victims, did not pose a strategic threat. This definition may have been correct regarding Palestinian terror in the 1960s and 1970s. Terror attacks, even the most deadly—the school bus at Avivim, the murder of school-children at Ma’alot, the coastal road attack in March 1978– lacked strategic significance. The new terror, however, religious by nature and massive in its attacks, does have strategic significance due to its ongoing effect on society and the economy. Today’s society demands more personal security, and finds it hard to accept that the government cannot always provide it. A series of mass terror attacks requires that the government—any government—take drastic steps, if only to satisfy the public. When a terror organization can cause a government to act in a way that under other conditions it would have refrained from acting—from that moment the terror becomes “strategic

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terror,” capable of dictating the government’s actions. Incessant, deadly terror may change the public climate, bring about a mood of despair and extremism, and cause farreaching political changes. The Hamas terror campaign in the heart of Israel, the buses that exploded together with their passengers in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, created the political atmosphere that caused Shimon Peres to lose the 1996 elections and Binyamin Netanyahu to rise to power. In other words, through its terror attacks, Hamas achieved its strategic goal of stopping the peace process. This is one example of how terror attacks become strategic terror. Economic damage is also a strategic gain for terror. Islamic terror attacks on tourists in Cairo and Luxor, for example, brought about a drastic decline in tourism to Egypt, and thus caused it billions of dollars worth of economic damage. There is no doubt that the attack on the twin towers was strategic terror of the first order, with the enormous damage it caused to the U.S. economy in general, to New York City, and to the airline industry. Thus, today’s terror should be seen as a strategic threat, due to its effect on the economy (by deterring investors and destroy-ing tourism) and on the national mood, and because it can force a country to take unavoidable action that will cause it political damage. There are no shortcuts in the war on terror. The more elusive it is, the better its leaders blend in with their natural environment, the harder it is to strike at it and foil its perpetrators. Therefore, precise and up-to-date intelligence is of the highest importance, as are the means to intercept and frustrate specific attacks. This is the most effective and moral kind of action against terror. After September 11, the United States declared war on terror. Will that war facilitate Israel’s own battle against this scourge? For us, that is the key question; the answer to it is complex. There is now undoubtedly greater understanding of Israel’s struggle. The United States will also have a greater need to learn from the experience of our own struggle against Shi’ite and Palestinian terror, and thus will need to increase their cooperation with us. The organizations operating against us have already been included in the U.S. “blacklist,” at least the list dealing with financial and administrative limitations. Despite this, however, we must retain a sober view of reality. The operational goals of the United States’ military actions were to defeat the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, destroy the al-Qaeda organization, which was behind the September attacks, and eliminate al-Qaeda’s commanders, Osama bin Laden foremost among them. The goal of the second war was to overthrow Saddam Hussein. This goal was achieved. It is clear that the United States will continue to pursue terrorist leaders, and even strike directly at terror organizations’ bases in various countries. I am afraid, however, that the answer to the question whether the United States will act directly against the organizations fighting us—Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—is no. Will the sanctions against Iran, which provides these organizations with financing, arms, training, and guidance, be strengthened? Will the United States demand that Syria evict these organizations’ headquarters from Damascus? Will U.S. and international aid to Lebanon be conditional on its disarming Hezbollah? I am not sure of the answers to any of these questions.

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It could be that we will be pleasantly surprised, perhaps even on more than one of these issues, but our working assumption must be that we will have to continue fighting these terror organizations on our own. No one will do the job for us. We must internalize this fact as quickly as possible. There is no point in whining to the United States that its priorities are different from ours. We must respect those priorities and help the United States succeed in its actions against terror, but at the same time insist that it understand our own priorities and actions in this struggle. To be considerate of our friends, to assist them as much as we can but at the same time to avoid self-effacement, to rely on ourselves alone—these are today’s imperatives in the post-September 11 war against regional and worldwide terror.

9 A WARNING NOTE In my previous chapters I have outlined the web of dangers and menaces that imperil our region. I have described, in turn, the Iranian threat and our relations with Syria, which oscillate between the possibility of peace and the danger of confrontation. The title given to this chapters is “a warning note,” because I discuss here a country that Israel’s official strategic thinkers tend to ignore. But this country may become, overnight, a substantial threat. My warning note concerns Saudi Arabia. This kingdom was for more than five decades the United States’ most important ally in the region, although it would perhaps be more precise to say that their relationship was the most special. The United States has not shared with the Saudi rulers, starting with ‘Abd el-‘Aziz ibn Saud, the founder of the Saudi dynasty, the kind of common democratic values that it shares with Israel. Saud Arabia has never held a leading political position in the Arab world, such as that of Egypt. But Saudi Arabia has oil, and a great deal of it: a quarter of the world’s reserves lie under its sands. Although only one-tenth of the petroleum consumed in the United States comes from Saudi Arabia, it is a key player in setting the price per barrel on the world market; hence its vital importance to the U.S. economy. U.S.-Saudi relations are very close and very complex, and oil cements their strength. The Saudi ambassador to Washington for the past twenty-eight years, Prince Bandar, is one of the most influential and well-connected figures in the capital. Thanks to this relationship, Saudi Arabia has built an impressive, modern military force, with the best the United States’ military industry has to offer. According to the Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, during the five years between 1994 and 1998, the Saudis spent some $77 billion on security, double the amount Israel spent on its security during the same period. The Saudi Air Force has some 355 fighter planes, of which about one-third are Tornados and one-half F-15s, equipped with the most advanced air-to-air and air-to-ground weaponry manufactured in the United States. This airborne force is reinforced by five AWACS intelligence and early warning planes and some seventeen tanker planes for mid-air refueling, which increase the range of the fighter-bomber planes. I mention these figures regarding the Saudis’ air power not only as an example of Saudi Arabia’s military strength, but also because its air force could be significant in the Israeli context as well. Something did indeed change after September 11, 2001. The fact that fifteen of the nineteen hijackers on that day were Saudis embarrassed Saudi Arabia, and the American public as well. The Saudis refused to permit the United States to use U.S. air bases on its territory to attack the Taliban in Afghanistan. This, together with its extremely lukewarm support for the U.S. war on terror in general, exposed the double game that the House of Saud has been playing for not a few years. It has become clear that for quite some time

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now the Saudis have actively supported not only the dissemination of Islam, but Islamic terror organizations as well. In recent years, 1,600 mosques and dozens of Islamic universities and colleges have been established with Saudi financing in various countries around the world, including countries that were once part of the Soviet Union. But disseminating its conservative brand of Islam has not been enough. Saudi Arabia also gives financial support to Islamic terror organizations in Chechnya, Kashmir, and the former republics of Yugoslavia, and of course Palestinian organizations. It donated $600 million to the rehabilitation of Muslim Bosnia, and it is assumed that part of this money made its way to terror organizations, including al-Qaeda. Why does the Saudi royal house do this? The simplistic explanation is that the Saudis purchase their own security by shifting these organizations’ attention to other arenas, thus ensuring that they will not operate on Saudi territory. The explanation - that the Saudis are paying “protection money”—is true but insufficient. There is a deeper reason, in particular for the massive enterprise of disseminating conservative Islam throughout the world and for its reservations regarding the vigorous U.S. policy against terror (it took Saudi Arabia two weeks to cut off relations with the Taliban regime after the attack in New York; only two other states had recognized the regime in the first place). There is growing internal opposition to the ruling dynasty, and not merely because of the decline in the Saudi standard of living (annual income per capita has dropped from $20,000 ten years ago to $8,000 in recent years), or the gross corruption of the royal house and its cronies in the ruling class. The Wahabi sect, which is the center of power and spiritual influence in the country, is furious about and scornful of the permissive lifestyle of the members of the royal house, especially during their frequent trips to Europe and the United States. They are not satisfied that the state is governed in accordance with rigorous Islamic law. The Saudi royal house’s willingness to provide financial support for worldwide Islam is supposed to serve as a sinner’s ransom for the Wahabis. It is impossible to know how much longer the Saudi dynasty will be able to continue to please both the United States and its domestic opposition. In an interview recorded after September 11, Osama bin Laden stated the two goals of his war against the United States: to end the suffering of the Palestinian people and to purge Muslim lands of the infidels. By the latter he meant the removal of 5,000 U.S. military personnel from Saudi territory. This force remained in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War in 1991, and in 2003 the United States decided to redeploy it in other Gulf states, in order to reduce the domestic tension in Saudi Arabia and to avoid security risk. This, then, is my warning note: the Saudi regime’s stability is not only not assured. Its fall and the removal of U.S. influence in the country may be Osama bin Laden’s next strategic goal. Some 25,000 Saudis who fought in Afghanistan, in Chechnya, and in Bosnia have returned home, and could serve for bin Laden as a future reserve of manpower experienced in terror and guerrilla warfare. It will be recalled that bin Laden himself is an expatriate Saudi, and one may assume that he intends to return home eventually. But even if the scenario of bin Laden’s homecoming to Saudi Arabia looks an unrealistic one, no one can ignore the growing resentment of the young generation in Saudi Arabia against the ruling Saud house. These youngsters are unemployed, frustrated, brainwashed by the Wahabist education system. Saudi society is in a pre-revolutionary

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phase. Should bin Laden or some other zealous Muslim rise to power in Saudi Arabia, it would be a great blow not only to the United States, but to the entire democratic world. About one-half of the world’s oil reserves would then be in the hands of extremist states: Iran and Saudi Arabia. These will set the price of petroleum and thus have the Western world’s economy by the throat. Israel would then have to add to its list of enemies another state whose military power is not to be disregarded. That is the Israeli aspect of this warning note. Even if the possibility seems remote, I must repeat—in this unstable region, everything is possible.

10 TWO ESSENTIAL CONDITIONS In the previous chapters I surveyed the various threats and dangers that Israel faces, some immediate and some waiting for us around the corner. In this and the following chapters, I offer my position on what strategic, defense, and political measures Israel must take to forestall these dangers. This is my answer to the question of how to navigate safely in these perilous waters. Even when peace finally prevails between Israel and the Palestinians and the rest of its neighbors, the region in which we live will remain unstable and dangerous. Therefore, for the foreseeable future, Israel needs two things in order to stabilize peace and ensure its survival, no matter how good its position is: defensible borders and overall military superiority. I will discuss each of these separately.

