A truly crazy piece in Haaretz says that the Palestinian statehood initiative could result in nuclear war. I can’t even follow the logic, but you can read the piece, by Louis Rene Beres. Let’s be clear. This kind of nuttiness happened all over India and Pakistan around Partition, with ethnic cleansing and nuclear threat and unending skirmishes. So I understand the paranoia. But the claim that the U.S. should be on Israel’s side through all this? Nuts.
Any Palestinian state would have an obviously injurious impact on U.S. strategic interests, as well as on Israel’s sheer physical survival….
Taking the presumed Israeli Bomb out of the “basement,” could enhance Israel’s overall security for a while; but over time, ending “deliberate ambiguity” could also heighten the chances of nuclear weapons use.
With a Palestinian state in place, a nuclear war could arrive in Israel not only as a “bolt-from-the-blue” surprise missile attack, but also as a result, intended or inadvertent, of escalation. If an enemy state were to begin with “only” conventional and/or biological attacks upon Israel, Jerusalem might respond, sooner or later, with fully nuclear reprisals.
