Three Editorials that will never be published in Israel

“Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me …

And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown …

And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he said that he would do …”

From the Book of Jonah

Below, are three editorials, which will never be published in Israel, but could well be published at the appropriate times in a prominent newspaper in the United States. 

Every day that passes makes them increasingly plausible.

In what follows, all of the dates were chosen deliberately.

© 21/08/2004

Editorial 1 of 3: 12 April, 2006

Yizkor – יזכור

In Memoriam:

In memory of a valiant little nation that lost its nerve a minute before its redemption

One month ago, the world in which we lived was shattered. Simultaneous nuclear blasts of approximately twenty kilotons apiece, effectively leveled the centers of Israel’s three largest cities, Tel Aviv, Haifa and West Jerusalem. A further string of smaller blasts of about half a kiloton apiece, wiped out the central populated areas from Gedera in the south to Hadera, north of what was Tel Aviv. It is now known that the bombs used were enhanced and modified tactical devices, some 120 of which found their way from the Ukraine in early 1999, to Pakistan, then to Afghanistan and then via who knows how many hands, to the perpetrators. One of the “enhancements” involved packaging the bombs in special cobalt containers, which ensured that anyone close enough to ground zero, not killed in the main blasts, would suffer a lethal dose of radiation.

No one is certain who did this thing. The known terror groups such as Al Qaida have been strangely silent, and those claiming responsibility lack credibility. But the results are clear: Israel suffered over two million casualties from the direct blasts, and during the following week, around three million more people appear to have either died or become terminally ill from the radiation effects. The fact that about half a million Palestinians were wiped out didn’t seem to bother those responsible.

The levels of radioactivity near the centers have all but prevented any kind of aid from reaching the stricken areas and to make matters worse the neighboring countries have “occupied” adjacent areas with the supposed interest of rendering aid to the population. Egypt has occupied the Negev, Jordan has occupied the center of the country and Syria has taken over the Golan and the Galil areas. Barely a week later we began to see armed clashes between the occupying powers, so no one could have any doubts as to their real intentions.

It may be of some relief to know that the Egyptians found the Dimona Nuclear Center a boiling radioactive slagheap, reminiscent of the Chernobyl disaster. It is equally a relief to know that the Soreq nuclear installation went up in a string of conventional explosions releasing a flood of yet to be identified radioactive material. The blasts seem to have been triggered by the entry of Egyptian troops into the area.

How thoughtful of the Israelis not to leave us with a very nasty problem.

Unfortunately however, the Israeli Air Force is largely unaccounted for, and no one has any idea to where Israel’s four ocean-going submarines have disappeared. It is thought that the latter were armed with cruise type missiles with multiple nuclear warheads.

And what of relief from the international community for any survivors? As usual, the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations became so ensnared in the details of their own one sided rhetoric as to render nugatory the chance of any succor from that direction.

But what happened? Did the Israeli Government with all its intelligence arms have no inkling of what was going on under its nose? The chances are that it did not. The USA was caught out on September 11, 2001, mostly out of complacency, misplaced trust and vested interests. Israel however was maneuvered into divesting herself of Gaza and most of the West Bank, allowing deployment of international control – which was, as to be expected, completely impotent against terrorist infiltration and subsequent occupation of those areas. The supposed humanitarian reasons for removing equally “supposed” Israeli occupation of those areas are now shown to be as vacuous as the Nationalist Israeli groups claimed them to be. Most of the West Bank Palestinians are either dead or dying and population of the Gaza strip is simply dying of thirst and starvation. (The water pumps supplying Gaza were located in Israel, and in any event, the water supplies they drew upon are contaminated with radioactive fallout.) There is no doubt that Israel’s capitulation to the international demands resulted from the strange mix of stupidity and cupidity that have characterized her international relations since the state was founded in 1948. The moral turpitude and rank cowardice of successive Israeli governments is completely at odds with the personal valor and resourcefulness of her leaders in the face of battle. Did Israel lose its nerve because somewhere, it lost its sense of purpose and direction? 

Even if we were to accept Arab rhetoric as Gospel truth, none of Israel’s sins warranted genocide.

How strange, is the unholy silence of the Holy See, for the second time in living memory.

