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It did not take much time for the Egyptian government to capitalize on Libya’s unexpected «preemptive surrender» (as columnist William Satire called it). Shortly after President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced Moammar Gaclhafi’s readiness to put a stop to his country’s weapons of mass destruction program, the three top Egyptian leaders — President Hosni Mubarak, Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher and Arab League Head Amr Moussa — publicly urged Israel to get rid of its own nuclear weapons.

Notwithstanding the official Israeli line (that it won’t be the first nation to go nuclear in the Middle East), it is widely assumed that Israel already has nuclear capability. Given its quantitative inferiority vis-a-vis the Arab world — both in population (a ratio of one to 50) and in territory (a ratio of one to 500) — Israel understood early enough that to guarantee its little country’s survival, it had to have a qualitative edge. Israel succeeded in creating one, and that troubles deeply the Egyptians, who see themselves as masters of the region.

Given Egypt’s military record, its demand seems dubious. Egypt was the first nation in the Middle East to develop and use chemical weapons (against Yemen during the 1962-67 war), and it is estimated that it currently has an arsenal of mustard gas, sarin, VX and luisite.

Since 1979, Egypt received more than $30 billion in military aid from the United States. Today, Egypt spends a quarter of its GDP on its military.

Tellingly, Egypt has reached almost operational parity with Israel’s Air Force:

• It has the same U.S.-made F-16 airplanes and roughly the same number.
• It has the same Apache helicopters and modern Abrams tanks, which are parallel to the Israeli Merkava.
• It reportedly maintains ballistic missile collaboration with North Korea and Libya, and there recently has been an intensification of cooperation with the Saudi Arabian air forces.
• During the past two decades, Egyptian scientists participated in Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program and, according to Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick, in the lead-up to the Anglo-American intervention in Iraq, the Egyptian authorities refused U.S. and British requests to interview those scientists.

It is true that Israel’s military budget eats a considerable amount of its GDP, too, that it has developed sophisticated weaponry as well, and that it has received at least as much in military aid from the United States than what Egypt did. But, as Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, notes, much has been spent on war: against Palestinian terrorism, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iraqi Scud missiles and in other fronts. Israel is still technically at war with several Arab nations.

Steinitz correctly points out that what makes Egypt’s growing military strength worrisome is the fact that –unlike Israel — Egypt faces no military challenge, much less an existential threat, from any neighbor. Sudan and Libya are no credible opponents to Egyptian might, and, conspiracy theories to the contrary, Israel has no sinister plan to take over the Nile.

So, against whom is Egypt arming? Here’s a tip: Since 1996, the «Badar exercises,» the largest war simulation of the Egyptian army, centered on «a little country northeast of Egypt.» Here’s another tip: That country is not Gaza. Recently, the United States froze the supply of advanced F-15 jets to Egypt after receiving intelligence revealing that Israel appeared as «the enemy» in all of Egypt’s war games.

Further evidence that Egypt regards Israel as an enemy emerged after Israel detected Egyptian unmanned aerial vehicles over a nuclear research facility and a missile test site. (Yes, Israel has its Ofek-5 spy satellite, which observes every inch of Egyptian territory, but, again, it does so for defensive purposes).

Then there is the issue of the tunnels along the Egyptian-Israeli border in Rafiah, Gaza. The fundamentalist movements such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad smuggle most of their arms and explosives through these tunnels that Egypt, save a couple of exemptions, has consistently failed to uncover. Similar attempts by terrorist organizations to carry ammunition to the West Bank via Jordan have mostly failed due to Jordanian predisposition to act. Some analysts see this as implicit support on the part of Egypt for the Palestinian terrorist war against Israel.

When viewing the larger picture, we can reasonably conclude that Egypt’s calls for a nuclear-free region have little to do with a genuine preoccupation with a peaceful Middle East and a lot to do with this totalitarian state’s ambitious agenda.

Julián Schvindlerman is a writer and journalist in Buenos Aires.

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Buenos Aires – Geneva is such a lovely city. Sitting on the border with France by a beautiful lake and surrounded by gorgeous mountains, with its elegant hotels, fine watch-shops and prominent •private banks, home to many U.N. bodies and multinational corporations, the city has just the perfect atmosphere for hosting the kind of high-level events as the Geneva Accord ceremony held this week.

