[Reader-list] The Other "Suicide Bombers"

[Yazad Jal]

http://www.frontpagemag.com/columnists/ponte/2002/ponte04-12-02.htm The Other "Suicide Bombers"
By: Lowell Ponte
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 12, 2002 
IN CHESS, THE BEST PLAYERS ARE ABLE to think ahead, recognizing the consequences that their next move could have 10, 20 or 30 moves later. Both sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict urgently need to consult with the geopolitical equivalent of such chess grandmasters.

The apparent goal of Palestinian extremists, for example, is to push Israel into the sea and take back 100 percent of its land. We can infer this because Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat 95 percent of everything the Palestinian leader demanded, but an uncompromising Arafat rejected this and re-ignited Intifada violence against the Jewish state.

What are the chances of Palestinians and the Arab nations winning by such violent tactics and all-or-nothing strategy? Zero, a chess master ought to tell them, and here is why.

If pushed to the sea�s edge, millions of Israelis would indeed flee to nations such as the United States wise enough to welcome those with their talents and intelligence.

But millions of Israelis would remain, and in a last-ditch stand they would fight to the death. This happened almost 2,000 years ago atop Masada, the Dead Sea mountaintop fortress where Jews took their own lives (technically not by suicide, but killed by a few who by lot had been picked to carry this sin) rather than surrender to Roman soldiers.

Today Israeli paratroopers and other soldiers go to this fortress and take an oath: "Masada shall not fall again." Psychologists describe the determination never to surrender of many Israelis as the "Masada Complex."

These remaining Jews, if pushed to the brink of annihilation, could and perhaps would take steps that would make today�s Palestinian "suicide bombers" look trivial by comparison. 

If Israel loses, neither the Palestinians nor any unfriendly nation within 2,000 miles would "win." Israel could take them all down with it. Israel could turn the entire Middle East into a smoking, radioactive hole in the ground. Israel could blast fertility out of the Fertile Crescent and leave the barren region clicking hot for hundreds of years. This might not be Biblical Armageddon, but it would be a reasonable facsimile.

At its Dimona 150-Megawatt heavy-water nuclear reactor, Israel for more than three decades has been creating and reprocessing Plutonium. Israel on July 13, 1998, acknowledged that it has "built a nuclear option not in order to have a Hiroshima but an Oslo [Peace Accord]." 

Most defense analysts estimate the number of Israeli nuclear weapons at up to 200, and one calculates that the Jewish State might possess up to 400 such weapons. Israel might also have manufactured a small number of H-bombs, thermonuclear explosives.

Israel has many delivery systems for these nuclear weapons. To mention only a few: 50 or so home-made Jericho-2 missiles reportedly can deliver a 2,200 pound payload to targets at least 900 miles away. Israel has been developing a Jericho-3 missile using space rocket Shavit technologies that can strike 2,900 miles away with the same 2,200 pound nuclear payload.

Israel already, according to MSNBC, possesses "25 nuclear capable F-15Es [and] about 80 older F-4 Phantoms." To understand what this means, an F-15E or Israel�s variant F-15I has a ferry range of up to 3,450 miles without refueling and can carry a payload weighing 23,000 pounds. The aging F-4E (not to mention Israel�s F-4/2000s) has a ferry range of about 1,550 miles and can carry a 16,000-pound payload.

Combat capability calculations are not based on the ferry range of aircraft, which replaces some weapon payload with extra fuel tanks. We instead assume that pilots fly out to a target and need fuel to return. But Israeli Kamikazis flying a one-way doomsday mission can expend all their fuel to reach a target. They could reach targets 80-90 percent of ferry range away with a compact nuclear weapon. Israel also can use FAST packs and other techniques to boost potential range, speed or payload.

In such a doomsday scenario, in fact, almost any of Israel�s hundreds and hundreds of aircraft could be used to deliver nuclear weapons if pilots were willing to become martyrs for their Jewish faith or nation.

Americans come from a big country. Those who have never visited the Middle East usually fail to understand its smaller scale. To envision the above doomsday scenario, consider some distances.