How strange, is the silence of all those human rights groups, which apparently regard the murder of over five million human beings, because of their race or nationality, as being less important than the preservation of an endangered species of penguins. And indeed, the Jewish people are now very much an “endangered species”. If you should care to ask, “So what?” then, for a start have a look at the number of Jewish Nobel Prize laureates compared with any other identifiable group on this planet. And remember also, that the total worldwide Jewish population has never exceeded about 18 millions.

One month ago, the world in which we lived shattered. The world never understood, indeed never wanted to understand that Hitler’s Holocaust was not just a Jewish tragedy. This latest atrocity may prove to be even more a general human tragedy than just a Jewish one.

The Jews of the world lost their dream of more than 2000 years a minute before its fulfillment.

But, what of us who live? We the living, have lost our humanity. And again, should you care to ask, “So what?” then, listen carefully to the rolling drums of Jihad from the East, financed and nurtured by the industries of the West. We have sown a storm, and we will yet reap a hurricane.

The Last Kaddish

A month has passed, and it is a matter of record that most of the known Jewish communities have simply dropped out of sight, as if swallowed up by the earth. Here and there, you can still talk to some of the better-known Jewish leadership. But their words ring hollow; they represent ghosts.

When the clash between East and West has passed, and after we have paid for our inhumanity in full, perhaps it will be an Eternal Jew, who will come cautiously out of hiding, to dig our graves, perhaps shed a tear that none of us deserve, and declaim,

Yitgadal ve-yitkadash Shemei Rabba!

Magnified and sanctified be His Great Name!

Editorial 2 of 3: 22 September, 2007

Nemesis

A moment of sanity in a time of madness

Eighteen months ago the world witnessed an act of madness resulting in the destruction of the state of Israel, and the near disappearance of most of the worldwide major Jewish communities. The response of the world was silence, whether out of indifference, disbelief, or maybe even numbness. And then once again madness struck. The Pope’s last Easter address at St Peter’s Square was cut short barely seconds after he began to speak – by a Lau missile, which smashed into the podium killing the Pontiff, and seven of his immediate entourage. Rather unsurprisingly and within minutes, several extremist Islamic groups both on the air and over the Internet were claiming “credit” for the murder. The missile launcher was found, free of fingerprints and any identifying marks. The operator was not.

But that was just the beginning. A month later, in May, cardinals from all over the world, entered into Conclave to elect a new heir to St. Peter’ throne. After several inconclusive rounds of voting followed by the traditional plume of black smoke from the Sistine Chapel, the world was suddenly treated to a great white cloud, not of a plume emerging from the Chapel, but one in the shape of a mushroom. A nuclear blast of about 70 kilotons wiped the Vatican City off the map, along with the immediate surrounding suburbs.

Once again, terrorist groups of all sorts – Islamic, Maoist and the like, were quick to jump on the bandwagon, but their joy was short lived. Exactly 24 hours later, two more explosions occurred. One of about 150 kiloton yield, turned the center of Mecca into a radioactive crater 700 meters across and about 30 meters deep – leaving no trace of the Kabbah stone, Islam’s holiest shrine. As if to add insult to injury, the device appears to have been cased in Cobalt 60, ensuring that the site would remain radioactive for years to come. The second bomb, somewhat smaller, pulverized the center of Medina, Islam’s second most holy place.

This time the shock led to silence from the Islamic states and extremist groups, and then a day or so later, a spate of ludicrous accusations against US sponsored Zionist Jewish renegades and the like. If such rhetoric was ridiculous enough when Israel and the world wide Jewish communities existed, it was now palpable nonsense, reflecting sadly on the sanity of those who persist in repeating it.

But still that was not the end. As if to put paid to the Jewish-Zionist ogre theories for all time, another week later saw a fourth device, of about 150 kiloton blast the already stricken city of Jerusalem, this time reducing the Old City to rubble but leaving standing one row of charred stones – the massive foundation blocks of the Wailing Wall on the edge of a crater that was once the Temple Mount.

The total destruction of the centers of Christianity, Islam and Judaism will provide endless editorial material for journalists, student of political science and theologians alike. Whatever they will say or write will never really plumb the depth of what has happened. 