Defensible borders When I discussed the conditions for peace with Syria in Chapter 5, I explained in detail what a defensible border with Syria would be. There is a banal statement to the effect that in this age of missiles and precise airborne weapons, terrestrial borders no longer have any special value or significance. Nothing could be more mistaken. Generally, it is those who are preparing the public for irresponsible territorial concessions who cite this falsehood. I am in favor of extensive territorial concessions where they can be justified. But territory remains important, because the danger to Israel’s sovereignty is that its enemies will send their ground forces to invade and conquer its small and crowded territory. That is what could have happened in 1967 and what would have happened in 1973 had Syria’s tanks continued their westward sweep and not been stopped by our armored forces. Israel’s enemies know that it has a clear advantage in air-power and firepower. The Israel Air Force is capable of wiping out any opponent if given the necessary time and if not simultaneously engaged on too many fronts. Only in a ground war could Israel’s enemies exploit Israel’s two relative disadvantages: a relatively small regular army, and long terrestrial borders. The lack of manpower derives from the fact that we are a small nation, in which the regular army comprises (according to a Jaffe Center report) some 186,000 soldiers. Israel’s immediate neighbors together have much larger regular armies. Syria has 380,000 soldier; Jordan, 94,000; Egypt, 450,000; Lebanon, 51,000. These numbers demonstrate just how small Israel’s regular army is relative to those of its neighbors; Israel’s main strength is its reserve divisions. Mobilization of the reserves for a long period of time hits Israel’s economy and society hard. Therefore, Israeli governments have approved general mobilizations only in those

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rare cases in which the probability of war has seemed high. It is a difficult, momentous decision. Accordingly, the IDF tries to keep routine security operations principally in the hands of regular units, and to minimize as much as possible its reliance on reserve units for this purpose. Due to the length of Israel’s borders, every alert, every sign that a war may be about to break out, requires the IDF either to deploy its regular forces thinly or to mobilize the reserves. Any serious future attempt to invade Israel will be the initiative of a coalition of countries not necessarily restricted to Israel’s immediate neighbors. By confronting Israel all along its lengthy border, it would be easy for Israel’s enemies to create a quantitative advantage in a particular sector and plan to break through our defensive lines there, preferably in a surprise attack that would anticipate and disrupt the mobilization of our reserves. This is why Israel needs a land border whose topography enables its defense by a small force. For example, control of the Jordan crossings, even with a small force, will make it easier to discern any incipient attack and counter it. A defensible border must also make it possible to track enemy troop movements and military activity so as to provide Israel with an early warning of hostile activities. Finally, a defensible border should give Israel sufficient early warning capability, be maintainable with a small number of troops, and deny enemies any military advantage.

Overall military superiority What is overall military superiority? It is an integrative combination of military, intelligence, and technological advantage over any regional coalition of forces that may be formed against Israel. We must ensure that we are in a superior position against each of our potential enemies and against all of them in concert. The meaning of military superiority is simple: the maintenance of an order of battle that is large enough to conduct a war, at least a defensive war, in all sectors at once, while allowing us in at least one sector not only to hold back the enemy army but to counterattack it. Our forces must be flexible enough to allow us to move them quickly from one sector to another. These are quantitative measurements. Qualitative superiority, of course, means a high professional level—both in combat units and in combat support units. Since the bulk of Israel’s army is its reserves, Israel must ensure that the military skills of its citizen soldiers are maintained at a high level. Civilians who are teachers, bank clerks, or bus drivers may be required overnight to load tank shells, guide an antitank missile, or fly a fighter plane. This means that the reserves must be called up frequently for training and maneuvers. The most critical kind of quality—the real secret of superiority—is the quality of command. It would have been very difficult for us to win the Yom Kippur War had it not been for the excellent quality of our field commanders, especially in the reserve units. Maintaining the quality of command requires not only much more training, but principally the cultivation of good officers by the IDF high command and by the country’s leadership. There is also an intangible, hard-to-measure, but essential component in the

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maintenance of a high-quality reserve force: unit morale. The men and women who serve in each reserve unit must not only know how to work together, but also feel that the service they do is appreciated by the army command and by the country as a whole. It is therefore essential to provide Israel’s citizen-soldiers not only with excellent training and equipment, but also with conditions that encourage the cohesiveness of these units and allow their soldiers to make the transition from civilian to military and back to civilian life as smoothly as possible. When I served as deputy defense minister I proposed a law I called the “Sturdiness Law.” This law dealt provided for comprehensive assistance to reservists, principally those who serve long periods each year—for example, those who serve as commanders or in essential professions. I had trouble moving this bill through the parliamentary process, in part because the finance ministry opposed it. The twenty months I spent as deputy minister of defense were not enough to see the bill through. It was officially brought before the Knesset during the tenure of the current government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in which I am serving as transportation minister and member of the security cabinet. It is of vital importance that this bill, and others that also mandate assistance for reservists, be enacted into law in the near future. Military superiority requires, of course, not only that both the full necessary order of battle and its professional quality be maintained, but also that the army be armed and equipped with cutting-edge weapons that are more advanced than those possessed by potential enemies. This brings me to technological superiority. This kind of superiority means Israel must develop and manufacture armaments and combat support systems such as avionics, radar, electronic warfare devices, guided missiles, pilotless aircraft, and satellite technology that are better than the systems and weapons possessed by other states in the region. This includes systems that can counter our enemies’ advanced weapons. We must also retain a technological ability to surprise our enemies. Our adversaries must realize that in any confrontation they will encounter new Israeli weapons and systems that they cannot counter, and that can decide battles in our favor on the land, on the sea, and in the air. Today, Israel’s defense industry ranks with the best in the world in all of these fields. We achieve our technological advantage only through what we develop ourselves. U.S. and European advanced weapons systems find their way to the Arab states, and we possess them as well. But they are not unique to our army. Only those weapons we make ourselves—without partners—can serve as our secret surprise weapons for the next war. We cannot be sure that what we do not make by ourselves will not fall into undesirable hands. Furthermore, the use of weapons we produce jointly with our allies comes with strings attached. Using them requires the agreement of our partner—who is also our competitor. Sometimes our military industry has to sell a quite advanced product, taking the risk that this technology may fall into hostile hands, simply in order to finance the development and production of the next generation of the same product. When I served as chairman of the Knesset supervisory committee for the IDF and the defense ministry, I opposed exporting the Gomad light antitank missile to an East European country. I was concerned that if it were to find its way from our customer to a terror organization, it would cause us the same trouble that the Stinger missile causes the Americans today. (The Americans

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gave large quantities of this shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missile to the Afghanis when they were fighting the Soviets. Some of these missiles found their way to terror organizations and now endanger American aviation.) But as deputy defense minister I learned that without exporting the Gomed and the Gil (an antitank missile of the same family), the missile division of Rafael, Israel’s armament development authority, could not survive economically. So, ironically, I became a salesman for the missile whose secrets I had sought to protect. All of the above demonstrates the vital, even existential, need for the Israeli defense industry to remain strong. Without a strong industry we will not possess technological superiority, and without technological superiority we will possess neither military superiority nor independence in security matters. Exports are essential to the survival of the defense industry. For various reasons, the IDF’s and Defense Ministry’s relative share of the Israeli defense industry’s sales has fallen. About 70 percent of its products are now made for export, in a difficult global market marked by fierce competition by the giants of the industry—both American (Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, and the like) and European. Israeli defense exports have grown somewhat in recent years, and now stand at almost $2.25 billion annually. According to various calculations, in order to survive, the defense industry must increase its exports to $3–$4 billion. This requires a coordinated national effort as well as the reduction of competition among the Israeli companies themselves. This competition, in which two Israeli companies viciously spar with each other, often causes a third, nonIsraeli company to win the tender. Once, when I was deputy defense minister, one of the Israeli companies brought an African defense minister to Israel and hid him in a secret location, so that executives of its rival would not meet him. After some time, the phenomenon was repeated with another defense minister, this time with the other company hiding the minister. Yet there is also a welcome trend in the opposite direction—for example, the merger of Elbit and El-Op created a larger company that could better compete in the global market for defense products. I hope that the trend of mergers and cooperation will continue. The Defense Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, and the prime minister must give a political boost to Israeli defense exports. During the 20 months during which I served as deputy defense minister, I met with thirty heads of state and defense ministers from seventeen different countries in order to promote our defense exports. This work is frustrating but also has its satisfying moments. When I was at the Paris aviation exhibition in 2001, I enjoyed seeing how an Israeli test pilot performed amazing tricks with the Georgian Sukhoi-25 fighter-bomber, which had been mightily upgraded by Elbit. I remembered my talk with Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze in the Laromme Hotel in Jerusalem about two years before. “What do you manufacture?” I asked the president. “The Sokhoi-25,” he replied, and added that the plane had not found any buyers. “Maybe we’ll make it together?” I proposed. “OK, let’s try,” he answered. “There’s no harm in trying,” I said, ending the conversation, which we had conducted in Russian with a proverb I had learned from my grandmother. The result of this dialogue was the upgraded Sokhoi-25, which, I have heard, no longer lacks buyers. At the same air show in Paris, Israel Aircraft Industries exhibited its EROS commercial

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observation satellite. I wondered what other nation of barely 6 million people could launch such a satellite into space. What is intelligence superiority? It contains, of course, elements of the two other vital kinds of superiority: military and technological. We need high-level professionals and upto-date technological means of gathering intelligence. But more than that, we must have the ability to learn sufficiently early of any plans to attack us, so that we will not be surprised on the battlefield. Moreover, we must know everything about the enemy’s tactical and technological capabilities, also so as to avoid being surprised on the battlefield. And not only must we know everything, and early, but we must also understand in time what is happening around us at any given moment. I speak not only of our immediate neighbors, but of our entire strategic area, which stretches from the Caspian Sea to the Horn of Africa. It is vital to understand processes and analyze trends in order to conduct a correct policy. Intelligence superiority means that we will know all relevant information about others as early as possible, and that others will know as little as possible about us. It requires modern and long-range intelligence-gathering means, including satellites, as well as employing the best minds for intelligence research. How to keep the best Israeli minds in the defense industry in general and in intelligence in particular—that is our leaders’ challenge, which I will discuss in my final chapter. In sum, overall military superiority is one of the two elements that are essential to Israel’s survival and to bringing about a stable peace. We can afford to give up neither military superiority nor defensible borders. Military superiority within borders that it is difficult to defend will not suffice, and will exact a very high price in blood for our defense and victory. Defensible borders—as good as they may be—without military superiority to back them up will ultimately be penetrated. Only a combination of the two will prevent us from being a tempting target for aggressors, will create deterrence, and will allow us decisive victory should deterrence fail. But before turning to my chapter on deterrence, I must complete the picture. Defensible borders and military superiority, in my opinion, are indeed the two conditions essential to the survival of the State of Israel. But if we are to speak of creating a stable peace, there is one additional stabilizer: a common economic interest. This interest is not a security stabilizer, but it is explicitly an important strategic stabilizer. Common economic interests stabilize peace by providing a disincentive to resuming hostilities even when tensions rise. The more integrated the economies of Israel and its neighbors are, the greater incentive there will be to maintain peace. If the masses—and not just the business community—in the Arab world see that cooperation and peace with Israel bring them higher incomes, they will be less inclined to be hostile to Israel. In my opinion, one of the reasons that Arafat could easily decide to launch the second Intifada is that his people had nothing, not even almost nothing, to lose. Since the Oslo accords were signed, no significant joint economic project had been created that brought any benefit to the Palestinians. So there was nothing to destroy that would cause them collective economic loss. The only thing built was the airport at Dehaniya in the Gaza Strip. During the second Intifada we closed and opened the airport like a zipper, but this affected only the thin layer of the Palestinian elite, not the people. Were joint economic projects to be created in the framework of a future peace agreement, such as railway lines, airfields, energy pipelines, tourism, and waterworks, the

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relationship between the two peoples would improve and the incentive for war would be reduced. Our partner would also have an incentive to fight terror, which would threaten these projects. Some people in Israel dismiss the idea of a “new Middle East” as a pipe dream, but I do not accept that. There is clearly enormous potential for regional economic cooperation in peacetime, and such cooperation has a positive dynamic of its own. This is not an unrealistic vision. I believe that an Israeli-Palestinian agreement would suffice to enable us to build, together with Jordan, an extremely successful economic triangle. Economics would stabilize peace. But I never forget, and never let others forget, that should Israel be vulnerable and weak, the only peace that this region will have is the peace of an Israeli graveyard.

