In the Shadow of American Geopolitics, or Once Again on Greater Israel

Olga CHETVERIKOVA | 11.11.2013 | 00:00

Thirty years ago, American strategists introduced the idea of «The Greater Middle East», denoting the space from Maghreb to Bangladesh, and declared this vast territory to be a zone of US priority interests. In 2006, the programme of American domination in this region was renewed and defined more concretely: the then US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice introduced the term «The New Middle East», highlighting a plan to redraw the borders in the Middle East from Libya to Syria, Iraq, Iran and even Afghanistan. It was all referred to as a strategy of «constructive chaos»... In the same year, a map of «The New Middle East» compiled by Colonel Ralph Peters was published in the American magazine Armed Forces Journal that was circulated in government, political, military and wider circles, preparing public opinion for the impending changes in the Middle East (1). Since the start of the «Arab Spring», Americans have been moving towards a geopolitical restructuring of the region which, of course, has also raised the issue of the fate of Israel. Ever since then, the issue has remained on the agenda. And no matter what form the issue takes, it is only ever delivered in the same vein: Israel is invariably presented as the victim. Thus in the spring of 2011, at the height of the war against Libya when the Palestinian Authority raised the issue of its membership to the UN, western media quickly began to shout about Washington’s betrayal in «surrendering» the Jewish state to Islamists. Today, when the absurdity of such a statement is obvious to almost everybody, the emphasis is on the deadly threat to Israel from Iran, which is apparently developing in line with the deterioration of the situation in Syria.  In the process, the most important thing is either being overshadowed or is simply being hushed up: Israel’s profound interest in destabilising the situation in the Arab-Muslim countries surrounding it and in fuelling the war in Syria. Rabbi Avraam Shmulevich, meanwhile, one of the creators of the «hyperzionism» doctrine influential among the Israeli elite, talked openly about the reasons for this interest in an interview back in 2011. It is interesting that he saw the «Arab Spring» as a blessing for Israel. «The Muslim world», wrote Avraam Shmulevich, «is plunging into a state of chaos, and this will be a positive development for Jews. Chaos is the best time to take a situation under control and put the Jewish civilisation system into operation.  Right now, there is a battle going on for who will become the spiritual leader of mankind – Rome (the West) or Israel... Now is the time we should take complete control into our own hands... We will not just bathe the Arab elite, but feed and raise them with our own hands... A man who obtains freedom should, at the same time, receive guidance on how to use this freedom. And this guidance for mankind will be written by us, by Jews... Jewry will flourish in the blaze of Arab revolutions»(my emphasis – O. C.) (2).  While on the subject of Israel’s foreign-policy objectives, Shmulevich emphasised the need to keep «the natural borders along the Nile and the Euphrates established by the Torah», which must then be followed by the second phase of the offensive – expanding Israel’s hegemony to the entire region of the Middle East. Shmulevich was also extremely open about this: «A chain reaction of disintegration and reformation is beginning in the Middle East simultaneously. Assad, who is currently drowning the revolutionary processes in Syria in blood, will nevertheless not be able to hold out for more than a year or two. There is a revolution starting in Jordan. Even the Kurds and the Caucasus are emerging as an integral part of the Middle East... (my emphasis – O.C.). All of this must look like one continuous Iraq or Afghanistan. It might have been possible to class Shmulevich as being on the fringe, if not for the fact that he was repeating the fundamental principles of a strategic plan by Israeli leaders outlined back in 1982 known as the «Yinon plan». The plan focused on the Israeli government achieving regional superiority through destabilisation and «Balkanisation», so through the breakup of neighbouring Arab states, in other words, which is basically being reproduced in the «New Middle East» project outlined by Condoleezza Rice and Colonel Ralph Peters.  The plan refers to «A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s», a report prepared by Oded Yinon, an Israeli journalist who was attached to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The report first appeared in Hebrew in the magazine «Kivunim» (Directions), published by the World Zionist Organisation’s Department of Information in February 1982. In the same year, the Association of Arab-American University Graduates published a translation of the text by the well-known Israeli publicist Israel Shahak, who accompanied the translation with his own comments (3). In March 2013, Israel Shahak’s article was published on Michel Chossudovsky’s website Global Research (4).  «The following document pertaining to the formation of ‘Greater Israel’», writes Chossudovsky in his foreword to the article, «constitutes the cornerstone of powerful Zionist factions within the current Netanyahu government, the Likud party, as well as within the Israeli military and intelligence establishment... When viewed in the current context, the war on Iraq, the 2006 war on Lebanon, the 2011 war on Libya, the ongoing war on Syria, not to mention the process of regime change in Egypt, must be understood in relation to the Zionist Plan for the Middle East»(my emphasis – O.C) (5).  The plan is based on two fundamental principles determining the conditions of Israel’s survival in its Arab environment: 1) Israel must become a regional imperial power; and 2) Israel must divide up the whole of the surrounding area into small states through the dissolution of all existing Arab states. The size of these states will depend on their ethnic and religious composition. Moreover, the creation of new states on the basis of religion would be a source of moral legitimacy for the Israeli government.  