UNM Israel Alliance

Dr. Mitchell Bard, Israel analyst and owner of the Virtual Jewish Library, came to speak in Albuquerque on Nov. 30, 2009.
The Albert Family, the Jewish Federation, the Israel Alliance and Hillel sponsored the talk, on “Will Israel Survive?”.

Dr. Bard spoke at the SUB at UNM in the afternoon, to a well mixed audience of students, people from the community, pro-Israel people and anti-Israel people.

In the evening, Dr. Bard spoke at the Jewish Community Center, also to a good audience. The subject of the talk was the same, but the questions during the question and answer period were along a different vein.
Here is Dr. Bard’s talk at the JCC:

Pt 1	Pt 2	Pt 3
Pt 4	Pt 5

by Louis René Beres, Professor of International Law
Department of Political Science at Purdue University
1 November 2009

“For By Wise Counsel, Thou Shalt Make Thy War”
Proverbs 24, 6

Still following his “Road Map,” President Barack Obama now seeks to create a twenty-third Arab state. Known, of course, as “Palestine,” this state would be carved from the living body of Israel, and would become an immediate and open enemy of the United States. In the end, the birth of Palestine could even enlarge regional and worldwide risks of both nuclear war and nuclear terrorism.

What should be Israel’s operational and doctrinal response to the U.S. supported Palestinian state? In part, Israel will need to clarify and possibly codify significant elements of its still-ambiguous nuclear strategy. One such element concerns the “Samson Option.”

At first glance, a Palestinian state would have no direct bearing on Israel’s nuclear posture. Yet, although non-nuclear itself, Palestine could still seriously impair Israel’s capacity to wage certain essential forms of conventional war. This, in turn, could heighten the Jewish State’s incentive to rely on unconventional weapons in perilous circumstances.

Confronting a new Arab state that could act collaboratively with other already-existing Arab states, Israel would feel itself compelled to bring elements of its long-secret nuclear strategy (the “bomb in the basement”) out into the light of day. Palestine, whether or not it would actively seek collaboration, could also be used militarily against Israel by other regional enemies.

Israel’s nuclear strategy, however ambiguous, is oriented toward deterrence. The “Samson Option” refers to a presumed policy that is based upon an implicit threat of massive nuclear retaliation for specific enemy aggressions. This policy could be invoked credibly only where such aggressions would threaten Israel’s national existence.

The main point of the Samson Option would not be to communicate the availability of a graduated Israeli nuclear deterrent. Rather, it would intend to signal the unstated promise of a counter city (“counter value” in military parlance) reprisal. The Samson Option is therefore unlikely to deter any aggressions short of nuclear and/or certain biological first strike attacks upon the Jewish State.

Samson would say this to all potential attackers: “We (Israel) may have to “die,” but (this time) we won’t die alone.” The Samson Option could serve Israel better as an adjunct to deterrence and certain preemption options than as a core nuclear strategy. The Samson Option should never be confused with Israel’s main security objective, which is to seek deterrence at much lower levels of possible conflict.

To strengthen Israeli nuclear deterrence, visible preparations for a Samson Option could help to convince enemy states that aggression would not be gainful. This is especially true if Israeli Samson preparations were coupled with some level of nuclear disclosure (i.e., ending Israel’s posture of nuclear ambiguity); if Israel’s Samson weapons appeared sufficiently invulnerable to enemy first strikes; and if these weapons were plainly “counter value” in mission function.

Samson could also support Israeli nuclear deterrence by demonstrating an Israeli willingness to take existential risks. Earlier, Moshe Dayan had understood this: “Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.”

In our topsy-turvy and often counter-intuitive nuclear world, it can sometimes be rational to pretend irrationality. The precise nuclear deterrence benefits of pretended irrationality would depend in part upon prior enemy state awareness of Israel’s counter value targeting posture. The Project Daniel Group, in its then-confidential report to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, recommended exactly such a posture more than six years ago.

To strengthen essential strategies of preemption, preparations for a Samson Option could convince Israel’s own leadership that defensive first strikes would be cost-effective. These leaders would expect that any Israeli preemptive strikes, known under international law as “anticipatory self-defense,” could be launched with reduced expectations of unacceptably destructive enemy retaliations. This expectation would depend upon previous Israeli decisions on nuclear disclosure; on Israeli perceptions of the effects of such disclosure on enemy retaliatory intentions; on Israeli judgments about enemy perceptions of Samson weapons vulnerability; and on presumed enemy awareness of Samson’s counter value force posture.

