Implications of Palestine for Israeli security

It's time for the world to realize that a two-state solution will lead to risks of nuclear war.

By LOUIS RENÉ BERES
Activists hold up welcome to Palestine signs at airport 370 (photo credit: Ben Hartman)
Activists hold up welcome to Palestine signs at airport 370
(photo credit: Ben Hartman)
No matter who is elected US president in November, a new state of Palestine will likely be carved out of Israel. Whether it is Barack Obama or Mitt Romney in the White House, this 23rd Arab state – with probable support from Washington – will quickly extend itself incrementally, beyond previously agreed-upon borders, and beyond the Green Line boundaries of Israel proper.
Strategically, this Palestinian state will have a devastating impact on Israel's survival options, and, more generally, on war in the Middle East. Although widely unrecognized, this ominous impact, together with assorted implications for US security, could include even nuclear terrorism and nuclear war.
In the absence of Palestine, Israel's survival would still depend on self-reliance in all military matters. Such reliance, in turn, would demand, among other things: (1) a comprehensive nuclear strategy involving deterrence, preemption, and war fighting capabilities; and (2) a corollary conventional strategy.  The birth of Palestine would affect these strategies in several important ways.
A Palestinian state, by definition, would make Israel's conventional capabilities substantially more problematic, and thereby heighten the chances of a regional nuclear war.  Although Palestine itself would obviously be non-nuclear, its overall strategic impact could still be magnified and exacerbated by continuously-unfolding and always unpredictable developments in Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. In specifically military parlance, the net effect of such force-multiplying developments, especially if they are intersecting, could be decisively synergistic.
Ultimately, 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 certain already extant enemy states were to begin conventional and/or biological attacks upon Israel, Jerusalem might respond, sooner or later, with aptly 'proportionate' nuclear reprisals.  Or, if these enemy states were to begin with conventional attacks upon Israel, Jerusalem's own conventional reprisals might be met, in the future, with enemy nuclear counter-strikes.
For now, this would become possible only if a still-nuclearizing Iran were spared all forms of Israeli or American preemptive interference, actions appropriately identifiable in law as "anticipatory self-defense.” But as a preemptive attack against Iran now seems operationally implausible, it is altogether reasonable to assume that a persuasive Israeli conventional deterrent, to the extent that it would prevent enemy conventional and/or biological attacks in the first place, could reduce Israel's escalatory exposure to a nuclear war.
Why should Israel need a conventional deterrent at all?  Even after the birth of Palestine, wouldn't rational enemy states desist from launching any conventional, and/or biological attacks upon Israel, for plausible fear of a nuclear retaliation?  Not necessarily. Aware that Israel would cross the nuclear threshold only in very extraordinary circumstances; these enemy states could be convinced that as long as their attacks remained entirely non-nuclear, Israel would always respond in kind.
The only credible way for Israel to deter large-scale conventional attacks after the creation of Palestine would be by maintaining visible and large-scale conventional capabilities.  Of course, enemy states contemplating first-strike attacks using chemical and/or biological weapons are apt to take Israel's nuclear deterrent more seriously – whether newly-disclosed or still “ambiguous.”  Israel needs a strong conventional capability to deter or to preempt conventional attacks; attacks that could quickly lead to various forms of unconventional war.
In this case, US-supported Oslo and Road Map for Peace expectations would critically impair Israel's strategic depth, and consequently degrade the country's capacity to effectively wage conventional warfare.
However unforeseen, Palestine would have corrosive effects on power and peace in the Middle East.  The creation of another enemy Arab state would come at the territorial expense of Israel; the Jewish State's strategic depth would promptly diminish.  Over time, Israel's capacity to ward off enemy attacks could be reduced. 
Paradoxically, if enemy states were to perceive Israel's expanding weakness and possible desperation, this could mean a welcome strengthening of Israel's nuclear deterrent.  If, however, front-line enemy states did not perceive such a "sense" among Israel's decision-makers, these states, animated by Israel's conventional force deterioration, could then be encouraged to attack.  The result, spawned by Israel's post-Palestine incapacity to maintain strong conventional deterrence, could be: (1) defeat of Israel in a conventional war; (2) defeat of Israel in an unconventional chemical/biological/nuclear war; (3) defeat of Israel in a combined conventional/unconventional war; or (4) defeat of Arab/Islamic state enemies by Israel in an unconventional war.
For Israel, a country less than half the size of Lake Michigan, even the "successful" fourth possibility could prove intolerable. The consequences of a nuclear war, or even a chemical/biological war, could be calamitous for the victor as well as the vanquished.  In such conditions of exceptional belligerency, the traditional notions of "victory" and "defeat" would lose all serious import. Although a tangible risk of regional nuclear war in the Middle East exists independently of creating a Palestinian state, this risk would increase considerably if such a new terror state were countenanced.
Washington as well as Jerusalem must understand this critical point, not only for Israel’s sake, but also because any state of Palestine could turn into a breeding ground for al-Qaida or other jihadist preparations for anti-American terror. In essence, allowing the creation of Palestine could pose grave danger to the citizens of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, as well as those in Haifa, Herzliya, and Tel Aviv.
Whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney sits in the White House in late January 2013, it is finally time to realize that a so-called “two-state solution” in the Middle East remains an enemy contrivance. Before any new state of Palestine could be born, a hideously determined gravedigger would have to wield the forceps.
The writer lectures and publishes widely on Israeli security matters. In Israel, he was chair of Project Daniel. Educated at Princeton University, he is currently a professor of political science and international law at Purdue University. He was born in Zürich, Switzerland, on August 31, 1945.