Lots of world leaders expressed public support for this document, including Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, Frederick de Klerk, Kofi Annan, Jacques Chirac, Hans-Dietrich Gensher, Tony Blair, Hosni Mubarak, King Hassan II, Jimmy Carter and Colin Powell. It would seem, at first sight, that something very important is going on here; something so positive that it merits the applause of the creme de la creme of global diplomacy.

If you take a closer look, though, you realize that the Geneva Accord is anti-democratic, counterproductive and hallucinatory. That it received such widespread elite support is a testament to the vintage superficiality of our times, where an agreement is praised so long as it ends in a handshake, no matter how ludicrous its content.

•   It’s anti-democratic: Even though the accord has the potential to affect Israel considerably, it was conceived and negotiated in secret by private citizens with no official authority to conduct foreign policy, who for two years kept the Israeli public ignorant of the content of this initiative, and who are now trying to coerce a democratically elected government into acceptance.

That these private citizens happen to be failed politicians only makes it more illegitimate. Yossi Beilin failed to make it to the Knesset, Amran Mitzna lost the premiership to Ariel Sharon by landslide and Avraham Burg lost the primary election for the Labor Party leadership.

A recent poll by Tel-Aviv University’s Tami Steinmetz Center showed that a mere 18 percent of Israelis thought that Beilin represented the national interest, while 22 percent thought so of Mitzna and 26 percent of Burg. Their disregard of the will of the Israeli people is not only an instance of fraternal condescension but an affront to democracy.

•   It’s counterproductive: The accord shrinks Israel to the indefensible 1967 borders, does not exact a Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and leaves the question of refugees unsolved — all of which guarantees a perpetuation, not a resolution, of the conflict.

It also divides Jerusalem and leaves the Temple Mount under Palestinian sovereignty. This agreement is worse than the Road Map and the Oslo Accord. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak called this initiative «a delusion.» Sarah Honig of The Jerusalem Post said that it was an example of “the self-deception and self-destructiveness that sadly seems to be so uniquely Jewish.»

•    It’s hallucinatory: The accord does not — it cannot — bring peace. It merely creates the illusion of peace. It tells the family of nations that it is indeed possible for Israelis to meet and agree with the Palestinians. After all, Beilin can. Why wouldn’t Sharon? The Geneva delirium creates the false impression that the current Israeli administration is irresponsibly missing a chance for peace, when in fact there is none.

Julián Schvindlerman is a writer and journalist in Buenos Aires.

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So many misconceptions surround the fence that Israel is building around the West Bank, it is hard to decide where to begin to debunk those myths.

Let us begin with a hopefully persuasive point: It takes less amount of time for a suicide-bomber to walk from the Palestinian town of Kalkiliya to the Israeli city of Kfar Saba than what it will take a reader to go through the editorial page of today’s newspaper. In 15 minutes, a terrorist can cover that distance by foot, as some unfortunately did in the past.

During the first three years of this Palestinian intifada, 127 suicide-bombers crossed into Israel from the West Bank, killing 428 Israelis and wounding scores. Another 573 terrorists attempted to infiltrate during that period. May this information be compelling enough for those who claim that the Israeli government is constructing this fence for political, instead of security, reasons.

What do critics say?

• They say that the fence will not guarantee 100 percent immunity from terror attacks. This may be, true, but even if it «only» minimizes casualties, it’s worth doing. For that matter, there is an illustrating precedent. In 2001 a fortified fence was built in the Gaza Strip, and not even one suicide-bomber has made it through ever since.
• They say that Israel is erecting a wall. Some even call it, amazingly enough, a «Berlin Wall.» In fact, only five miles out of the 87 miles already constructed, constitute sections of concrete wall. The rest (about 95 percent of the barrier) is a chain-link fence with electronic sensors.
• They say that the fence creates hardships for many Palestinian farmers, that it cuts them from their sources of income (olive trees) and that it will keep workers from entering Israel. The West Bank fence already has 42 gates to facilitate access to Israel proper, and Israeli diplomats say that compensation will be assigned when appropriate.

Once again, the fence in the Gaza Strip provides an interesting reference. According to Maj. Gen. Doron Almog, former head of Israel’s Southern Command, with responsibility for the fence in Gaza, in December 2000 –just before construction of the fence began — nearly 3,000 Palestinians worked daily in the Erez Industrial Zone. As a result of the improvement in the security situation, 5,000 Palestinians work there today.

But even if the fence would cancel all benefits for the Palestinians, one may legitimately ask: What «perpetual right» do the Palestinian have to work in Israel in the first place? By what moral and logical standard should Palestinian olive trees take precedence over Israeli human lives?