As with Samson enhancements of Israeli nuclear deterrence, last-resort nuclear preparations could enhance Israel’s preemption options by displaying a bold national willingness to take existential risks.

But pretended irrationality can be a double-edged sword. Brandished too “irrationally,” Israeli preparations for a Samson Option could possibly encourage enemy preemptions.

Left to themselves, neither deterred nor preempted, certain Arab/Islamic enemies of Israel, especially after the creation of a Palestinian state, could bring the Jewish State face-to-face with the palpable torments of Dante’s Inferno, “Into the eternal darkness, into fire, into ice.” Israeli strategic planners and political leaders, therefore, must now begin to acknowledge an obligation to dramatically strengthen their country’s nuclear security posture, and to ensure that any failure of nuclear deterrence will not then spark nuclear war or nuclear terror.

One way to meet this vital obligation, especially after President Obama’s continuing support for Palestine, would be to focus more productively on the Samson Option. Indeed, to ignore or reject this option altogether could ultimately imperil not only Israel, but also the United States.

——–

LOUIS RENÉ BERES was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books and articles dealing with Israeli security matters. He was Chair of Project Daniel, and recently published “Facing Iran’s Ongoing Nuclearization: A Retrospective on Project Daniel,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Vol. 22, No. 3., Fall 2009, pp. 491-514.

Left: Micah Kurz interviewing with Iris Keltz for Indymedia before his talk

On Wednesday, Sept. 30, I went to listen to the discussion which the “Stop the $30 Billion Coalition” and their new student group, “Coalition for Peace and Justice in the Mideast” put on. The event was covered twice in the Daily Lobo, on the front page, with photos.

The speaker was Micah Kurz, who divides his time between Jerusalem and New Mexico. Kurz was stationed in Hevron when he went into the IDF in 2001. He and a couple of friends started “Breaking the Silence” when they got out of the army. Kurz said that “Breaking the Silence” wants to say that some young IDF soldiers can’t handle the day to day stresses of working at checkpoints, get bored and irritated, and begin to behave rudely to people. He says they have too much freedom to use their own judgment, based on his own experience. If this were true, there would be effective ways to correct the problem, for instance shorter work rotations at checkpoints, more officers present, and so on. Dismantling security and giving up on the idea of having a Jewish state really does seem like a pretty extreme proposal for the problem of bored soldiers at checkpoints.

The point is, that the purpose of “Breaking the Silence” is not to address a procedural problem in the IDF, but to be a tool to advance the Left-Wing/Pan Arab “one state” agenda in Israel. Kurz in his talk, and the sponsors in the room all agreed several times during the talk that a “two-state” solution would never work, and only a one state solution according to the Arab plan, would work. The Jewish one state solution was never even mentioned. FM Lieberman was called a “filthy fascist” for saying that anyone living in Israel, whether Arab or Jew, should be loyal to the Jewish state and not work against the existence of the country.

Breaking the Silence begain its career with a photo exhibit in Tel Aviv, featuring photos that they and other soldiers took in Hevron. Frankly the pictures aren’t scandalous, and some are kind of nice. The worst: some Arab men are sitting on curbs blindfolded and hand-cuffed, under arrest. Presumably they were either released after awhile, or taken to jail, depending on the seriousness of the charges. They didn’t look scared or beat up, simply detained.

There was a picture of some Jewish boys vandalizing an Arab booth in the mostly closed shuk…in the middle of the Jewish section of town. Those same properties may not be used by Jews (but may be used by Arabs), even though they are owned by Jews and are in the middle of the Jewish section. The Palestinian Authority, with the permission of the Israeli government, even started an Islamic girls school in the middle of the Jewish section of Hevron, and buses in Arab girls from other areas to go to it. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a picture out of context can be just a lie.