Within the space of a further four months the world changed again. The Catholic Church, as a monolithic central body has ceased to exist. All the cardinals bar several over 80 years old and a few who were not in Rome for health reasons are dead. For the first time in 2000 years the Apostolic succession has been broken. Archbishops all over the world have already assumed local authority. Where shock, desertion or sheer indifference has not destroyed the Catholic Church, a new decentralized leadership is beginning to emerge, hopefully capable of responding to both the spiritual and material needs of the populations it serves, maybe offering an infusion of new hope and faith. Perhaps the time has come for the shattered Roman Church to make peace and common cause with the other Christian denominations for the good of us all.

The Moslem world is also in chaos. The very idea that anyone, be it believer or infidel could strike at the very heart of Islam totally destroying it, has not yet been grasped. Local centers are sprouting all over the Islamic world, lead typically by charismatic personalities each claiming to be the true reincarnation or heir to the Prophet Mohammed. Some of them even claim to have pieces or all of the Kabbah stone, spirited to them by miracle, a second before the blast. Unlike the changes in the Christian world, these developments can only be troubling. Mystic movements fueled by the fanaticism and terror of Islamic extremism, are all too well known. Now, add to that, the disenchantment of millions of Moslem believers left devoid of faith and ready to embrace any alternative, which may fill the gap. We have here a recipe for chaos and war, which dwarf the most terrible end-of-time prophecies of the Book of Revelations.

Five months have passed since the Vatican and Mecca were destroyed. No one has the faintest idea as to the identity of the real perpetrators. There are just theories. Common to most of them are all sorts of conspiracy theories ultimately blaming the Israelis. It is true that the four Israeli nuclear-armed submarines and a good part of her air force remain unaccounted for to this day, but there is not a shred of tangible evidence connecting them to what happened. And further, this time no one has come forward to claim responsibility.

Nevertheless, nuclear weapons are deployed and detonated by people, not by some avenging Old Testament Deity. The choice of targets demonstrates that the people behind these four atomic blasts wanted to make a point. With apologies to William Shakespeare, were they saying,  “A plague on all your houses”? Were they saying, that the day of centralized religions and the politics deriving from them have come and gone? Perhaps they were trying to tell us that in order to survive as a species, man would need to find another way to relate to himself and to his God or gods.

In our view, the people – human beings like all of us, who committed these acts, were no less evil than the evil (as perceived by them) that they destroyed. Unlike “conventional terrorists” they did not threaten, extort or kidnap. They simply acted in a way as if to say, “You will pay attention and take heed”. If these people in making their point, are prepared do so in such a manner, one can only tremble at what lesson they may choose to inflict next, if their point is not taken.

Let us take a moment of sanity in a time of madness. Would it hurt to pay attention and take heed? It is paradoxical that maybe some good may yet come out from all this evil.

Editorial 3 of 3: 20 May, 2008

Nemesis (2)

Revenge or cleansing?

One week ago, the world suffered yet another round – the third, of nuclear explosions. The nuclear and rocketry development centers of Iran, Pakistan and North Korea were destroyed in near simultaneous ground blasts estimated to be about 150 kilotons each. But this time there may be a clue as to who was behind them and why. Within minutes of the attacks, the major news centers of the world were deluged with a spate of electronic mail all carrying the same message. In essence it claimed that during 2003-2004, three Dolphin class submarines of the defunct state of Israel, had been converted from diesel-electric power to nuclear power. They were stripped of all armaments other than multiple warhead cruise type missiles capable of delivering 150-kiloton nuclear blasts. They were manned by small elite crews, whom in addition to their normal operational duties, were also trained for a doomsday role. The message went on to explain that each stage of the doomsday operation would proceed if world did not take suitable steps after the previous one. No explanation of  “suitable steps” was offered. There was no indication as to how a decision to proceed would be made or by whom. The last part of the message was most troubling: It said, “The world is now largely free of rogue states having nuclear weapons and the ability to use them. This is your last chance to display the determination required to ensure that events like 13 March 2006 (the destruction of the state of Israel – ed.), will never happen again. In any event, this is the last time we say to you all – Shalom”.

