April—August 2002

Terrorism Isn't Rocket Science
by Richard Maltz and David Maggin

Let's imagine the United States was under threat of constant attack on both our Canadian and Mexican borders and the United Nations was demanding that we surrender control of South Carolina, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Southern California to our historical enemies so they can set up their own country in the middle of ours. Further, in an effort to maintain peace, we are encouraged to divide Washington, D.C. in half and let our antagonists set up their capital there. Meanwhile, our opponents in the negotiations are conducting deadly terrorist bombing attacks in New York City and Washington, killing hundreds of American citizens. Given these circumstances, what would be the right and reasonable thing for the American government to do? Such is analogous to the predicament Ariel Sharon and the Israelis face today.

In the Six-Day War, Israel captured Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem. But they didn't capture these territories from Yasser Arafat; they captured them from Jordan's King Hussein. We can't help but wonder why the Palestinians suddenly discovered their national identity after Israel won the war. The truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never-Never Land. There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc. The Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of 1 percent of the landmass. But that's too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today. No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough.

And what about the Palestinian claim that Jerusalem contains Islamic holy sites? There are none in Jerusalem. We don't expect you will ever hear this from anyone in the media. It's just not nice or politically correct. But the fact remains that the Qur'an says nothing about Jerusalem. It mentions Mecca hundreds of times. It mentions Medina countless times. But it never mentions Jerusalem, and with good reason: there is no historical evidence to suggest Mohammed ever visited Jerusalem!

Frankly, we don't believe there's a peaceful solution to the current violence in the Middle East. Treating a 5,000-year-old birthright backed by overwhelming historical and archaeological evidence equally with illegitimate claims, wishes and wants gives diplomacy and peacekeeping a bad name.

As an aside, while we have long maintained that recourse to, or endorsement of, Terrorism (and we do have a firm and objective standard regarding terrorism) automatically delegitimizes any movement and its followers (regardless of their plight); it has recently occurred to us that there are even broader implications to rampant, nationalistic terrorism. In short, it is an invitation to genocide.

To wit: The nature of civilization is that it is a framework wherein people may live together, however fractiously. Great wars may be fought; but a few rules essential to the preservation of any organized society will prevail. The truly barbarous know no such rules, cannot be made to live with the civilized, and must be exterminated as a threat to all mankind no less dangerous (or deserving of compassion) than a plague. There are relatively few things that separate the civilized from the truly barbarous. We would argue that paramount among these is a respect for the sanctity of innocent life, especially women and children, and when possible, civilian populations as a whole. Historically, this line has seldom been crossed by any tribal, royal, or national entity. This sanctity is not an absolute thing. It is quite common for innocents to be injured or killed as "collateral damage" in a strike against a legitimate military target; but the deliberate, wholesale slaughter of women and children clearly separates the terrorist from mankind, renders their humanity nominal, and legitimizes their extermination.

By endorsing terrorism as a national policy, Palestinian Arabs in particular and Arabs in general are paving the path for their own annihilation. We do not believe that this is accidental. We believe that Yasser Arafat and all those who follow and support him, having failed at every attempt at legitimate warfare, are now deliberately maneuvering Israel into a position where their only alternative to national suicide is genocide inflicted upon the Arabs (or at least the Palestinian Arabs). They are counting (almost certainly correctly) that the Israelis are the last people on Earth who would resort to such measures, and that this conundrum will induce a paralysis in the Israelis that they can ultimately use to destroy them (indeed, this was in fact happening, and is likely to happen again).

Europe, having never outgrown 2,000 years of vitriolic anti-Semitism, would clearly be happy to see Israel expire; and the US, under a past or future Democrat administration, can be counted upon to do no more than wring its hands in frustration and dim the national Christmas tree lights in response to the ultimate destruction of Israel (it is a great irony lost on most American Jews that only Republican administrations can be counted upon to take aggressive action in support of Israel; the latent "progressivism" of the Democrats requires them to actually secretly support the non-European/Western/Caucasian party (read history in general and Jimmy Carter's memoirs in particular, if you doubt this)).

Also, it should be noted that peace between Israel and sovereign Arab countries (who have broad national interests) and peace between Israel and the PLO (who are only interested in destroying Israel) are very different propositions (the former theoretically achievable and the latter not). Finally, (and this was obvious to us at the time) the entire "Oslo Peace Process" was never anything other than a fraud (on the part of the Arabs) and a delusion (on the part of Israel, the US, and Europe). It never had the slightest hope of success.

Far too much time, energy and [innocent] blood has been spilt in the Middle East. It's time to take decisive action. We need to take out the terror regimes in Iran, Iraq and Syria. Then say to the Palestinians: "You have two choices: You can live as civilized citizens or you can be next."

Richard Maltz, Founder and Director of the Military Quality Institute, is an experienced Defense Analyst and Intelligence Officer specializing in Tactical Intelligence, Counter-Intelligence, Electronic Warfare/Cryptography, Aerial Surveillance, Security Management and Nuclear-Biological-and-Chemical Defense.
David Maggin is the Founding Managing Director of Triumph PC Group.