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Last week Israeli naval commandos seized the Karine-A freighter as it was transporting more than 50 tons of weapons – worth tens of millions of dollars – through the Red Sea. Its destination: the Palestinian Authority-controlled Gaza Strip.

Evidence reveals extensive PA fingerprints. The ship was purchased in Lebanon in October 2000 for $400,000 by Adel Moghrabi (also known as Adel Awadallah), head of the PA’s weapons-acquisition office. The ship’s captain, Omar Akkawi, is a veteran Fatah member and a naval advisor to the PA’s Ministry of Transport, and the 12-member crew included other Palestinian officials. The operation was funded by Fuad Shubaki, head of finance administration in the PA’s security services.

Yet Palestinian officialdom denies any involvement in the affair. That Akkawi is also a Coast Guard colonel adds little to the PA’s credibility. Ironically, the 1,000-man Palestinian Coast Guard is an elite unit whose function is to prevent the smuggling of weapons and goods into the Palestinian areas. The fact that the freighter may have been purchased at the very beginning of the second Palestinian intifada does not speak well of the PA’s intentions. Who knows when plans for its acquisition began? Those well-versed in history may recall that Yasser Arafat’s first call for a cease-fire in the present intifada was issued, precisely, in October 2000.

This is not the first time that the PA has engaged in weapons smuggling. Since its inception in 1994, the PA has been bringing in illegal weapons through various underground tunnels along the Egyptian border. Attempts to smuggle arms through the Mediterranean Sea have been foiled by the Israeli army, and similar operations through the Jordan Valley have been thwarted by Jordanian authorities. Although in previous instances the weapons were provided to the PA by radical Muslim and Palestinian groups based in Lebanon and Syria, this time Iran was presumably behind the deal.

This marks a disturbing development for Israel. Because Iran apparently had not supplied arms to the PA before, this incident may herald a worrisome rapprochement. This past December, Iran’s president called for the destruction of Israel by nuclear means. The mere thought of unconventional Iranian armament falling into the hands of hostile Palestinians located just a few miles from Israel’s population centers is chilling indeed.

The quantity and quality of materiel seized is no less disquieting; the PA has never before possessed these types of weapons. The deadly cargo included LAW anti-tank missiles capable of blowing up Israeli tanks; highly potent C-4 explosives with which a car bomb or suicide bomber could bring down an entire building; and 122-mm Katyushas rockets that would put almost every Israeli city in peril. Given that 70 percent of Israel’s population and 80 percent of the country’s economic infrastructure are located just minutes away from Palestinian towns, one can only imagine the major disaster that was averted by the capture of the Karine-A.

This episode alone should give pause to the advocates of Palestinian statehood. While we could argue about the historical, legal, political and moral legitimacy (or lack of thereof) of such an entity, a Palestinian state would carry strategic dangers for Israel. Arafat’s «ship of death» (as The Jerusalem Post described it) has proven that this threat is not a figment of Israeli paranoia.

Indeed, the potential Palestinian state would not be democratic, peaceful or stable. It would be a small state sandwiched between two enemy neighbors. It would be overpopulated, poor, underdeveloped – and deeply resentful of Israel. As military analysts have pointed out, a Palestinian state behaving like Denmark or Switzerland obviously wouldn’t represent an existential risk. But a state along the lines of Iran or Iraq undoubtedly would put in jeopardy the Jewish state’s survival.

It would be unrealistic to assume that the Palestinian state’s political culture would be any different from that of other Arab countries. It would be unrealistic, too, for Israel to expect that the new state treat it any better than other hostile Arab nations have in the past. If the performance of the Palestinian Authority thus far is any indication of future behavior, there is little room for optimism.

The Palestinian state may be inevitable at this point. Inevitable, however, is no synonym for desirable.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Jerusalem.