• They say that the fence goes beyond the Green Line, taking «Palestinian land.» This is true, but one should note that we are talking about 3 percent to 4 percent of the disputed territories. As political analyst David Makovsky observed, portions of the fence are located inside the West Bank because close to 75 percent of Israel’s 226,000 settlers live in 5 percent of West Bank territory adjacent to the Green Line.

Even the maximalists call for annexing at most 10 percent to 15 percent of the disputed areas, which would still leave the Palestinian Authority in control of about 90 percent of the West Bank.

The real issue, however, is not that the fence seizes 3 percent or 4 percent of West Bank land but rather that it is in fact giving up more than 95 percent of it, as academic Barry Rubin aptly pointed out. In other words, the Sharon administration, with vast popular support, is in effect dividing the land of Israel, creating the space for eventual Palestinian self-determination in the disputed areas and putting to rest the false accusation that Israel is an expansionist state.

The late Yitzhak Rabin took office in 1992 vowing «To take Gaza out of Tel-Aviv,» as a campaign slogan had it at the time. A decade later, Ariel Sharon is trying to take the West Bank out of Tel-Aviv as well. Will critics abroad let him?

Julián Schvindlerman is a writer and journalist in Buenos Aires.

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BUENOS AIRES — For those who do not subscribe to Samuel Huntington’s theory of a clash of civilizations, an illuminating event occurred last week in Malaysia.

Speaking at the opening of the 10th session of the Islamic Summit Conference, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad delivered an impassioned speech in which he presented a plan of action for Muslim empowerment and also made references disparaging Jews, whom he accused of ruling the world by proxy, getting others to fight and die for them and of being arrogant. He called for devising a pan-Islamic strategy that can win Muslims a «final victory» over Jews and asked: «Is it true that 1.3 billion people can exert no power to save themselves from the humiliation and oppression inflicted upon them by a much smaller enemy?»

At present Jews are ruling over three million Palestinians in the disputed territories. I don’t quite understand what «humiliation and oppression» Jews are inflicting upon Muslims spread over 57 nations. No Peruvian Jews, Italian Jews or American Jews are ruling over anyone else, either. I guess Mohamad meant to say Israelis, but he was unable to distinguish between the words «Israeli» and «Jew,» thus portraying the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a clash of religions. Or perhaps he meant what he said: that there is a confrontation between all Jews and all Muslims everywhere. In sum, a religious war.

Following a strong reaction in the West to his anti-Jewish comments, Mohamad claimed that he had been quoted out of context. This week, however, the unrepentant Malaysian premier confirmed his words.

The issue is not whether this Muslim leader is a racist. He is: In 1997 he blamed Jewish billionaire George Soros for his country’s economic crisis; during the war in Bosnia in the ’90s he welcomed thousands of Bosnian Muslim refugees but expelled Christians arriving with them. No, what is genuinely troubling is the applause he got from the emirs, sheiks and presidents in attendance who gave him a standing ovation. Not to mention denial. «No. I don’t think so,» Afghan President Hamid Karzai told the Associated Press when asked if he found the speech anti-Semitic. «I don’t think they were anti-Semitic at all,» agreed Yemen’s Foreign Minister Abubakar al-Qirbi.

I read the full text and found that the comments about the Jews were part of a wider picture. He devoted most of his time to a martial portrayal of current Muslim reality vis–vis the West. Though he did say that «not all non-Muslims are against us» and condemn suicide bombings, he seemed to imply that he advocates a change in method but not in goal. Thus his calls for enhancing scientific education in Muslim countries and adopting new approaches — as well as all the talk about «final victory» and concerted and coordinated action.»

Muslims ‘will triumph’

In Mohamad’s view, Muslims are treated with «contempt and dishonor,» their religion «denigrated,» their countries «occupied» and their people «starved and killed.» He stated that «our detractors and enemies . . . will attack and kill us, invade our lands, bring down our governments.» So «we need guns and rockets, bombs and warplanes, tanks and warships for our defense.» But «we will triumph in the end» because «we have the biggest oil reserve in the world. We have great wealth . . . We control 57 out of 180 [sic] countries in the world. Our votes can make or break international organizations.» (So much for the claim that Jews control the world).

While Mohamad’s anti-Semitic diatribe captured considerable media attention and diplomatic vituperation, it seems that the real story — the confrontation between Islam and the Jews in particular, and Islam and the West in general — went virtually unnoticed. If you do not want to see that speech and the positive reception it got by that central Muslim body as a vindication of the theory of a clash of civilizations, then don’t. But you can’t ignore the fact that most leaders in the Muslim world today seem to disagree with you.