11 THE NEW DETERRENCE What was the old deterrence? Israel’s old deterrence was aimed, beginning in the 1950s, against the power of the combined armies of the Arab coalition. David Ben Gurion and the other defense policy makers of those years worried that at some time the Arab quantitative edge in soldiers, tanks, artillery, and planes would prevail over the IDF’s qualitative edge. The balance of forces was so against us, our borders were so vulnerable, and the state was so small that the temptation to annihilate us was great. This was the background against which Israel built its deterrent image. The linchpin of that deterrent was our silence about what we do at our nuclear research facility at Dimona; the Arabs’ guesses would deter them. This deterrent has been effective for the past forty years. Israel was careful to maintain its policy of ambiguity even when there were press reports about what was going on at the facility—including those reporting comments, by Mordechai Vanunu, the former employee of the nuclear facility, until recently serving a prison term for revealing state secrets to the press. We meticulously avoided saying a word, and that is as it should be. This situation is about to change. As I have already mentioned, it is possible that Iran will possess nuclear weapons as early as 2006. That is the prediction of Western intelligence services, but even if it happens a year or two later, their basic prediction that Iran will become a nuclear power during the course of this decade still holds. Libya too could still surprise us with nuclear weapons during this decade. The planners of the old Israeli deterrence did not address the possibility that a hostile state would possess nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons in the hands of such a country would radically change the balance of power between Israel and its Middle East neighbors. Life in Israel then would be like life once was in Kiryat Shemona, Israel’s northernmost city, subject constantly to missile attacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon. What do I mean? Over the past fifteen years, all operational planning decisions in Israel’s north have been subordinate to the question of whether or not the decision would cause Katyusha rockets to fall on Kiryat Shemona. Even operations that would have been very valuable and effective were cancelled for fear of Katyusha attacks on this particular town. On the morning of the day he was murdered, I sat with Yitzhak Rabin at a private gathering in the home of Yehudit and Roni Katzin in Nerzliya Pituach. The phone rang, for Rabin. On the line was his military assistant, Dani Yatom, who reported that there was an opportunity to kill one of Hezbollah’s senior commanders. Rabin returned to the table and told me that he had not approved the attack for fear that Katyushas would fall on Kiryat Shemona. I tell this story in order to illustrate the extent to which the fear of an attack on its civilian population has dictated Israel’s actions. Sharon’s government restrains its

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response to persistent Hezbollah provocations along Israel’s northern border, because 1.2 million Israelis in the north of the country live under the threat of 10,000 rockets and missiles deployed there by Iran. Should Israel come within the range of an Iranian or Libyan nuclear missile, any Israeli government will act similarly. Every great and important decision, should it be necessary, will be made under the shadow of this existential threat. Perhaps we will need to make such a decision only once in a decade, but when it becomes necessary, we must not make it under nuclear blackmail. The shadow of a nuclear missile would also be a heavy blow to the morale of the Israeli public. I am afraid that many would encourage their children to build a future for themselves in a safer place. Those citizens able to do so thanks to their education and profession might very well leave. Our lives would be gloomy and threatened, and we must not fool ourselves into thinking that things would be as they were. Some believe that we must simply adjust to the idea that the rogue states in our region will possess nuclear weapons. Since those countries think that Israel also possesses a commensurate response, a mutually deterrent balance of fear will prevail, ensuring that no one will use nuclear force. So it was during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, and so it will be in our region. This is a dangerous and misleading illusion. Any balance of deterrence must be based on symmetry. There was symmetry between the Soviet Union and the United States. Both of them were territorial giants, with large unpopulated areas; each had a population of about a quarter of a billion. Most importantly, each country’s leadership was a responsible one. For all the ideological and cultural differences between them, neither the U.S. nor the Soviet leadership desired nuclear confrontation. They feared it, and wanted to save their peoples the misery of war. No wonder, then, that the first step toward reconciliation between the powers, after the Geneva Convention of 1954, was to install the “hot line.” This was a direct telephone line between the U.S. president and the secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to be used to avert a nuclear confrontation that might be caused by a mistake or misunderstanding. There is no symmetry between Israel and Iran. The same is true of Israel and Libya. Iran’s territory is larger than Israel’s by a factor of seventy, and its population ten times larger than Israel’s. Most of Israel’s intellectual and economic resources, and most of its population, are concentrated along the narrow and densely populated coastal plain. Two nuclear bombs, one in the Haifa area and the other in the Tel Aviv area, would turn Israel into a scorched and radioactive Third World country. Israel is thus more vulnerable to weapons of mass destruction than any other country in the world, with the exception of Singapore. The most essential asymmetry between Israel and Libya, however, is in the character of their respective regimes. Israel is a democracy, with an administrative branch that is subject to a strict system of parliamentary, judicial, and public oversight. There is no trace of such oversight in either Iran or Libya. Iran is ruled by a body of fanatical and extremist clergymen who are subject, they themselves declare, to no authority but Allah. Israel can take no chances with its very existence as a state, or with the survival of the majority of its citizens, by depending on Muammar Qadaff’s and the Ayatollah Khamenei’s responsibility and discretion. I must say it in the strongest possible terms:

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Israel cannot allow a single one of its enemies to possess nuclear weapons. Every effort must be made to prevent such an eventuality. Former Prime Minister Menachem Begin understood this, and acted accordingly in ordering the nuclear reactor in Iraq bombed. This was an act of salvation for Israel. But it is possible that we will not succeed in preventing one of our sworn enemies from acquiring nuclear weapons. What then? In such a situation, a new kind of deterrence will be needed. The new deterrence will be based on four circles of defense. The first circle is passive defence. This includes personal defensive systems against chemical and biological weapons, such as gas masks and a well-maintained system of bomb shelters. This system is vital where there is danger of attack by missiles armed with nonconventional warheads, but of course it is not sufficient. The second circle is active defense. I refer to the Arrow system of antiballistic missiles, which can intercept and destroy incoming offensive missiles. This system was developed and is manufactured in Israel; it also includes the Green Pine radar detection device and is presently the only operational anti-ballistic missile system in the world. The Arrow is an important stratum of defense, but is also insufficient. It is not an airtight barrier against any number of missiles and against every kind of missile. The third circle is responsive defense. This system intercepts missiles at the beginning of their courses, in the “boost phase,” when they first accelerate. Its advantage is that a missile carrying a nuclear or chemical warhead explodes where launched and not above its target. There is another version of this interception system called BPLI, which is meant to strike at the missile launcher just after the missile has been launched from it. The launcher is still very hot, and it is easy to aim a heat-seeking missile at it. This system is called “responsive” because it strikes at missiles or their launchers after they have already been fired. It is based on pilotless aircraft that roam above possible launching areas; when they locate missile fire, they attack the missile or its launcher. It will be recalled that during the Gulf War the Allies’ efforts to locate the sites from which SCUD missiles were launched against Israel and Saudi Arabia failed: not a single one was spotted or destroyed. Our defense industry’s high level of knowledge and experience is the foundation for developing this system. But there is an element of cooperation with the United States in its development and manufacture, as antiballistic missile defense is one of the cornerstones of contemporary U.S. defense thinking as well. Yet responsive deterrence is still not sufficient for strategic deterrence. The fourth defensive circle is preemptive defense. This defense must be based on a capability to strike at long range at strategic targets. Such a system will enable us to deal with an aggressor by hitting at him hard and precisely. This is the most important component of the new deterrence. Establishment of this four-stratum system will create the new deterrence. The new deterrence does not obviate the old one; it reinforces it. Our policy of ambiguity must not be discarded. Israel must in no way, at any price, be tempted to erode this ambiguity or permit any foreign person or body, no matter how friendly, to peer into it. Israel must not become a party to any treaty that permits oversight of nonconventional weapons. Why? Israel is a democratic and open country with a free, uninhibited, and effectively uncensored press. Nothing may be hidden here. Any commitment assumed by Israel in

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the framework of such a treaty will be honored to the last detail. But rogue states such as Iran sign treaties for the nonproliferation of chemical weapons while continuing to manufacture them in secret. Iraq passed the inspections of the International Atomic Energy Agency when it was only a year and a half away from manufacturing an atomic bomb. Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but is engaged in a huge national effort to build nuclear weapons. In short, there is a flagrant lack of symmetry between Israel and its enemies. We cannot afford to enter the confines of international treaties that we will adhere to meticulously at the same time as our sworn enemies grossly violate them.

12 THE UNITED STATES A slightly different alliance The greatest of Israel’s strategic assets, except for its indigenous strength, is its special relationship with the United States. “Our great friend” is not a shopworn phrase describing this relationship, and there is a great deal of truth in it. The roots of the alliance between the United States and Israel run deep and are held in place by the democratic values we share. The special position of the American Jewish community is one of the foundations of the alliance. Our relationship with the United States is not a one-sided one in which we are only on the receiving end of America’s aid and kindness. I have always recoiled from the definition of Israel as “the largest aircraft carrier of the Sixth Fleet.” We are a sovereign state and we do not serve in anyone else’s navy. But the fact is that in a region full of dictators and hostile regimes, and in which the United States has solid and embedded economic interests, the existence of a clearly democratic state that is also the strongest military power between Baku and Gibraltar is an important strategic asset for the sole superpower. As concerns day-to-day security matters, our alliance with the United States is close and dynamic. It does not consist only of the generous military aid that the United States provides to Israel, which by 2006 will grow to $2.4 billion annually. It is also an ongoing intelligence and strategic dialogue from which both sides benefit. A series of joint committees and working groups known by various abbreviations (JSSG, JPMG, DPAG, and so forth) meet regularly once or twice a year, with the participation of military personnel and senior officials from both sides. On the most sensitive subjects an operational intimacy exists that is beyond compare. During the war in Iraq in 2003 a perfect operational coordination was established between Israel and the United States. It was based on a profound mutual understanding of each party’s interests. In the political arena, too, the United States stands behind us even in our most difficult times. The steadfastness of its position in the United Nations Security Council, for example, is the only thing preventing the dispatch of an international force to the Palestinian territories. When the Barak government was in power, an attempt was made to formally upgrade these good relations almost to the status of a defense pact. The attempt failed. There is an unbridgeable gap between the two sides that prevents such a written pact from being concluded. The United States is extremely careful about committing itself to foreign intervention. Israel is justifiably reluctant to limit its freedom of military action in the framework of such a pact. Ultimately, both sides prefer the existing practical alliance to official commitments with which neither side would be comfortable. Love without a marriage contract is better than a contract without love.