It should be said that the idea of fragmenting the world’s Arab states is not a new one. It has long existed in Zionist strategic thinking (6), but Yinon’s report, as Israel Shahak pointed out back in 1982, represented an «accurate and detailed plan of the present Zionist regime (of Sharon and Eitan) for the Middle East which is based on the division of the whole area into small states, and the dissolution of all the existing Arab states».  Here, Shahak draws attention to two points:  1. The idea that all the Arab states should be broken down, by Israel, into small units, occurs again and again in Israeli strategic thinking.  2. The strong connection with Neo-Conservative thought in the US, which includes the idea of «the defence of the West», is very prominent, but this link is purely lip service, while the author of the report’s real aim is to build an Israeli empire and turn it into a world power («In other words», Shahak comments, «the aim of Sharon is to deceive the Americans after he has deceived all the rest»).  The main point that Oded Yinin proceeds from is that the world is in the early stages of a new historical epoch, the essence of which is in «the rationalist, humanist outlook as the major cornerstone supporting the life and achievements of Western civilization since the Renaissance».  Yinon later sets forth the ideas of the «Rome Club» on the insufficient quantity of resources on Earth to meet the needs of mankind, its economic demands and demographics. «In a world in which there are four billion human beings and economic and energy resources which do not grow proportionally to meet the needs of mankind, it is unrealistic to expect to fulfil the main requirement of Western Society, i.e. the wish and aspiration for boundless consumption. The view that ethics plays no part in determining the direction Man takes, but rather his material needs do – that view is becoming prevalent today as we see a world in which nearly all values are disappearing. We are losing the ability to assess the simplest things, especially when they concern the simple question of what is Good and what is Evil   Part I The world is moving towards a global war for resources, and this primarily concerns the Persian Gulf. Assessing the situation in the Arab-Muslim world in relation to this, Oded Yinon writes: «In the long run, this world will be unable to exist within its present framework in the areas around us without having to go through genuine revolutionary changes.  The Moslem Arab World is built like a temporary house of cards put together by foreigners (France and Britain in the Nineteen Twenties), without the wishes and desires of the inhabitants having been taken into account. It was arbitrarily divided into 19 states, all made of combinations of minorities and ethnic groups which are hostile to one another, so that every Arab Moslem state nowadays faces ethnic social destruction from within, and in some a civil war is already raging»...  After painting a mixed picture of the Arab and non-Arab Muslim world, Yinon concludes: «This national ethnic minority picture extending from Morocco to India and from Somalia to Turkey points to the absence of stability and a rapid degeneration in the entire region. When this picture is added to the economic one, we see how the entire region is built like a house of cards, unable to withstand its severe problems». At this point, Yinon even describes new «opportunities for transforming the situation» that Israel must do in the coming decade.  With regard to the Sinai Peninsula, this involves re-establishing control over Sinai as a strategic, economic and energy reserve for the long run. «Egypt, in its present domestic political picture, is already a corpse, all the more so if we take into account the growing Moslem-Christian rift.  Breaking Egypt down territorially into distinct geographical regions is the political aim of Israel in the Nineteen Eighties on its Western front». With regard to Israel’s Eastern front, which is more complicated than the Western front, Yinon writes: «Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track.  The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi’ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbour, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan».  «Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria... Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi’ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north».  «The entire Arabian peninsula is a natural candidate for dissolution due to internal and external pressures, and the matter is inevitableespecially in Saudi Arabia, regardless of whether its economic might based on oil remains intact or whether it is diminished in the long run. The internal rifts and breakdowns are a clear and natural development in light of the present political structure. «Jordan constitutes an immediate strategic target in the short run but not in the long run, for it does not constitute a real threat in the long run after its dissolution, the termination of the lengthy rule of King Hussein and the transfer of power to the Palestinians in the short run.  There is no chance that Jordan will continue to exist in its present structure for a long time, and Israel’s policy, both in war and in peace, ought to be directed at the liquidation of Jordan under the present regime and the transfer of power to the Palestinian majority. Changing the regime east of the river will also cause the termination of the problem of the territories densely populated with Arabs west of the Jordan...  Genuine coexistence and peace will reign over the land only when the Arabs understand that without Jewish rule between the Jordan and the sea they will have neither existence nor security. A nation of their own and security will be theirs only in Jordan». Further on, Yinon sets forth Israel’s internal strategic objectives and the ways to achieve them, emphasising the need for serious changes in the world. «Dispersal of the population is therefore a domestic strategic aim of the highest order; otherwise, we shall cease to exist within any borders. Judea, Samaria and the Galilee are our sole guarantee for national existence... Realising our aims on the Eastern front depends first on the realisation of this internal strategic objective.  