Julián Schvindlerman is a writer and journalist in Buenos Aires.

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Buenos Aires — The month of September started with Israeli fighter jets flying over Auschwitz, and it ended with Israeli pilots refusing to fly over the skies of Ramallah.

The Israeli Air Force was invited to take part in Poland’s Air Force’s 85th anniversary, and it was decided that a symbolic sortie above the death camp would take place. As they approached Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Israeli jets followed the path of the railways that took so many Jews to an awful death six decades ago. Thus, blue Stars of David attached to powerful jets proudly flew above a ground that once saw countless fearful Jews wearing a yellow Star of David on their way to their death.

The emotionally potent scene prompted an argument between the National Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the Israeli government. A museum official protested that «flying the (F-15s) is a demonstration of military might, which is an entirely inappropriate way to commemorate the victims.» Israeli authorities disagreed, indicating that a display of Jewish power at such a historically sensitive place was an adequate way to pay tribute to those murdered lacking a capacity to defend themselves.

The pilots, sons of survivors of World War II, were keenly aware of how dramatic that moment was. «We, Air Force pilots, flying the skies above the death camps, emerging from the ashes of millions of victims and carrying on our shoulders their silent cry,» said pilot Amir Eshel, «honor their courage and promise to be the shield of the Jewish people and their nation, Israel.»

«After the Holocaust,» said an Israeli journalist, «Jews understood that learning to fight was a sign of vitality, an embracing of life.» Well, let’s say that at least some Jews understood that. For three weeks after this dramatic event, 27 Israeli pilots signed a public letter criticizing their government’s policy of so-called targeted killings of Palestinian terrorist leaders. In the letter, the dissenters stated that they refused to «continue to harm innocent civilians» and to carry on «immoral and illegal» operations that were «part of the occupation.»

It was the first time in Israel’s history that pilots (even just a few of them, as in this case) refused to follow orders. The Israel Air Force reacted harshly, grounding the pilots and likening them to traitors in times of war. Exploiting the issue, Marwan Barghoutti, former head of the Tanzim fighters and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, currently on trial in Tel-Aviv, applauded the pilots: «They deserve the utmost praise for reaching the conclusion they were perpetrating war crimes.»

The whole affair is a delicate issue. It is admirable that military people would refuse to carry orders that they personally consider immoral. At the same time, however, when you find yourself supported by a Marwan Barghoutti, you should perhaps reconsider. After all, this man is on trial accused of having ordered 37 terrorist operations that claimed 26 lives and wounded many. Charges against him include premeditated murder, accessory to murder, incitement to murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and participation in a terrorist organization. If he is on your side, you cannot claim to be morally right.

«How can the Jews, who suffered and survived the Holocaust, allow themselves to resort to such insufferable and unacceptable means against another people?» Barghoutti asked during his closing argument this week in court, to the cheers of dozens of supporters, among them members of the European Parliament from Italy and France — where the Mussolini and Vichy regimes collaborated with Hitler in the extermination of the Jews.

Which brings me back to the Israeli Air Force flight over Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Had those F-15s flown over the railroads leading to the death camp 60 years ago, many lives would have been saved. Israeli pilots possibly would have destroyed those paths to death that the allied forces never did. But there was no Jewish state then, no Israeli Air Force and no Israeli pilots commanding powerful fighter jets capable of fighting evil.

Today, thank God, there are Israeli pilots able and willing to save their brothers’ lives — even if that means having to fly over Ramallah.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Buenos Aires.

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It was September 1970 when the threat to his kingdom became so intolerable that King Hussein of Jordan launched a massive assault on PLO fighters on its soil. The battle was harsh and «it surpassed all imagined horrors of fratricide,» according to noted historian Samuel Katz.

Surrounding Amman to prevent assistance and immobilizing the refugee camps, Jordanian soldiers and tanks fought Palestinian militants so fiercely that about 200 PLO terrorists preferred to cross the river into Israel and surrender there rather than be captured by the Jordanians. In Palestinian history, this event is known as Black September.

The Israelis, sadly, have their own Black September, too, with more than 1,000 killed, thousands wounded, scores of orphans and widows and an entire nation traumatized. It all began so nicely though, that beautiful, sunny morning of Sept. 13, 1993, at the White House lawn. Moved, the world saw legendary Six-Day War hero Yitzhak Rabin shaking hands with mythical leader of the Palestinian revolution Yasser Arafat. Bitter enemies were making peace. The speeches were eloquent and hopeful. A new era had just begun.

