Ehud Olmert’s “Convergence” Plan for the West Bank and U.S. Middle East Policy

As previously noted, the implementation of an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank is likely to destabilize both Israel and Jordan. The destabilization of these two U.S. allies will directly impactAmerica’s national security in the following ways:

•  First, it will endanger U.S. military assets warehoused in both countries. It will endanger the land supply routes to U.S. forces in Iraq. One of the supply routes currently serving U.S. military forces in Iraqis the overland route from Israel through Jordan. Both materiel and petroleum are transferred to U.S. forces in this manner. In addition, Iraqi forces receive training in Jordan. The destabilization of Jordan and the exposure of Israeli roads and ports to increased terror threat will endanger these activities.

•  Since the U.S. led invasion of Iraq, terrorist forces have infiltrated Iraq mainly from Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia where they have also been training for their missions. Their connection with Palestinian terror forces has been largely coordinated by Damascus and Tehran and by Hizbullah leaders in south Lebanon. Although Palestinian terrorists have taken part in hostilities against U.S. forces in Iraq, these Palestinian terror elements have largely been based in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq itself.

An Israeli retreat from the West Bank would enable the terror forces combating the U.S. in Iraq to establish training bases and political indoctrination centers in the West Bank. Such bases would operationally link the Palestinian campaign against Israel with the terror war against the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and their Iraqi allies.

•  Politically, an Israeli retreat from the West Bank would enhance the prestige of the states and political/terror factions and movements that sponsor Palestinian terror groups. Specifically, Iran, Syria, their client Hizbullah and Sunni radicals in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Turkey, Egypt and throughout the Persian Gulf and central Asia will be strengthened politically by the Israeli withdrawal. All of these forces also comprise the backbone of the international Islam of ascist forces currently engaged in war against the U.S. and its other allies around the world.[44]

• It has recently been suggested that the enhancement of Iran’s international prestige together with the establishment of an Iranian operational base in the West Bank could induce Teheran to take steps to block U.S. naval traffic in the Straits of Hormuz. This threat to U.S. naval control of the Persian Gulf, together with the destabilization of U.S. supply routes through Israel and Jordan, could have severe repercussions for U.S. national security interests and economic interests.[45] Clearly, when taken together with Iran’s current nuclear brinkmanship and its intensified attempts to destabilize Iraq and demonize pro-Western elements in Iraqi society, the empowerment of Iran by an Israeli pullout from the West Bank constitutes a direct blow to U.S. national security interests.

•  On an operational level, an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank will also strengthen the terror-supporting de facto state of Palestine bordering Israel, Jordan and Egypt.  This de facto state, together with its allies Syria, Iran and Hizbullah, will provide a training, logistics and information warfare base for terrorist groups currently at war with the United States. In short, an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank will enable the establishment of a new base of operations for global terrorism along the model of Lebanon in the 1970s in the best case scenario, and along the lines of Taliban-led Afghanistan in the worst case scenario.

Since one of the declared aims of the War on Global Terror is to deny bases of operation to terrorists, the establishment of just such a base will constitute a major defeat for the United States. The fact that such a base will be established in an area of strategic importance to America will translate into a significant threat to U.S. forces and interests in the region.