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The truth is that there is a certain conflict of interest between Israel and the United States regarding Israel’s freedom of action. It is important to understand this conflict. The United States’ interest in the Middle East may be defined in one word: stability. To the Americans, “stability” means not only the absence of hostile acts, but also the uninterrupted flow of oil from the region to the West, at a reasonable price. Even justified military action on Israel’s part can disrupt the region’s sacred stability. It should be borne in mind that Israel itself has a manifest interest in ensuring that the United States maintains a strong position in the Arab world. The United States understands our military actions, especially against terror bases, but does not always agree with them. And if innocent parties are harmed, the criticism can be sharp and very unpleasant. American reservations about an Israeli action may be damaging in political and military circumstances in which we need U.S. diplomatic backing against our enemies. A personal story will illustrate this. A special cabinet session was convened on May 11, 2001 at 10:30 in the evening, an unusual hour, at the prime minister’s building in Tel Aviv. The meeting was held around the old wooden discussion table at which Ben Gurion and the other founders of the state made important decisions. Sitting at that table always evokes in me feelings of historical continuity. The meeting concerned approval for the bombing of the Syrian radar station in Dahar-el-Baidar on Mount Lebanon. This was the first time since 1982 that the Israel Air Force would directly attack a Syrian military target. The reason? A Golani soldier had been killed in a Hezbollah antitank missile ambush on a disputed area of Mount Hermon, a section of what is known as Har Dov. I found myself alone in voting against the operation. For years I had preached direct strikes on the Syrians in order to cause them to stop Hezbollah’s operations in Lebanon. I was the only member of the Rabin cabinet to demand this. After our withdrawal from Lebanon I personally passed on, through various secret and public channels, scores of warnings to Syria that it would bear the responsibility for Hezbollah’s continued attacks on us from Lebanon. I saw a balance of terror with Syria as the only substantial compensation for our having effectively handed over the security zone in southern Lebanon to Hezbollah. And now, when we are about to carry out what I had demanded all those years—I, Ephraim, am voting against it? What had happened? During that period, hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians were also growing. Proposals to dispatch an international force to the territories were once again brought before the Security Council. In the Arab world, anti-American sentiment was increasing, and there was growing talk of descent into an extended regional conflict. I was afraid that we would lose—at such a critical stage—the support of the United States, and that we would be left alone to deal with our principal conflict, that with the Palestinians. In the event, I was mistaken. The bombing went without a hitch, and the United States did not protest. But a few days later it turned out that my caution had been justified. In response to Palestinian mortar fire into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip, an IDF armored unit penetrated the northern Gaza Strip, destroyed buildings from which the mortar fire had come, and afterwards returned to our territory. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell publicly reprimanded Israel for the “excessive and disproportional force” it had used in the operation. A minor crisis between the two nations commenced. I relate this story in order to emphasize the importance I attribute to U.S. political

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support; in times of trouble it is preferable not to lose this support, even if the cause is a justifiable action on a secondary front. But the darker shadow hanging over Israeli-U.S. relations does not concern Israel’s freedom of action. A more essential question, one that touches on our sovereignty and military superiority in the region, is that of military technology exports. In Chapter 10, I explained at length how vital our defense industry is to our military superiority over our immediate and potential enemies. I explained that defense exports are also a condition for the economic survival of the industry. I explained that Israel’s advantage in the quality of our military technology over the Arab world’s armies derives from Israeli upgrades to American weapons, which are among the most advanced in the world and unique to the IDF. The necessity of catching up with and overtaking the advanced military technologies with which the Soviet Union provided the Arabs in the past and the United States now provides them has raised our defense industry to first-line global status. In certain areas of military technology we are even superior. Thus, in our struggle to survive we find ourselves competing with the giants of the U.S. defense industry: Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Raytheon and others. In not a few cases we compete and win. In the Netherlands, for example, RAFAEL’s Gil missile beat out Lockheed-Martin’s Javelin. In such cases we, little Israel, won simply because our products were better and less expensive. This annoys the chiefs of the U.S. defense industry. With their enormous influence at the Pentagon, whose senior personnel came from and will return to these companies, they enlist the government and sometimes Congress in a confrontation with our defense industry. I said confrontation, not competition—because the Americans sometimes confront and not only compete with us. One example concerns the competition over the electronic warfare system for Greece’s F-16s. In this case, an Israeli system produced by Elisra won out the system offered by Raytheon. In order to scupper the deal, the Pentagon threatened not to permit the Israeli system to be installed on Israel’s own F-16s. That is, the U.S. Department of Defense placed a severe sanction on the Israel Air Force in order to help the American company in its competition with Elisra. This is a gross example of the United States taking advantage of Israel’s dependence in order to secure a business advantage. Another example is the Falcon early warning plane that Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) built for China. At issue was a deal in which IAI purchased a Russian Ilyushin-76 plane in order to install on it its own radar and detection system. The inclusive price of the plane is $250 million, most of which has already been paid. The Chinese were given an option to purchase four additional planes. This deal was conceived in 1995, when the Rabin government was in power. It came to fruition in 2000, when the giant plane bearing its large radar dish on its back stood for all to see in IAI’s lot at Ben Gurion Airport. At the beginning of 2000 a storm broke out in the U.S. Congress. The deal with China was condemned as a stab in America’s back, on the grounds that delivery of the plane to China would endanger American pilots’ lives. In the briefings given by Pentagon personnel to senior members of Congress and the Senate, the delivery of the Falcon to China was portrayed as a threat to the military balance in East Asia, and as a severe threat to U.S. interests. The impression was quickly created that anyone supporting Israel’s position was damaging the U.S. national interest. Israel’s best friends, mainly the heads

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of the U.S. Jewish communities, could not afford not to condemn Israel for the deal— because had they not done so, they would have proved that their true loyalty was to the Jewish state and not to their own country. Whoever organized the Falcon affair deserves professional admiration; the affair should be taught in business schools and in public relations courses. Such a large public and parliamentary consensus was created in the United States against Israel that at the start of the Camp David talks Prime Minister Barak had to inform the Chinese, who were furious, that “at this stage we cannot continue with the project.” Our defense industry’s loss of prestige, and that of IAI in particular, was immeasurable. Compensation had to be paid to China as well—to the tune of $350 million. As for the matter itself, all of the charges against Israel were baseless. The United States was aware of the deal as early as 1996, and protested it only in 2000. It could be that at that time—a presidential election year—the People’s Republic of China began to emerge as a new enemy of the United States. The single plane at issue would not have changed the balance of power in East Asia in the least. It is a clumsy airborne early warning system, defensive in nature. It cannot fly beyond the area it is defending and is easily shot down when it does so. These are exactly the arguments put forward by Israel’s supporters on Capitol Hill in 1981 in defense of the sale of similar planes (AWACS) to Saudi Arabia. The probability of a confrontation between Israel and Saudi Arabia was then much higher than the probability of a confrontation between the United States and China in 2000. And as for the lives of American pilots, the U.S. Air Force and Navy have the means to shoot down or neutralize the Chinese Falcon at long range, from a safe distance. The entire affair was intended only to cause damage to Israel’s defense industry in general and IAI in particular. And indeed IAI’s reputation was badly damaged, and today its customers demand guarantees against the cancellation of deals due to political pressure. The special relations between Israel and China are heavily damaged. I cannot prove this in court, but I believe that at least one large U.S. company was involved in manufacturing the controversy. The fact that Israel was slow and clumsy in responding to the crisis does not change this. Prime Minister Barak unfortunately ignored four written memoranda that I sent him in my capacity as his deputy minister of defense, with recommendations for action. In the aftermath of the affair, the U.S. government tried to conclude a written agreement with Israel concerning the export of military technology. It should not be forgotten that this agreement was to have applied to purely original Israeli technologies developed and manufactured without foreign involvement. For Israel must already receive U.S. approval for the export of jointly developed products. The Americans sought to be entitled to approve or prohibit the export to a long list of “sensitive states”— ultimately reduced to four countries. There is at present another American approach, which coats the idea of limiting Israel’s exports with a sweetener. This approach says: let Israel and the United States produce everything together, as partners, and both of us will profit nicely. This approach is financially tempting, but it would mean the destruction of indigenous Israeli research and development, of our technological independence, and of our ability to build a qualitative advantage over our enemies in the region. It should be recalled that 40 percent

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of U.S. military exports go to Arab countries. They receive the same planes that we do. We acquire our qualitative advantage by adding Israeli systems that are superior to those supplied by the United States to its customers. The competition I have described here does not take place on a level playing field. Israel cannot compete with the United States, which gives it an annual military grant of over $2 billion. We are clearly dependent, and the Israel public is financially incapable of financing with its own tax money an alternative to U.S. aid. We should base our relations with the United States on a more mature model, though not one of parity. Israel understands the U.S. defense industry’s needs, and does not complain about the quantity or the quality of U.S. arms exports to Arab countries. The United States must respect Israel’s right to create for itself a qualitative advantage over its enemies and to maintain and develop its defense industry. U.S. industry is of course free to complete with Israeli industry in global markets, but the U.S. government must not fight Israel for U.S. companies and must not use its military aid as a means of pressuring Israel in business matters. Under the new model, U.S. and Israeli companies would jointly participate in the development, manufacture, and marketing of products of mutual interest, such as the Arrow antiballistic missile system or the Popeye air-to-ground missile. Israel, at its discretion, would inform the United States and consult with it in any case in which an Israeli export deal could endanger a U.S. security interest. I believe that this would be a fair and workable formula, based on mutual trust. In any case, it is unfortunate and unnecessary for what is essentially a commercial matter to cast a shadow over such a fundamental and important alliance for us and the United States. A more realistic and mature approach must also inform the issue of the pressure that we expect the United States to put on Russia to prevent the leakage of missile and nuclear technology to Iran. These efforts bore no fruit during the Clinton-Gore era. I am not sure whether the Bush administration is more successful. As of now, missile and nuclear technology continue to leak from Russia into Iran. If we are to stand alone against a nuclear-armed Iran, we must be allowed to prepare for this. Israel is not asking anyone to fight and spill his blood in its defense. Israel did not urge the United States to go to war on Iraq. This principle is well known, and it is clear to the decision makers in Washington as well. But they should ad least not interfere with our building an independent capability to stand against Iran, and it would be a good thing if they would help us. Our understanding the United States’ limitations, and presenting it with modest but fair and just demands, will express a more mature comprehension of the relations between us. There is another important aspect of the strategic alliance between Israel and the United States. I refer to our ability to establish a new strategic reality in the Middle East, which would be coordinated with the United States and would serve common Israeli and U.S. interests. This subject, however, belongs in the next chapter.