The transformation of the political and economic structure, so as to enable the realisation of these strategic aims, is the key to achieving the entire change. We need to change from a centralised economy in which the government is extensively involved, to an open and free market as well as to switch from depending upon the US taxpayer to developing, with our own hands, of a genuine productive economic infrastructure. If we are not able to make this change freely and voluntarily, we shall be forced into it by world developments, especially in the areas of economics, energy, and politics, and by our own growing isolation».  «Rapid changes in the world will also bring about a change in the condition of world Jewry to which Israel will become not only a last resort but the only existential option».  Evaluating the plan, it is possible to draw the following conclusions. Firstly, since it outlines Israel’s strategic objectives, it is designed for the long term and is particularly relevant today. Secondly, the possibility of realising the external strategy described involves serious changes both to the position of Israel itself and on a global scale. Which is exactly what started to happen in the mid-1980s.  With the transition of the global ruling class to a neo-liberal strategy, Israel experienced profound changes resulting in the country ending up under the control of 18 of the richest families. Israeli capital was actively invested abroad, while the Israeli market, in turn, proved to be wide open to foreign capital.  As a result of the country’s active «integration» in the global economic system, Israeli capital has become so entwined with transnational capital that the notion of a «national economy of Israel» has lost all meaning. In these conditions, Israel’s transition to active expansion even proved possible, although this manifested itself in intellectual and economic influence and infiltration, rather than military control and a forceful presence.  The most important thing is the involvement of the territory in general, at the centre of which is Israel. Shmulevich also referred to this when he pointed out that a fundamental concept of Judaism is «to be the force that guides human civilisation and sets the standards for human civilisation».  An example of such an Arab-Israeli union, for instance, is the creation of the investment fund Markets Credit Opportunity (EMCO) with 1 billion dollars from the Swiss banking group Credit Suisse AG and the involvement of three of the bank’s largest shareholders – Israel’s IDB Group, Qatar’s state investment fund Qatar Investment Authority, and Saudi private investment company Olayan Group.  Even more revealing is the fact that Saudi Arabia entrusted G4S, Israel’s oldest security company, with ensuring the security of pilgrims during their pilgrimage to Mecca (security perimeters – from the airport in Dubai to the Emirates and the Jeddah area). A Saudi branch of the company has secretly been in operation since 2010 and is able to collect personal information not just about pilgrims, but about passengers flying through Dubai as well.  As far as the planned «chaos in the Muslim world» is concerned, Israel is carrying this out by proxy, operating exclusively through intelligence agencies while maintaining the myth that it is «a victim of Islamism». On that score, Israel Shahak’s explanation as to why the publication of Israel’s strategic plan does not present any particular risk for Israel is still relevant.  Pointing out that this danger could only come from the Arab world and the US, he stressed: «The Arab World has shown itself so far quite incapable of a detailed and rational analysis of Israeli-Jewish society... In such a situation, even those who are shouting about the dangers of Israeli expansionism (which are real enough) are doing this not because of factual and detailed knowledge, but because of belief in myth... The Israeli specialists assume that, on the whole, the Arabs will pay no attention to their serious discussions of the future». There is a similar situation in America, where all the information about Israel comes from the liberal pro-Israeli press.  From this, Shahak comes to the following conclusion: «So long, therefore, as the situation exists in which Israel is really a «closed society» to the rest of the world, because the world wants to close its eyes, the publication and even the beginning of the realisation of such a plan is realistic and feasible».    (1) The map of «The New Middle East» // http://geopolitica.ru/Maps/2 (2) Will Greater Israel control the Middle East after the Arab Revolutions? //http://www.chechenews.com/world-news/worldwide/3555-1.html (3) Israel Shahak (1933-2001) was well-known for his criticism of Judaism and the racist views of Israeli politicians with regard to gentiles. As a professor of organic chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he was president of the Israeli League for Human Rights and Civil Rights, and published numerous research papers, including «The Non-Jew in the Jewish State», «Israel’s Global Role: Weapons for Repression», and «Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years».  (4) http://www.globalresearch.ca/greater-israel-the-zionist-plan-for-the-middle-east (5) Ibid. (6) This is described in Livia Rokach’s book «Israel’s Scared Terrorism» (1980), published by the same Association. The book is based on the memoirs of Moshe Sharett, the first Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs in history and former prime minister, and describes the Zionist plan with regard to Libya and the process of its development in the middle of the 1950s. The first massive invasion of Libya in 1978 contributed to the development of this plan down to the smallest detail, while the invasion in June 1982 was aimed at implementing part of the plan, in accordance with which Syria and Jordan were to be broken up.

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