Tag: Oslo Road Map

Regarding the Oslo Accords and Israel's vulnerability to war, Israeli security has become increasingly dependent upon nuclear weapons and strategy. Faced with a codified and substantial loss of territories generated by Oslo, the Jewish state will soon have to decide on precisely how to compensate for its expectedly diminished strategic depth. While this shrinkage will not necessarily increase Israel's existential vulnerability to unconventional missile attack, it surely will increase that state's susceptibility to attacking ground forces and to subsequent enemy occupation. Any loss of strategic depth will almost certainly be interpreted by enemy states as a significant weakening of Israel's overall defense posture, an interpretation that could then lead to substantial enemy incentives to strike first.

When I first wrote in The Jewish Press about the problems of Palestinian demilitarization in February 1998, Benjamin Netanyahu was Israel's prime minister. Today, he has again assumed the same position, and is still on record against full statehood for "Palestine." He continues to speak more or less obliquely of Palestinian "self-rule," "autonomy," or "attributes of restricted sovereignty."

Can the Sharon government protect Israel's citizens? Clearly, "disengagement" will open the door widely to "Palestine." In consequence, once deprived of its remaining strategic depth, Israel will become an irresistibly tempting object for aggression by certain enemy states.