13 REGIONAL ALLIANCES It is possible to unite most of the countries in the Middle East—or, more precisely, its moderate states—around the positive goal of curbing Islamic extremism. This extremism is embodied first and foremost by Iran. Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, and Israel could join together in such a coalition, at least as its founding core. The common denominator among these countries is their commitment to the peace process and their clear friendships with the United States. Towards the end of my term as deputy defense minister I observed a joint naval exercise of the U.S. Sixth Fleet and the Israeli and Turkish navies. Officers of the three states were gathered in the Israeli missile boat command room. I missed Egypt and Jordan there, and said so to the press. They are this group’s natural partners. The truth is that such a coalition was established during the Rabin era, after the Oslo accords and the peace treaty with Jordan were signed. Perhaps it was not a true regional coalition. But a new alignment, a new strategic configuration, which included the Palestinian Authority, Tunisia and Morocco, and some of the Gulf States, was established. This coalition’s most impressive manifestation was the Sharm al-Sheikh conference against terror, which was convened in April 1996, after Rabin’s murder, when Shimon Peres was already prime minister. The conference was convened after one of Hamas’s murderous terror attacks in Tel Aviv, and was an expression of wide opposition to Islamicist terror and a commitment to the peace process. The accession of the Netanyahu government in 1996 and the freezing of the peace process brought about the collapse of this coalition. If we return for a moment to the United States’ interests, it is important to note that when such an alignment exists in the region, and the “rogue states” are isolated, it is easy for the United States to defend its interests. When the dividing line between the extremist and the moderate countries blurs, the extremists’ influence increases and it is difficult for the United States to defend its interests. When it comes to practical security cooperation, there will be two practical ramifications of such a regional alliance, should it be established. One is more effective cooperation in the war against terror—principally, information exchanges and frustration of the smuggling of terrorists and arms into the allies’ countries. The second is joint defense against missiles. Interconnected missile warning and interception systems such as the Arrow and its derivatives could be deployed in Turkey and Jordan in addition to those already deployed in Israel. This kind of interconnected deployment provides depth of warning and better defense to participating states. Interoperability could also be established between this system and the Aegis anti-aircraft destroyers of the Sixth Fleet. For so long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains as tense as it is, there is no chance of establishing such a regional alliance. But it could happen, should there be good

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communication between us and the Palestinians, should the violence subside, and if there is progress toward an agreement between us. Of course, the Palestinian Authority will then be part of the coalition. Such a regional coalition may be extended in several additional directions. Turkey and Israel, for example, could connect it economically and defensively to Central Asian states. The Gulf Cooperation Council, whose members are threatened by Iran and by Islamist subversion, could and should join such a regional alliance. Reliance on the power of other countries such as Egypt and Israel would strengthen them against the region’s evil forces. But besides the Middle Eastern connection, Israel has another connection as well: Mediterranean. Israel lies on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, not only together with Tunisia, Morocco, Turkey, Cyprus, and Egypt, but also with four important countries of the European Union: Greece, Italy, France, and Spain. The Europeans desire a more stable Mediterranean region to the south of their continent, one that is less vulnerable to religious extremism and violence. This desire produced the Barcelona process. This is the name of a European effort to build a partnership between the members of the Union and its Mediterranean neighbors. There has not as yet been any impressive practical cooperation, but the fact that the process has begun is very significant. The Union is willing to invest a not inconsiderable sum in this project. Israel, which is a member of the Barcelona process, must be highly involved in it, principally in initiatives connected with cooperation in civilian matters. But in the eastern Mediterranean there is a place not only for civilian, but also for defense cooperation. A large part of the income of at least five countries that lie in the eastern Mediterranean basin—Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, and Israel—comes from tourism. Nothing kills tourism like terrorism. Islamic terror attacks in Egypt, for example, have cost it about $1 billion a year. So these five states could create a formal framework for cooperation, at least in the war on terror. The rapprochement that has begun between Turkey and Greece could bring about military cooperation, even if limited, also in the seemingly impossible triangle: Greece-Turkey-Israel. I referred previously to the joint air and sea search and rescue exercise conducted off Israel’s shores with the participation of the Turkish Navy, the U.S. Sixth Fleet, and our navy. Including the Greek Navy in such an exercise would not be impossible. Israel, which has good relations with most of the eastern Mediterranean countries, could serve as a catalyst for strengthening regional cooperation in various areas. This chapter has shown that Israel could, thanks to its military and scientific strength, serve as an important link in several regional alignments within its strategic space. I must repeat this to the point of boredom, but these partnerships, which are very important for fortifying Israel’s status, will only be possible when a spirit of resolution of our historical conflict through negotiations reigns between us and the Palestinians. In other words, in order to reach out to Qatar and Casablanca, there must be tranquility between Qalqiliya (in the West Bank) and Kfar Saba (in Israel).

14 NATIONAL RESOLVE In the previous four chapters I have described the military and political measures that I believe must be taken in order to ensure Israel’s survival. In this final chapter, I address the most important prerequisite for the survival of a Jewish state in this part of the world: national resolve. National resolve is our mental and spiritual ability to withstand the confrontations that the future may still hold for us. We must be willing to give up personal comfort in difficult times, and, even more so, willing to fight for Israel’s survival. I do not believe that we need to desire to fight; delight in war is not a wholesome national trait. But readiness to fight—not to shy away when it is necessary to use force to defend our vital interests, the well-being of our country’s inhabitants, and its very existence—is critical for Israel’s survival in this region. Let me be blunt: a small nation unwilling to fight has no future in the Middle East. National resolve has two elements. The first is social solidarity. Put simply, Israel’s citizens must feel that they own this country—that the state is their home, that Israeli society is their family. A person is willing to fight for his or her home and family. In order for each citizen to feel that the state belongs to him, he must be confident that he enjoys equal rights, that he is not deprived, and that no one is living at his expense. He must know that he is living in a society whose core values are human dignity and equal opportunity. Core values, basic values, are those values by which every government is meant to establish its social policy. These values should infuse the educational system, and the state should be aware that realizing them sometimes exacts a price. In general, the test of one’s adherence to values comes when one must make a sacrifice or pay a price for their realization. Respect for human dignity obliges the government to maintain a good and equitable system of welfare, health, and geriatric nursing services. In a society for which human dignity is a basic value, libraries for the blind are not closed, and the disabled and other unfortunates are not left without appropriate care. Such a society meticulously respects the right to grow old with dignity, and makes sure that geriatric facilities are available to those who cannot pay. Such a society takes care to save every possible life, and does not force the poor and ill to collect donations for the purchase of cancer medications not provided by the government. Equal opportunity as a value obliges the government to maintain an educational system that concentrates its efforts in the economically weakest areas of the country. Such an educational system directs its best teachers and most innovative teaching methods and equipment to the peripheral areas, to development towns, to disadvantaged neighborhoods. The practical expression of the value of equal opportunity is the government’s acting to break the “genetics of poverty.” Only a purposeful educational

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policy will allow the children of low-income and poorly educated parents to enjoy a future different from that of their parents. At present, inequality in Israeli society has an extremely negative effect on its strength. When many people feel that the state’s wealth and prestige are concentrated in the hands of the few, while all those who work hard for a living can barely make ends meet, it is no wonder that they do not feel that Israeli society is their family. The fact that the ultraorthodox do not serve in the IDF legitimizes the ugly phenomenon of evasion of military service. In fact, nowadays a person who does his reserve service is considered a “sucker,” and there is nothing an Israeli fears more than being perceived as one of those. The ultraorthodox exemption from military service has profoundly harmed relations between secular and ultra-orthodox Jews. It has made those young people who do serve feel alienated from the society they defend. Past generations of young people were educated, by their teachers and by the leaders of the pre-state Jewish community, and then by the state, to give to society without asking for anything in return. This was correct, and was accepted as natural when the state was very poor and its survival was in doubt. Today Israel is economically and scientifically advanced, and it is thus necessary to use different concepts when we speak to and educate our youth. Today we must speak in terms of the correct balance between taking and giving. There is plenty of room for criticizing the state for its shortcomings, but it does provide its citizens with social security, education, and health and welfare services. It is inconceivable that any person or segment of society should receive these benefits without giving anything in return. The correct balance is achieved when everyone who receives from society also contributes to society, to the best of his or her abilities and talents. A correct social norm creates a situation in which people will be embarrassed to receive parasitically and without contributing. There can be no national resolve if the state does not serve as a support for educationally, and thus economically, weak groups of its citizens. The state must seek to improve the lot of these people and must make a demonstrable effort to narrow social gaps. A state in which there is one kind of medical care for the rich and another for the poor, one kind of education for the rich and another for the poor, cannot and will not possess national resolve. The state must also treat its non-Jewish citizens—Druze, Bedouin, Muslim, and Christian—equally. Doing so will, in the long run, increase these minorities’ identification with Israeli society and with the state. At present the opposite is true. Of all Israel’s governments, only the Rabin administration took action to counter disadvantage among minority groups. Its policy was effective and had results—and Israel’s Arab and Druze citizens’ identification with the state increased. National resolve requires making these minorities feel real ties to the state. Discontent among them is a time bomb. This is one of the lessons to be learned from the bloody events in the Arab sector in October 2000, when riots broke out in many Israeli Arab towns, and thirteen Israeli Arabs were killed by the police. The second element of national resolve is pride in and identification with the State of Israel—Israelis’ collective patriotism, supported by their willingness to actively express it. There can be patriotism without action, the patriotism-at-a-distance found mostly among Israelis who live permanently abroad. These people hate the Arabs and are willing