Or so it seemed. For -.- when the signing-ceremony had ended, the applause had died out, the elite guests had parted, the diplomats had finished toasting and the Western media had heralded a promising awakening in the Middle East — the first crack in the just-inaugurated peace process occurred.

On that very day, just hours after speaking of peace to the world, the Palestinian leader was interviewed by Jordanian television. In Arabic, to an Arab audience, Arafat delivered a different message. He spoke of violence and destruction through a reference to the «1974 plan,» known in the Arab world as the «Phased Plan» for the annihilation of the Jewish state.

Thus began, with fooling and duplicity, the most controversial political process in contemporary Mideast history. A year later; Rabin, Shimon Peres and Arafat were awarded a Nobel Peace prize. Since then, Israel has been facing Palestinian atrocities and terror.

Events unfolded rather differently from the way that the the Oslo process envisioned. Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish fanatic; waves of suicidal-terror washed Israel with blood; Israeli society fractured along ideological lines; the political system suffered alarming instability ; and the economy deteriorated badly. Israel lost historically important and strategically valuable territories without gaining in regional recognition or international legitimacy. Israel is a nation still having to justify its existence in university classrooms, United Nations fora and newspaper oped pages.

Ten years ago, well-meaning Israelis rescued a bunch of radicals expelled from Jordan and Lebanon and welcomed them at home. They granted undeserved legitimacy to a gang of international criminals once chased by the police of 10 countries. They gave them assault rifles and a sanctuary from which to plan the war that would come.

This encouraged the family of nations to shower them with money and ended up facilitating the establishment of a terrorist entity on its borders. Incredible though it may sound, naive Israelis assisted the Palestinian revolution committed to its destruction. To call this a political miscalculation is to understate the meaning of criminal negligence.

In September 2000, with the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa intifada, the «disastrous experiment of sharing the Holy Land with the less holy of ail national movements of our time,» in Israeli commentator Yossi Klein Halevy’s words, came to an end. When it became evident that those previously seen as peaceful were in fact Jihadists in hibernation, visions of a new Middle East and fantasies about the brotherhood of men finally began to evaporate.

Sept. 13, 1993, will forever remain as a day of infamy in Israel’s history. As we mark tomorrow the 10th anniversary of this epic disaster, let us bear in mind its most important lesson: Never again shall wishful-thinking cloud political realism.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Buenos Aires.

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«It looks like the road to heaven, but it feels like the road to hell.»

George Michael – From the song Freedom

The road map was already flawed in its conception and problematic in its wording. On top of this, it is now clear that its implementation is an abysmal disaster: The Israelis are being pressured to go beyond what the document demands, whereas the Palestinians are being let off the hook as they breach their core obligation under the road-map terms.

This is a repetition of the Oslo mistakes, and it can lead only to a new intifada. The current one has not even ended yet, and unless the road-map implementation is urgently corrected, this diplomatic initiative will not only fail to reduce animosity and violence but also bring about more pandemonium.

Israel is being asked to release Palestinian prisoners and to stop building a security fence separating the two peoples. Neither requirement appears in the road map. Furthermore, at times when Palestinian suicide-bombers are blowing Israelis to pieces, the world community expects Israel to free Palestinians who have murdered civilians and who in all likelihood will resume their killings. It also demands that Israel stop building a security fence aimed at preventing more atrocities.

In other words; Israel is being pressured into releasing terrorists and keeping its borders unprotected so that these killers and their comrades in arms in the territories can go on jointly with their carnage. The sheer insanity of this dual demand is breathtaking.

The international community seems to be asking Israel to abet the murder of Israelis as a «confidence-building measure» to the Palestinian Authority. That the PA is the entity responsible for brainwashing and seducing an entire generation of Palestinians into criminal political violence can only add to one’s puzzlement as to why it merits a reward.

The Palestinians, for their part, are supposed to be fighting terror. This is their central commitment under the road map. But, until a few days ago, when for the first time he ordered the capture of those behind an attack, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas had been saying that he would not risk civil war by confronting the radical elements of Palestinian society. Each time that Palestinian fanatics killed Israelis, including this week’s bombing in Jerusalem, the typical Abbas condemnation was to indicate that such attacks did «not serve the interest of the Palestinian people.» Does this mean that were such crimes against humanity helpful in advancing the interest of the Palestinian people, it would then be just fine with Abbas? And remember: He is the leader of moderation in Palestinian politics.