All the flap in the United Nations and the Security Council over “hunting down and destroying the Zionist murderers” is pointless. We should assume that three advanced nuclear powered submarines would be so equipped that their crews would know if they are being hunted and tracked. How such people having lost all and with nowhere to go, will react in extremis requires little imagination.  Does anyone remember how Samson of the Bible behaved in his last moments? We would do well to forget about three submarines, which sooner or later will need to return to a nonexistent port in a nonexistent country. Instead, as we suggested in our “Nemesis” editorial of 22 September 2007, we should pay attention and take heed. It is now possible to cleanse the world of the evil of nuclear terror, which has brought us to this point.  One way or another, we will bring about our own destruction if we ignore the opportunity. What difference does it make to the dead if they were murdered by terror extortionists or by self-appointed ex-Israeli angels of death?

Read the last sentence of the email message again:  “ In any event, this is the last time we say to you all – Shalom”. Think carefully of what it could mean.

Postscript: Is it plausible?

Introduction

It is all too easy to dismiss the above scenario as a piece of farfetched political science fiction. Unfortunately recent worldwide developments in political and financial affairs (are they that different?) point to the emergence of something very ugly even if it is only the transformation of the so called open democracies to closed near-totalitarian states all in the interest of defense against international terror. That of itself is a win to the terrorists. We don’t need to reach the point of tactical nuclear exchanges.

In the following sections I offer several Internet sites, which I found useful in giving my scenario a touch of reality.

1.  Energy Yield from Nuclear Explosions

The following site contains tables of destructive radius for yield at various heights. If it becomes inaccessible, I can supply the text.

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/2742/numbers.htm

2. Israel’s Submarines – A Second Strike Strategy

The amount of detail on this site is quite incredible. See

http://www.israeli-weapons.com/index.html

In particular, go to

http://www.israeli-weapons.com/weapons/naval/dolphin/Dolphin.html

Here is a non-Israeli site with a cutaway diagram:

http://users.skynet.be/RonSubCovers/Dieselsub/U-212%20GE.htm

This is a German site on the same subject:

http://users.otenet.gr/~kostast/212.htm

3. Availability of Tactical Nuclear Weapons to Terror Groups

There is not much of substance on this subject, but a lot of rumors. The story about the pilfered Ukrainian devices is true, something of the order of 120 tactical devices having found their way to Pakistan around the New Year of 1998. In February 2004 someone claiming to speak for al Qaida admitted that the group had acquired tactical nuclear weapons. The claim was given little cover off the Internet, and seems to have been quickly “forgotten”. Why? Whose toes were being trod upon?

4. Israel Doomsday Policy as a Deterrent

It is well known that submarines offer any country having them a second-strike capability. That is in itself something of a deterrent. I do not know if the Israeli Military has a contingency plan for doomsday style retaliation as I have described. It would fit military thinking, but Israeli politics and politicians are so superficial, small-town and steeped in silly preconceptions, that I doubt it. Perhaps Begin and Ben Gurion may have been willing to consider such things, but I doubt that any of their successors have had the mental flexibility, capacity or courage to face such an eventuality. Nevertheless, even if there were a credible rumor of the existence of such a plan, it would have to give Israel’s enemies pause for thought.

5. And a little Black Humor …

Below is a radial map of Mecca centered on the Kabba Stone. Notice a large rectangular building marked W.C. in the northeast quadrant a little to the right of the “Marwan”, the north south passageway that leads into the Kabbah stone area. Given the relative size of the block, its purpose, and the size of the population it is expected to service, it should be a multi-floor reinforced concrete structure.

The second editorial, “Nemesis” of 22 September 2007 describes the destruction of the Kabbah stone area:

“… Exactly 24 hours later, two more explosions occurred. One of about 150 kiloton yield, turned the center of Mecca into a radioactive crater 700 meters across and about 30 meters deep – leaving no trace of the Kabbah stone, Islam’s holiest shrine. As if to add insult to injury, the device appears to have been cased in Cobalt 60, ensuring that the site would remain radioactive for years to come. The second bomb, somewhat smaller, pulverized the center of Medina, Islam’s second most holy place.”

The blast strength was calculated to leave the W.C. (circled) standing.

Sic transit gloria Islamia.