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to fight them to the last Israeli soldier. Yet their own children do not serve in the combat units, or in the Israeli Army at all; instead, they attend college and take vacations on Caribbean islands. That is not the kind of patriotism I mean. I mean true love of one’s country, the love that makes one proud to serve. At this time, both love and service are in worrying decline. Young people today are barely acquainted with their country. Many of the young people who work with me, young people who are graduates of the Israeli educational system, lack fundamental knowledge of the country’s landscape, history, and its struggle for independence. Such young people may be familiar with Disney World and London’s Soho quarter, but they do not know the canyons of the Judean Desert or the ancient Jewish sites on the Golan Heights and how they resisted Roman invaders. When my generation was young, one of our rites of passage—one of the tests we set ourselves to prove our readiness for military service—was a hike from sea to sea. We walked from the shore of the Mediterranean Sea to the shore of the Sea of Galilee via the Chaziv valley, then climbing Mount Meron and descending it through the Amud valley. I made this trek with two of my classmates, Meir Kobo and Amiram Stern, in the searing heat of early September. It was a tough hike that hardened us and forged an intimate and powerful bond between us and the landscape of our country. Perhaps I’m displaying the nostalgia of an adult, but I find it unfortunate that most of today’s teenagers have no such experience. When schools choose destinations for field trips, they now seem to prefer the Red Sea beach city of Eilat, with its discotheques and parties, to catching the rising sun on the peak of Masada. Membership of Zionist youth movements has greatly declined. And parents who announce to their children a camping trip to the Judean Desert have to face grumbles of “And at the end of the vacation what will I tell my friends at school, who were all abroad?” It is impossible to love a country that one does not know. We should not dismiss this problem; it is not just a matter of tourism, it is one of values and education. Pride in, connection to, and identification with the state may be expressed in a wide variety of ways. Even a generation that prefers to sit in front of a computer screen may identify not only with the physical homeland, but also with the state’s technological, scientific, cultural, and economic achievements. The fact that in less than fifty years Israel turned itself from a poor society of refugees to one of the leading countries in the world in the fields of science and high technology is an unprecedented achievement by its people. Our advances are also a source of pride and identification. Our young people can take pride in and identify with the company that employs them; they can be inventive, creative, and also earn well. Pride in belonging to our industrial and scientific community is also patriotic, and can serve as an element of national strength. Another aspect of Israeli patriotism that is weakening is pride in service. Service in the military and the state’s other security organizations is less popular and gains a young person less social status than it once did. Salaries in this sector cannot keep up with private-sector earnings, and every year the finance ministry seeks to reduce even the present level of IDF salaries and benefits. In a materialistic society in which income takes precedence over values, it is hard to keep a talented young man or woman in permanent military service when high-tech companies offer him triple the salary and a company car the likes of which even his division commander does not have. It is hard to hold on to

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him because when he sits with his friends on Friday nights and they compare salaries and benefits, his are inferior. In the past, the prestige of contributing to the state and taking personal risk compensated such a young person for the difficulty of his service, the distance from his family, the burden of his responsibility, and the low level of his salary. When service does not provide prestige, the young company commander, fighter pilot, or computer expert will eventually leave the service. And when the talented leave, the mediocre remain. We all know what that means. Who is responsible for this decline in national consciousness among young people? What has diminished the status of security-related work and the younger generation’s sense of belonging? There are three culprits: the educational system, the media, and the political leadership. I will begin with the media. It may not be politically correct to say so, but it is a fact that the media shape public attitudes. Whom do the media cultivate? Who get written about in the newspapers’ weekend supplements? Entertainment celebrities and nouveauriche glitterati. It is extremely rare to find in the print press, or on television for that matter, a positive, supportive article about a commander of a paratroop battalion, or some lower officer, or about an operative in Israel’s secret intelligence agencies living in the shadow world in the territories. Yet any mishap or failure—a serious operational accident, or an incident of sexual harassment—is pounced on by the Israeli press. The newspapers could not get enough of the Duvdevan undercover unit’s terrible operational failure in Asirah al-Simaliyah, in which three of its fighters’ lives were lost. When, after that tragedy, I went to visit one of the fallen soldiers’ families during its week of mourning, I found the men of the unit—those who had survived—waiting for me in a separate room. These twelve young men, the cream of our youth, felt humiliated, frustrated, and angry at the way the media had covered the disaster. This hostile attitude toward those who risk their lives bearing the burden of our defense is destroying our nation’s endurance. These young men, who returned the next day to their dangerous assignment, did not feel that Israeli society stood behind them. When, however, the IDF or our secret security agencies score successes, these hardly get mentioned. A leading Israeli newspaper published an extensive article in its weekend supplement about a paratrooper who, instead of joining in his comrades’ charge against a terrorist band they had encountered in Lebanese territory, saved his own life by hiding in the rear. The article offered a detailed exposition of this soldier’s philosophy, explaining that his decision not to join the attack along with his comrades, some of whom were injured, was due to his opposition to Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon. I do not recall the same newspaper publishing an article on the soldiers who displayed bravery in that action, or any article sympathetic to the IDF’s combat forces. In our democratic society, the media’s job includes criticizing the IDF and the state’s other security organizations. But criticism does not have to turn into slander. It should be borne in mind that those serving in the IDF and in the intelligence services are not permitted to respond to media attacks. I do not expect the media to uncritically glorify the IDF and security services, which would be just as destructive as contempt and slander. A self-satisfied and superior attitude contributed not a little to the near-disaster of the Yom Kippur War. But today the press has gone to the opposite extreme and in so doing has belittled the values of service and security.

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The second factor is the educational system. Preaching nationalism will not make children love their country, and educating them to hate Arabs will not make them identify with the state. The Israeli school system should impart an understanding of the lessons of Jewish history and of the catastrophes and struggles that led to the founding of the Jewish state. The Jewish people’s suffering while scattered over the face of the earth, the terrible culmination of which was the Holocaust, obliges us to be strong in our own land. A deep knowledge of the high price we have paid for establishing and maintaining the state is the educational tool that will make clear to young people just how irreplaceable this land is for us. Yet today the educational system does not seriously impart values, national tradition, love of the country, and patriotism. Teachers are influenced by the country’s cosmopolitan culture, by the esteem it attaches to foreign symbols, and by the social hierarchy devoid of values that has been fashioned by the commercial media. The political leadership could reverse these negative trends, which undermine our national strength, weaken the younger generation’s connection to the country and the state, legitimize avoidance of military service, and devalue it. But it is not doing so. This is mainly because it does not have the courage to come out against the present trends of individualism and materialism. It lacks the courage to point out the dangers Israel faces, because that would mean having to take measures to forestall them. The present leadership is unwilling to call on the public to make an effort, either because it fears losing popularity or because the leaders are incapable of setting a personal example. During the years in which I was the only one warning of the Iranian danger, many well-wishers urged me to refrain from ringing that particular bell. “Don’t frighten people. They want to sit in the coffeehouse and drink cappuccino, not to hear about Shihab-3 and Shihab-5,” said one adviser who claimed to have true insight into the Israeli people’s innermost thoughts and desires. I was also, ultimately, the only one to warn that it was an illusion that our withdrawal from Lebanon would end the fighting on our northern front. The kidnapping and murder of three of our soldiers in October 2000, immediately following the Lebanese elections, signaled the renewal of Hezbollah activity exactly at the time predicted by the research division of the Army Intelligence Branch. Our withdrawal without an agreement allowed Hezbollah to take over all of the key areas along our northern border, which command Galilee. The new situation is potentially explosive, and could bring about a con-frontation with many casualties, including on the home front. But I had almost no partners in issuing these warnings, which eventually proved correct. The national mood, which the painful trickle of about two casualties per month succeeded in thoroughly depressing, dictated the political leadership’s position. The leadership did not establish the mood, but rather the mood dictated to the leadership what its position should be. Thus, Ehud Barak came to promise in his election campaign to withdraw from Lebanon “with an agreement” exactly one year after being sworn in as prime minister. The expectations aroused by this promise led him ultimately to give up on withdrawing by mutual agreement. The difference between a withdrawal that is part of a comprehensive agreement with Syria and our humiliating unilateral withdrawal is the difference between day and night. But this defeatist attitude was shared by politicians from both large parties, on the right and on the left. In fact, no one except Yossi Sarid, Uzi Landau, and I dared to come out

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against the Four Mothers movement, and organization that called for unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon. Four Mothers achieved its goal because of the egotism and absence of solidarity that permeated Israeli society. Sheikh Nasrallah, the Hezbollah chief, openly declared that the Four Mothers organization would be his means for getting the IDF out of Lebanon. He said that it was Israeli society’s tears that caused the army to withdraw from Lebanese territory. Few remember—and even then it was unpopular to say so—that the IDF had the advantage on this stony and snarled battlefield. The IDF achieved much in its war on the Shi’ite guerrillas, and the other side was clearly being worn down more than ours, a rare feat in the history of warfare between regular armies and guerrilla groups. But although the IDF won on the battlefield, Hezbollah won in Israeli public opinion and brought about the IDF’s unilateral withdrawal without an agreement. During most of the war in Lebanon, our soldiers’ fighting spirit was high. They understood that they were defending our northern towns and villages and preventing Hezbollah from advancing toward the border and the civilians who live adjacent to it. The defeatist talk they heard at home when on leave did not dampen their spirit. But in the last weeks before the withdrawal, general demoralization penetrated the fighters’ ranks as well. At that time, and in the preceding months, practically no government minister or member of the Knesset stood up and told our soldiers in Lebanon: you are fighting a just war; the war against Hezbollah is an unavoidable war and must be fought. The political leadership’s silence—on both the right and the left—reinforced a sense of national dejection, and the general defeatism lowered the fighters’ morale. At the cabinet meeting at which the withdrawal from Lebanon was decided on, on March 8, 2000, I spoke to my ministerial colleagues. “Do not crack our cannon, for cracked cannon cannot fire,” I said, paraphrasing a well-known Israeli poem. “What? Cracked cannon doesn’t fire?” someone commented cynically. I have addressed the IDF’s withdrawal from Lebanon at length, because I see in the public atmosphere that brought it about a clear example of the erosion of Israel’s national stamina. The Palestinians also interpreted it thus when, four months later, they started the second Intifada. “We must speak in Lebanese to you Israelis,” the Palestinian information minister, Yassir Abed-Rabbo, said to me when I appeared opposite him in a panel discussion in Berlin. That was in June 2000, a few weeks after our withdrawal from Lebanon, before—and I emphasize before—the Camp David talks. In other words, the Palestinians had by then concluded that there was no need to negotiate with Israel to effect its withdrawal from Palestinian territory. All that was necessary was to make Israel bleed a little, and the country would flee of its own volition. Fortunately, Abed-Rabbo was mistaken. The second Intifada, the loss of life of hundreds of Israelis, did not break the spirit of the Israeli nation. But that spirit has eroded. The manifestation of this erosion is the growing popularity of the idea of unilateral measures on Israel’s part: to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza without any agreement with the Palestinians. If such a withdrawal took place, it would send to the Palestinians the same signal that Israel sent in May 2000: don’t negotiate with us, just make us bleed… At some time in the future it would be wise to conduct a complete and incisive study of the IDF’s withdrawal from Lebanon—not only of the message of weakness that it conveyed to the Palestinians and the moral and operational significance of our attitude to

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our allies of the South Lebanese Army, but also of its overall strategic outcome as concerns our relations with Syria. In the Rabin administration, I voted in 1995 against the Treasury’s proposed state budget. This was for two reasons. First, it did not contain a supplement for nursing facilities for the elderly. Second, it did not provide for a supplement to the defense budget for the purpose of strengthening the IDF. The Treasury refused to raise taxes for this purpose, and no one spoke against it. I explained my vote not only as a protest against the budget’s tightfistedness, inappropriate to a social democratic government, in its lack of support for the elderly, but also on the grounds of the leadership’s failure to demand of the people an additional financial sacrifice in order to strengthen the IDF. Inner national strength requires, in my opinion, a courageous national leadership, one that knows how to demand effort and sacrifice on the part of the nation in trying times, and how to present a national goal common to all. A fairer and more just society, education for national pride and patriotism, a leadership that knows how to strengthen the people’s spirit as well as make demands of it—these are what is needed for Israel’s national resolve. We will not forever sail through perilous waters. Inexorable internal processes are taking place in Iran, Iraq, and Syria; tyranny and obscurantism will eventually pass. We will ultimately resolve our historic conflict with the Palestinians by way of an agreement with them, and not through military conflict. This will bring about a change in the region, improve the atmosphere and once again bring economic growth. Israel will be a flourishing society in the heart of a different Middle East. Until then, we must keep on keel and remain strong.