There should be just one standard to judge the parties’ performance vis-a-vis their obligations: We should assume that the respective leaderships are able to fulfill requirements that they have accepted, even if such fulfillment involves a domestic political price. Otherwise we would be tying contractual implementation to political feasibility, a principle that would exonerate the parties from their duties and thus kill the essence of any agreement.

Concerning the fight against Palestinian terror, this translates as no more talk about «root causes.» No more sympathy for real or imagined grievances. No more contextualizing, rationalizing or borderline justifying terrorism. If Abbas committed himself to dismantling the terrorist infrastructure, he should do it. That would serve the interest of the Palestinians so much better than whatever excuses apologists feel inclined to raise every time a Muslim fundamentalist decides to take innocent lives in Israel or elsewhere.

The twin suicide-bombings this week in Baghdad and Jerusalem tragically shed light on a simple truth: The way to stop terror is to fight it, not to excuse it.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Buenos Aires.

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With more than 1,000 days of a savage war that has left 800 of its citizens dead and 5,000 wounded, Israel still confronts the tough options that it traditionally has faced vis–vis its bellicose Palestinian neighbors. They are so difficult — and some so extreme — as to render them almost nonoptions. Consider:

Transfer: This would involve the forced expulsion of 3.5 million Palestinians from the disputed areas. In addition to being morally repulsive, it would be practically impossible and politically unfeasible. It would surely elicit a violent Arab and Muslim reaction, turn the Jewish state into a pariah among the nations and split Israeli society.

Integration: One political entity between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, with Palestinians and Israelis living in it, would be demographically catastrophic for the Jews. In a matter of decades, the Jewish population would become outnumbered by the Palestinians, virtually rendering Israel an Arab state with a Jewish minority.

Perpetuation of status quo: While it is often claimed that the status quo is untenable, the fact remains that both Israelis and Palestinians have lived with it for almost three years already. Nevertheless, it represents a truly awful situation and is not a healthy policy option for the medium-to-long-term.

Separation: It can be achieved through peaceful negotiations or by unilateral action. The Oslo Accords intended to obtain the former whereas the wall being built at present aims at the latter. Both have a common denominator: They seek a divorce between the two peoples. Some Palestinians seem ready to grant it, but they want compensation in exchange: a state of their own. Most Israelis seem willing to call it fair enough, with some important qualifications.

Of the above, the only viable alternative is separation, which inexorably will lead toward Palestinian self-determination. But, given the violent impulses of Palestinian society and its cult of death built around suicide-bombing, Israelis are concerned that the emerging state would become a launching pad for more terror and mayhem. Striking a balance between Palestinian national aspirations and Israeli security concerns is therefore key to finding a realistic solution.

Thus Benjamin Netanyahu, the former Israeli prime minister and current minister of finance, articulated recently this concept in a Washington Post oped column: «The guiding principle is this: The Palestinians would be given all the powers needed to govern themselves but none of the powers that could threaten Israel. Put simply: The solution is full self-government for the Palestinians with vital . security powers retained by Israel.»

Which are those vital security powers? In a paper published some years ago, Zeev Schiff, Israel’s prime military analyst, described them.

The Palestinian state, he postulated: a) Won’t be allowed to establish military alliances with other nations nor host embassies of countries still officially at war with Israel; b) Won’t be allowed to let the deployment of foreign troops in its territory; c) Won’t be allowed to acquire or develop nuclear weapons; d) Won’t have control over its airspace; e) Will be permitted to have a police force but not an army.

Will a society as chauvinistic and militarized as the Palestinian one ever accept such restrictions? If Palestinians want their state, they’d better. Had they behaved peacefully and never resorted to violent aggression against Israel, these restrictions would not be needed. But the Palestinians are not Swedes. The founding vision of the Palestinian national movement enshrined as a lofty principle the annihilation of Israel. The charters of the PLO, Fatah and Hamas call for the destruction of Israel, and a coalition of PLO, Fatah, Hamas and other terrorists has been killing Israelis for quite sometime.

One thing is clear: The Palestinians cannot challenge Israel’s existence and at the same time expect it to pander to their nationalistic demands. In the near future, they will be offered a state, for the third time already. At that point, the Palestinians will have to make a simple choice: either accept it with its limitations and prosper peacefully, or reject it and condemn the region to perpetual bloodshed.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst in Geneva and a member of the American Jewish Committee