Erich Isaac HARBINGERS OF PEACE In his rosy prophecies of economic flowering in the Middle East, Shimon Peres ignores some lethal (for Israel) flowers already in full bloom: namely, industries producing chemical and biological weapons. In Chemical Weapons in Egypt and Syria, Dani Shoham reports that Egypt has achieved a massive chemical warfare capacity comprising nearly the entire range of known chemical weapons ranging from mustard gas to advanced nerve-gases, including VX, Sarin and the psycho-chemical BZ. Egypt's production and storage facilities are state-of-the-art, and her delivery systems are sophisticated and effective, from mines and artillery to advanced missiles with scatter bomblet warheads. Egypt, it must be remembered, used chemical warfare in Yemen from 1962 to 1967 when it blanketed loyalist villages with CN tear gas and mustard gas. (Possibly fearing nuclear retaliation, Egypt has not used its chemical weapons against Israel.) Shoham points out that Syria and Iraq have both achieved significant chemical warfare capability. Egypt not only helped Iraq in the initial stages of manufacturing chemical weapons, but also in developing ballistic missiles (the so-called Bader II) for their delivery. Syria and

Iraq were also helped by British, German, French, Swiss, Argentinian and U.S. industries, in some cases, presumably, with government connivance. Iraq used its chemical weapons against both the Kurds in its own boundaries and against Iran. In their article "Saddam's Germs," in November's The American Spectator, Laura Mylroie and James Ring Adams write that although Iraq has been under international scrutiny since the Gulf War, Rolf Ekeus, chairman of the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) is skeptical about what inspection efforts have achieved. In his October report, Ekeus describes Iraqi attempts to develop biological weapons using the Ebola or similar viruses. Although it is unclear whether Iraq has succeeded in this effort, according to Soviet sources, Iraq has already produced agents for rare African and Asian diseases that are usually untreatable and lead to death. Iraq's bio-weapons include botulinum and anthrax, the first 100,000 times more deadly than Sarin (of Tokyo subway fame) and the second with an almost 100% kill-rate. Mylroie and Adams write: "Iraq admitted producing more than 500,000 liter of botulinum and anthrax ...mathematically enough to end life on earth." Prof. Erich Isaac is a member of the executive committee of Americans for A Safe Israel.

Jack Lauber THE DANGERS OF DESALINIZATION In the September Outpost, Rael Jean Isaac examined Shimon Peres's vision of a "new Middle East," where Israel lives in happy symbiosis with its Arab neighbors. Peres, ignoring the true intentions of the enemy, believes that simply because he has imagined "peace," it has become reality. Typical of Peres's attitude is his remark: "We can do it. We have to remove the desert from the land, the salt from the water, and the violence from the people." As an environmental engineer, I know what Peres means by removing the salt from the water. He plans to abandon Judea and Samaria and approximately half of Israel's precious water reserves, replacing them with desalinated water, obtained at enormous costs from the burning of fossil fuels to heat massive desalinization units. The great expense involved with the operation of these units will weaken Israel's economy. In addition, they will increase air pollution over Israel's heavily populated and already polluted coastline. The burning of fossil fuels, such as heavy residual fuel oil and coal, will increase emissions of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen (Continued on p.11)

THE DEATH OF TRAGEDY (Continued from p.5) terribly limited, or that financial and technical resources cannot ultimately save them. Israel would be ennobled if its impending disasters were the creation of divine spite or injustice--its fall would be authentically tragic--but this is not what is coming to pass. Rather than expecting to be hallowed as it passes through flame, the Jewish State will merely be burned beyond recognition. In the final moments, there will be no fusion of grief and joy, of lament and rejoicing (a fusion characteristic of tragedy) but only a great and confused sadness that what had brought down the Third Temple were the pathetic and avoidable actions of unexceptional men and women. The catastrophic ruin of the Jewish State may well turn out to be theatrical, but it will be a theater not of the tragic, but of the absurd. Louis Rene Beres is a professor of international law at Purdue University.

Outpost               - 6 -               December 1995