INDEX Abdullah II (King of Jordan) 18–9 Abed-Rabbo, Yassir 69 Abraham, Dan 18 Abu ’Ala (Qurie, Ahmed) 3 Abu Mazen (Abbas, Mahmoud) 5–6 Acre xii Aegis anti-aircraft destroyers 62 Afghanis 48 Afghanistan 40, 42, 43 Africa 35 ’Alawite 22 Albright, Madeleine 18 Al-Qaeda organization xi, 40, 43 America 58 American approach 59; aviation 48; company 58; Jewish community 56; pilots 58; press 18; public 42; reservations 57; weapons 58 Americans 6, 8, 48, 57, 58, 59 America’s aid 56 Amman 19 ’Amr, Mussa 14, 17 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles 15 Amud valley 66 Aqaba 18, 19 Arab boycott 14; cause 3, 15; coalition 52; country 3, 28; extremism 29; League 14; masses’ support 28; populace xi;

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public 3; quantitative edge 52; radical 2; regime 3; regimes 2; sector 65; solidarity 14; state 16; states 2, 15, 24, 29, 47; streets xi; struggle against Israel 15; summit 3; terrorists 39; World xi, 2, 15, 24, 28, 36, 42, 49, 57–; world’s armies 57; world’s radicals 19 Arab-Israeli conflict 2, 15 Arab-Muslim xii Arabs 2, 52, 58, 65, 68; countries 2, 59–60 Arafat, Yassir 2–4, 5–7, 12, 36, 49 Ariel area 11 Army Intelligence Branch (IDF) 68 Arrow system of antiballistic missiles 53, 60, 62 Ashkelon xii Asirah al-Simaliyah 66 Aslan (General, Syrian chief of staff) 23 Assad, Bashar 22 Assad, Hafez 22–3, 25 Avivim 39 AWACS intelligence and early warning planes 42, 58 ‘axis of evil’ 34 Baku 56 Bandar Prince (Saudi ambassador to Washington) 42 Barak, Ehud 4, 6, 18, 23, 25, 26, 36, 59, 68 Barak government 56 Barcelona process 63 Bedouin 19, 65 Begin, Menachem (Prime Minister) 54 Beilin, Yossi 5, 6, 18 Beirut xi, 8, 36 Beit She’an valley 19 Beit-Shan 29 Belgian Jewry 6 Ben Gurion Airport 58 Ben Gurion, David 52, 57 Ben-Ami, Shlomo 18

Index Berlin 69 Bin Laden, Osama xi, 40, 43 B’nai Brith Anti-Defamation League (ADL) 38 Boeing 48, 58 Borders 10 Bosnia 34, 43 ‘Bosnia-ization’ 8, 9–10 BPLI 54 British economy 5 British government 34 Buenos Aires 36 Bush, George W. 34 Bush administration 60 Cairo 15, 40 Camp David talks 4, 7, 12, 59, 69 Caribbean islands 66 Casablanca 63 Caspian Sea 49 Central Asian states 62 Chaziv valley 66 Chechnya 43 China 58–9 Chinese 58 Christian 65 Citicorp Building 38 Clinton, Bill (President) 7, 24 Clinton-Gore era 60 Cold War 36, 53 Communist Party 53 Congress (U.S.) 18, 58 Cuba 37 Cyprus 63 Dahar-el-Baidar 57 Damascus 22, 24, 36, 40 De Gaulle Charles Airport 32 Defense Ministry 48 Defensible borders 45–6, 49 Dehaniya 49 Dimona 52 Disney World 66 DPAG 56 Druze 65 Duvdevan undercover unit 66 East Asia 58 East Bank 19

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East European country 47 East Jerusalem 10 ‘Eastern front’ 19 ‘Economic neocolonialism’ 15 Egypt xii, 3, 11, 14–6, 29, 40, 42, 45, 62–3 Egyptian army 16; business community 17; diplomacy 17; economy 16; Foreign Ministry 14; government 14, 16; hostility 14, 15; intelligentsia 14; leadership 17; media and public opinion 15; policy 16; president 14; press 14; regime 16; Egyptian-North Korean deal 15 Egyptians 14–5, 16 Eilat 66 El-’Aziz, Abd ibn Saud (founder of the Saudi dynasty) 42 Elbit 48 Elisra 58 El-Op 48 Elscint 15 Empire State Building 38 Entebbe, rescue operation 39 EROS, commercial observation satellite 49 Europe 34, 35, 37, 43 European Union 63 Europeans 63 F-15 42 F-16 58 Fahmi, Nabil 17 Fajar-3 rockets 36 Fajar-5 rockets 36 Falcon 58 Fedayeen 39 Florida 37 Foreign Ministry 48 Four Mothers movement 69 France 63 Frankel, Simona 38

Index Gadera xii Galilee 8–9, 68 Gaza 35–6, 69; settlements 12; Strip xii, 4, 6–7, 10–, 12, 49, 57 General Electric 14 Geneva Convention (1954) 53 Georgian president 48 German press 14 Germany 34 Gibraltar 56 Gil antitank missile 48, 57–8 Gilad, Major General Amos 32 GNP xi, xii, 11 Golan 27 Golan Heights 15, 19, 22, 23, 25, 26, 28, 66 Golani 57 Gomad light antitank missile 47–8 ‘Grapes of Wrath’ operation 8 Greece 58, 63 Greek Navy 63 ‘Green Line’ 12 ‘Green Pine’, radar detection device 54 ‘Guide for a Wounded Dove’ 6 Gulf Cooperation Council 62 Gulf countries 2; region 29; States xi, 3, 43, 62; War 43, 54 Gush Etzion 11 Gush Katif 12 Hadera xii Haifa 53 Haifa seaport 29 Halutz, Major General Dan 38 Hamas 4, 35, 40; terror campaign 39 Hamas’s murderous terror attack 62 Har Dov 23, 57 Harpoon missiles 16 Hashemite family 18; regime 19 Hebron 9 Herzliya Pituach 52 Hezbollah xi, 8–9, 23–4, 29, 35–6, 40, 52, 57, 68–9 Hirschfeld, Yair 6

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Index

79

Hitler 34 Holocaust 68 Horn of Africa 48 ‘hot line’ 53 Hussein (Jordan’s King) 12, 18 Hussein, Saddam xi, 28, 40 Hussein Saddam regime 28 IDF intelligence branch 32 Ilyushin-76 58 India 35 Intelligence superiority 49 International Atomic Energy Agency 55 Intifada (the first) 12 Intifada (the second) 3, 10, 12, 19, 49–, 69 Iran xi, xii, 8, 19, 22, 29, 32–7, 40, 44, 52–3, 55, 60, 62–, 70; Air airlines 33; president 33 Irani-Afghani border 19 Iranian defense minister 34; missiles 36; nuclear missile 52; regime 33–4; Revolutionary Guards 36; threat 32, 34, 37, 42 Iran’s intelligence and security services 33, 36; oil and gas fields 34; rulers 34; territory 53 Iraq xi–xii, 18–9, 22, 28–32, 30, 54, 56, 60, 70 Iraqi government 29; oil industry 29; state 29 Islam 16, 34, 43– Islamic countries xi; extremism 62; fanaticism xi; Jihad 4, 35, 40; law 43; militant groups 16; militarism 35; organizations xi; polities xi; regime 19;

Index

80

religious law 33; republic 29; terror 38, 39, 63; terror organizations 42; universities and colleges 43 ‘Islamic Republic of Iran’ 32 Islamicist terror 62; fanaticism 30; radicals 30; subversion 63 Israel xi, xii, 2–4, 6, 7, 8–12, 14–7, 18–20, 22–8, 29–30, 34–8, 39–40, 42–, 44–8, 49, 52–60, 62–3, 65, 66, 69–70 Air Force 23, 28, 38, 45, 57, 58; land of 2; State of xi, 2, 27, 49, 65; people xii; settlements 8, 10–1; strength 16 Israel Defense Forces (IDF) 7–9, 10, 19, 23–4, 25–6, 36, 45, 46–8, 49, 52, 57, 64, 66, 67–9 Israeli Arabs 65; Arabs town 65; army 66; business community 17; companies 48, 60; consul-general in New York 38; defense exports 48; economy 11; embassy 36; export deal 3; fears 65; forces 36 ; government 6, 12, 23, 46, 52; graveyard 50; industry 60; interests 60; missile boat 62; nation 2, 69; Navy 35, 62; news site 22; newspaper 67; patriotism 66; peace camp 18; people 68; poem 69; politicians 32; populace 36;

Index public 6, 23, 53, 59; public opinion 68; research and development 59; school system 67; settlers 10, 11; society 35, 36, 64–5, 69; soldiers 3, 24, 36, 65; sovereignty 20; street 39; system 58, 59; targets 36; technologies 59; territory 26, 53, 57; test pilot 48; tourists 19; victims 23; weapons and systems 47 ‘Israeli arrogance’ 17 ‘Israeli domination’ 14 ‘Israeli expansion’ 14 Israeli-Arab conflict 15 Israeli-Lebanese border 23 Israeli-Palestinian agreement 4, 6, 50; conflict 2, 19, 62; cooperation 2; peace process 14 Israelis xii, 3, 9, 10, 14, 25, 36, 38, 53, 65, 69 Israeli-U.S. relations 57 Israel’s Aircraft Industries (IAI) 48, 58 Israel’s airspace 38; alleged nuclear weapons 14; Arab citizens 35; army 46; citizens 37, 64; citizens-soldiers 46; defense industry 47–8, 58; dependence 58; deputy defense minister 19; economy and society 45; enemies 45; existence 14, 32; exports 59; freedom of action 56, 57; governments 65; image 10; intellectual and economic resources 53;