However, the Israeli media and the left wing anti-Israel people of the world, like Micah Kurz and our own Iris Kelz, Rita Erickson, Lori Rudolph, Katherine Hughes-Fraitekh, and the Leicester ladies, Guida and Margaret, make a practice of lying about “settler attacks” on Arabs. It is so bad that the settlers’ own Arab neighbors in Israel feel obliged to step up and defend them at times:

From A7 news in Israel: IDF forces carried out several successful counterterrorism operations overnight, even as Monday saw a few sporadic attacks on Jewish targets. Media claims that Jews perpetrated violent vandalism against Arabs in Hevron were found to be false – with the help of Hevron Arabs.

Right: Local anti-Israel retiree at Pro-Hamas demonstration in front of UNM, Jan. ’09

Kurz bragged that “Breaking the Silence” has grown so much that the Israeli government has requested once again that EU countries quit funding the far left network of organizations in Israel, such as his “Breaking the Silence”, “Shalom Achshav” (Peace Now), “International Palestinian Solidarity Movement” (ISM), “B’Tselem” and “ICAHD”. Now he is starting another organization called “Grassroots Jerusalem” to better coordinate the efforts of the anti-Israel people in Israel. Their goal is to see Israel replaced with another Arab regime, and so they are legally traitors and could be tried for treason. Funding and aiding traitors and criminals in someone else’s country is not cool. Of course, these left wing people will tell you they would like the Jewish nation swept away, to be replaced by a “civil society”, a multi-cultural “democracy” full of joyful people like Gaza, Ramallah, Syria, Lebanon or Iran. Nation destroying is an expensive business, and they need your help.

Kurz mentioned how often his network bails Palestinians out of Israeli jails and sneaks people across checkpoints, as well as getting busloads of foreigners to Bi’ilin most Fridays for riots. It sounds like his group is at least sometimes aiding terrorists and criminals. Most of the suicide bombers in Israel were driven through checkpoints by Israeli Arabs.

These groups with their Palestinian allies don’t just damage Israel and Jews, though, in case you don’t think that’s reason enough to think badly of them. They use Palestinians as well, to fuel their political agenda of destroying the Jewish State and fulfilling the Pan-Arab dream of replacing Israel with a Muslim Arab regime. They support lies, violence and incitement intended to wear down Israel both domestically and internationally, and use the Palestinians as pawns, with no real regard for their welfare. “Peace” to these left-wingers, the Pan Arab movement and the Islamic movement means a world without Israel, and they have no compunction about creating Arab misery to achieve that goal.

The Palestinian Authority leaders like Arafat (who is dead now, but his wife and daughter live in luxury in France on EU funding and your tax dollars), Abbas, Erekat, Barghuti and their families drain the billions they get in foreign aid for their own enrichment and for their war against Israel. Consequently many of the areas under Palestinian control are lacking in good roads and utilities, water, sanitation, schools and hospitals. The money is provided for those things from international sources, but the PA diverts much of the money, rather than using it for the public good.

PA education teaches children to believe Arabs suffer because of Israel, not because of the corruption of Arab leadership, and teaches children to want war and martyrdom to “free Palestine”. Left wing people will tell us Arab parents don’t want their children to learn to hate. Maybe they should consider homeschooling then, and keep away from the Al Aqsa mosque, where PA sponsored hate tirades against Jews are common.

Kurz and the new student group hope to recruit UNM students to go to Israel to work as interns for his latest group, Grassroots Jerusalem. What an honor for an American student to be able to travel so far to help destroy Israel and abuse Palestinians!

What was the purpose of this event? This event and the wider boycott, divestment and defunding movement that spawned it intend to influence the American public to hate Israel. Why? So that we will elect a Congress that will join the US to the international movement against Israel.

Video of foreign agitators in Bi’ilin during IDF search and arrest on an Arab house. These agitators are posted there permanently in order to keep Bi’ilin in a state of uproar. They use local people to advance their political cause, not caring what damage they do. Pushy girl, drunk boy and obnoxious old Americans in Bi’ilin lecturing Israeli soldiers about the efforts of Americans to wage economic war on Israel, such as we see in Albuquerque, UNM and across the country.

The peace and justice people have no problem with any nation in the world existing as a sovereign state with a national religion, culture and ethnicity, except for the only Jewish nation in the world. They would like you to believe there is no bigotry in that. They want you to believe Israel is the worst nation on earth and that their own motives are pure. They have a broad and well financed network and spend enormous amounts of money to deceive you. As a step on that long and dishonorable road, Micah Kurz came to speak at UNM on Wednesday.