(Editor's note: The following is the second of three parts of an edited version of Stav's policy paper published by the Ariel Center. The first appeared in the July-August Outpost.)
The following are the projected results of "the peace process."
l. Loss of Strategic Territorial Assets
Without Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights, the only three strategically significant territories in western Eretz Israel, the Jewish state will be left with indefensible borders. Without them, according to Shimon Peres himself, "the state will be annihilated in war."
2. Loss of National Existential Purpose
Surrender of Judea and Samaria, which Menachem Begin called "the cradle of Judaism and the raison d'etre of Zionist existence," will rob Zionism of its substance. Abandoning the Jewish settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza to Arab sovereignty will be tantamount to creating an exile in the Land of Israel by the Jews themselves. The dismantling and evacuation, i.e. ethnic cleansing, of the settlements means expulsion of Jews by Jews from Israel. It will be a mortal blow to the ethos of Judaism.
3. Loss of Nuclear Deterrence
The advocates of withdrawal to the 1967 borders portray Israel's nuclear deterrent potential, primarily MAD (mutually assured destruction) as a guarantee of its existence. But nuclear deterrence, which is essentially a readiness to commit national suicide and therefore, an unthinkable absurdity, is contingent upon a conventional deterrent capacity. Since, at the 1967 borders, Israel will have lost this capacity, it will be stripped of its nuclear deterrent capacity as well.
4. Abrogation of the Golan Law as a Stage in the Direction of the Partition Borders
The ordinary Israeli perceives the "Green Line," that is, the 1949 cease-fire lines, as the unchallenged international borders of his State, and withdrawal to those borders as the ultimate withdrawal. He could not be more mistaken.
The ceasefire lines are defined as follows:
5(2). In no sense are the cease-fire lines to be interpreted as political or territorial borders and their delineation in no way affects the rights, demands or positions of any of the parties to the cease-fire agreements regarding the final disposition of the Palestine question.
5(3). The fundamental objective of the cease-fire lines is to serve as a line beyond which the armed forces of each of the parties will deploy.
Thus Israel has no "safe and recognized" borders, and the cease-fire lines, as the above agreements signed in Rhodes in 1949 make clear, are unacceptable to the Arab countries and will be unacceptable to the international community as soon as the issue is raised. The only internationally recognized borders are the UN's November 1947 partition borders.
Abrogation of the Golan Law, which will necessarily follow a decision to cede the Golan Heights to Syria, will thus be an initial step in dismantling Israel within the Green Line. No one understands this better than the Palestinians themselves. So, for example, Nabil Sha'ath, head of the Palestinian delegation to the talks with Israel, publicly declared that as far as the delegation is concerned, any agreement which does not include United Nations article 181 concerning the November 1947 partition borders is null and void. The issue is raised constantly on Palestinian Authority telecasts, in which Arafat is shown at various ceremonies listening to fiery speeches concerning the return to Jaffa, the Galilee, Haifa and Ramle. The entire Arab world views the issue in the same way and there was no one who summed it up better than Anwar Sadat: "Our duty is to return Israel to the 1967 borders. The rest will be accomplished by the next generation."
This principle of the step-by-step destruction of Israel was affirmed in a speech by Sheik Abdel Hamid
Abandoning the Jewish settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza to Arab sovereignty will be tantamount to creating an exile in the Land of Israel by the Jews themselves.
5. Ceding the Golan -- Loss of the Moral Basis for Israel's Existence
A fundamental rule in international law based on the principle of justice(ex iniuria non oritur ius from a wrong, no right can be derived) is designed to establish that an aggressor has no claim to territory lost
(Continued on p.4)
September 1999 - 3 - Outpost