81

Index

82

international image 8; life 14; national resolve 69; national stamina 69; official strategic thinkers 42; old deterrence 52; political isolation 9; position 58; relations with the Palestinians 2; right 60; secret intelligence agencies 67; security services 67; sovereignty 45; status 63; strategic assets 56; strategic position 14; struggle 40; supporters 59; survival 64; survival 49 Israel’s armament development authority (Rafael) 48 Italy 63 Jacobson, Ken 38 Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies of Tel Aviv University 15, 22, 36, 42, 45 St James Hotel 5 Jakarta xi Japan 34 Javelin 58 Jenin 4 Jericho 20 Jerusalem 4, 8, 10, 15, 39, 48 Jerusalem Post 39 Jewish 14; community center 36; history 68; neighborhoods 10; news site 22; organization 38; people xii, 67; population xii; state xii, 58, 64, 67; targets 36 Jews xii, 2, 8, 11, 38 Jordan xii, 2–3, 7, 10, 18–20, 24, 28, 29, 45, 50, 62– Jordan River 2, 18–9, 20, 24, 27 Jordan valley 7, 10 Jordanian

Index business community 20; cities 19; economy 20; government 19; identity 19; monarchy 19; people 20; streets 19 Jordanians 20 Jordan’s crossings 46; demography 19; geographical plight 18; Hashemite dynasty 18–9 JPMG 56 JSSG 56 Judean Desert 66 Kana (village of) 9 Kana syndrome 8–9 Karine-A 8, 36 Kashmir 43 Katyusha rockets 8, 36, 52 Katzin, Roni 52 Katzin, Yehudit 52 Kfar Saba 63 Khamenei, ‘Ali Ayatollah 33, 53 Khatami, Ayatollah 33–4 Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah 32 Khomeinist regime 34 Kibbutz Manara 26 Kiryat Arba 8 Kiryat Shemona 52 Knesset 32, 47, 69 Knesset supervisory committee for the IDF 47 Kobo, Meir 66 Kurdish autonomous region 29; countrymen 28; state 29 Kurds 30 La Guardia Airport 38 Labor Party 8, 10, 18 Landau, Uzi 68 Laromme Hotel 48 Lebanese 69; border 35;

83

Index

84

Christians’ xii; elections 68; government 8; puppet government 23; territory 8, 23–4, 67, 69; villagers 24 Lebanon xi, xii, 7, 9, 15, 19, 23–4, 26, 29, 35–6, 40, 45, 52, 57, 68–9; security zone 23; Valley 36; war 12 Lebanon’s Shi’ites 36 Libya xii, 52, 53 Libyan nuclear missile 52 Lockheed-Martin 48, 58 London 5 London agreement 12 London’s Soho quarter 66 Los Angeles 38 Luxor 40 Ma’alot 39 Maghrib states xii Mandatory Palestine 26 Manhattan 38 Masada 66 Mayo Clinic 18 Mediterranean basin 63; neighbors 63; region 63; Sea 2, 19, 29, 63, 66 Meretz Party 8 Middle East xi, xii, 5, 12, 14, 15–6, 22, 27, 28, 52, 57, 60, 62, 64, 70 Middle Eastern connection 63 Minister of Transportation 29 Ministry of Defense 6 Ministry of Industry and Commerce 48 Minnesota 18 Morocco 3, 62, 63 Mount Hermon 23, 57 Mount Lebanon 57 Mount Meron 66 Mubarak, Hosni 14, 16 Muslim xii, 43, 65; Bosnia 43; land 35, 43; minority 34; theocracy 33;

Index world xi Na’im-Arman, Bruria 18 Nasrallah, Hassan Sheikh 36, 69 Nasser government 15 National-Muslim leader 7 Nazis 38 Netanyahu, Binyamin 4, 6, 24, 40 Netanyahu government 62 Netherlands 58 New York City xi, 38, 39, 43 Nobel Peace Prize 8 Nodong missiles 16 non-Jewish citizens 65 North Africa 3 North Korea 22 North Korean assistance 35 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty 17, 54 Nuclear weapons 52 Old city of Jerusalem 10 Oslo accords/agreement 3–4, 7, 49, 62 Oslo talks 5 Oslo track 6 Oxford street (London) 5 Pakistan 30 Palestine 2 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) 5, 6 Palestinian businessmen 2, 6; population xii, 18; Authority 3–4, 8, 11, 36, 62–; cause 3, 28; channel 6; cities 4; control 4; counterpart 11; elite 49; front 11; information minister 69; issue 6; leadership 5, 6, 10, 12; mortar fire 57; nation 2; negotiating team 6; neighborhoods 4; neighborhoods in Jerusalem 10;

85

Index

86

organizations 9, 43; parliament 5; people 43; plight 3; question 2–3; refugee population 10; society 11; sovereignty 4; state 4, 10; struggle 2; territories 7, 56; territory 69; terror 3, 12, 39–40; terror organizations 35; terrorists 12 Palestinian-Israeli peace process 22 Palestinians 2–11, 14, 19–, 24–, 35 , 45, 49, 57–, 63, 69– Paris 33, 48 Paris accord 3 Paris aviation exhibition 48 Pentagon xi, 38, 58 People’s Republic of China 58 Peres, Shimon 3, 5–6, 7–8, 12, 38, 40, 62 Persian Gulf xi, 2 Pinkas, Alon (Israeli consul- general in New York) 38 Popeye air-to-ground missile 60 Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (General Command) 35, 40 Powell, Colin (U.S. Secretary of State) 57 Pro-Iranian guerrillas 23 Pundik, Ron 6 Qadaff, Muammar 53 Qalqiliya 63 Qatar 63 Rabbi Ashi (Talmudic sage) 26 Rabin administration 65, 70; era 62; government 58 Rabin, Yitzhak 3–6, 7, 15, 18, 24, 32, 52, 57, 62 Rafael 48, 58 Ramallah xi Rania (Queen of Jordan) 19 Raytheon 58 Red Sea 18, 19 Red Sea beach city 66 Refugees 10

Index

87

Revolution Day 34 Rochester 18 Roman invaders 66 Rosh HaNikra 19 Rubinstein, Elyakim 6 ‘rule of the religious sage’ 33 Russia 23, 34, 35, 37, 60 Russian 48; technological assistance 35, 37 SA-10 antiaircraft missiles 23 Sadat government 15 Santorini 35 Sarid, Yossi 68 Saud, House of 42, 43 Saudi Air Force 42; ambassador to Washington 42 Saudi Arabia 18, 42–3, 54, 59 Saudi Arabia’s military strength 42 Saudi dynasty 42, 43; financing 43; regime 43; royal house 43; rulers 42; society 43; standard of living 43; territory 43 Saudis 42–3 SCUD ballistic missiles 22, 54 Sea of Galilee 22, 25, 27, 66 Secretary of State 18 Security 10 Security Council (UN) 10, 57 Security Council Resolution 425 26 Senate 18, 58 September attacks 40 Sha’ath, Nabil 4–5 ‘Shaba’a Farms’ 23–4 Shah (Iran) 32 Shamkhani, Ali Admiral (Iranian defense minister) 34 Sharm al-Sheikh conference against terror 62 Sharon, Ariel (Prime Minister) 47 Sharon’s government 52 Shevardnadze, Eduard (Georgian president) 48 Shihab-3 missiles 34, 68 Shihab-4 missiles 34

Index

88

Shihab-5 missiles 34, 68 Shi’ite guerrillas 69; population xi; terror 29, 40 Shlomi 8 Shochat, Abraham 3 Siemens 15 Sinai 15 Singapore 53 Six Day War 26 Sixth Fleet (U.S.) 56, 62–3 Sneh, Hava 5 Sneh, Tikki 5 South Lebanese villages 8 South Lebanon Army 36, 69 Southern Lebanon 9, 23, 35, 57, 67 Soviet leadership 53 Soviet Union 37, 43, 53, 58 Soviets 48 Spain 63 SS missiles 28 Stern, Amiram 66 Stinger, anti-aircraft missile 47 ‘Sturdiness Law’ 47 Sukhoi-25 48 Sunni terror 29 Susskind, David 6 ‘swap’ 10 Syria xii, 6, 8, 18–9, 22–7, 28, 30, 36, 40, 42, 45–, 57, 68, 70 Syrian Army 36; elite 24; military target 57; offensive 25; radar station 57 Syrian-Israeli-American conspiracy 6 Syrians 6, 24–5, 26, 57 Taliban 42 Taliban regime 40, 43 Teheran 16, 33, 34 Teheran regime 33–4 Tel Aviv 39, 53, 57, 62 Temple Mount 4, 7 Third World country 53 Times Square 39 Tornados 42

Index Touching Peace 4 Tulkarem 19 Tunisia 3, 6, 62, 63 Turkish government 29; navy 62, 63 Turkey 62–3 Tyre 9 U.S interests 60, 62; administration 6, 29; advanced weapons systems 47; aid 59; air bases 42; Air Force and Navy 58; approval 59; arms exports 60; companies 60; defense industry 58, 59; defense thinking 54; Department of Defense 58; diplomatic backing 57; economic power 38; economy 39, 42; effort 30; government 59–60; industry 60; influence 43; Jewish communities 59; leadership 53; military aid 15; military exports 59; military personnel 43; military presence 28, 30; military support 29; national interest 58; policy against terror 43; political support 57; president 53; Secret Service 18; Secretary of State 57; security interest 60; society 39; troops 29; U.S.-British coalition 28 U.S.-Saudi relations 42 UN Security Council 8, 22, 56

89

Index

90

‘Unilateral separation’ 11–2 United Nations 5, 8, 24, 26 United Nations Interim Force (UNIFIL) 9 United States xi, 4–5, 8, 15, 18, 19, 22, 29–30, 34, 37–, 39, 40–3, 53, 54, 56–62 United States’ interest 56, 58; military industry 42 Uzbekistan 34 Vanunu, Mordechai 52 VX nerve gas 22 Wahabi sect 43 Wahabist education system 43 Washington xi, 5, 17–8, 22, 29, 32, 34, 37, 42, 60 Washington talks 4, 6 Washington’s Jewish community 18 West Bank xii, 2, 4, 6, 10–2, 19, 20, 36, 63, 69 Western culture 33 Western Europe 33 Western intelligence estimates 35; intelligence services 52; peers 33; world xi, 43 Western Wall tunnel riots 4 White House 3 World Trade Center xi Yatom, Dani 52 Yom Kippur 39 Yom Kippur War 15, 46, 67 Yugoslavia 8, 43 Zim 38 Zionism 16 Zionist youth movements 66