five to midnight by israel shamir

To the north of prosperous Hertzliya, the capital of Israeli high-tech
industry with its plentiful sushi-bars, there is a pleasant beach below a
steep, almost Pacific bank. It is an unattended shore, without lifeguards,
and it is frequented by nature-loving foreigners and the Palestinian
families on their outing to the nearby sanctuary of Sidna (Our Master) Ali.
If you will walk even further north, beyond the signs forbidding your
advance for the very real danger of avalanche, you will find yourself in a
secluded cove, a rarity on the straight line of the Palestinian shore. It is
a beautiful place for a swim in transparent waters of the Med. Big
earth-coloured boulders guard the cove; at a second careful look you will
understand that they are not a natural formation. They are bastions of the
Crusader castle of Arsur, whose ruins rise on the plateau well above the
beach. The bastions were overturned and dropped into the blue-green sea by
Baibars, a great Arab commander, the vanquisher of Mongols and Crusaders in
13th century.


Above: The Cove of Arsur
Some 150 years earlier, the Crusaders easily conquered the Holy Land, and
easily settled down. They built their castles and farmsteads, married local
Christian Orthodox and Armenian women, and could live happily ever after.
But they used to invite foreign adventurers and serve as the beachhead for
their landings, and proved their inability to fit in as a good neighbour.
They were given many chances, but they blew them all and remained a
potential ally to any foreign aggressor.

Then, the 'weak and feminine' Levant brought forth Baibars. It is not enough
to expel the Crusaders, he ruled, for it was tried by Saladin; but the
Franks came back. The only way to get rid of them is to destroy the shore of
Palestine so they will never be able to snatch it again. Castle after
castle, settlement after settlement, city after city, Baibars ruined the
seaside of the Holy Land: Caesarea, Askalon, Jaffa, Arsur. He regretted it,
but the alternative was an eternal warfare in the region.


Above:The overturned bastions of Arsur
It seems that history is about to repeat itself. Unless some unexpected turn
of events will occur, the sweet land of Palestine is doomed to perdition.
The German-built(!~!!!!!), US-equipped nuclear submarines of the Jewish
state poised to wreck havoc in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, make it abundantly
clear - there is no way Israel will become a decent neighbour in Levant.

The Jews were given a good chance to strike root in the land of Palestine
and make peace with the native population. But they blew it.

The recent unprovoked Israeli air strike into the depth of Syria reminded to
those who has forgotten that the Jewish state is an aggressive entity
dangerous for the region. Thirty years of calm between Syria and Israel were
dismissed by Sharon's generals as of no consequence. Nobody was fooled by
their clumsy attempt to connect Syria to the bloody act of personal
vengeance meted by the young woman from al-Halil whose brother and fiancé
were murdered and father refused medical help by the Israeli military.
Insightful Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad interpreted that
well: "Israel has been urging America to invade Syria, but Americans seemed
to be reluctant, so in order to force the US hand, Israel carried out the
air strike".

The problem of Israel is not the problem of Palestinian suffering anymore;
it is the problem for the entire region from India to Ethiopia (Esther, 1)
and beyond. Indeed, the fifth column of Israel-supporters instigates wars
all over the world, from Chechnya to Philippines, from North Korea to Cuba.
They push the world straight into Armageddon. John Bolton calls for takeover
of Iran, Murawiec demands to beat Saudi Arabia. The rabidly Zionist New York
Post lifts its sights to France, "one of America's ugliest enemies" led by
Chirac, "a moral pygmy whose lack of scruples is, fortunately, balanced by a
lack of courage and power." "France should be made to suffer, strategically
and financially. The French stabbed us in the back. In response, we should
skin them alive", continues the newspaper, and judging by the Zionist
record, it is not just a figure of speech.

The Jewish state is an extremely dangerous bundle of goods. It is part of
Israeli military doctrine: act crazy, and people will be scared of you. The
bogus threat of nuclear Iraq was modelled on the real threat of nuclear
Israel. Its scientists practice chemical and biological warfare, as well.
They actually tried nerve gas on demonstrators in Gaza, and water poisoning
at the siege of Acre, as reported Abu Sitta in Al-Ahram.

Israel is involved in a long line of kidnapping and assassinations carried
out on foreign soil. There is no immunity from the long arm of Israel: they
killed in Norway (the notorious Lillehammer affair), they kidnapped in Rome
(Vanunu affair), they bombed British library and American consulate (Lavon
affair), they sunk USS Liberty, they tried to assassinate Joseph Mugabe,
they probably assassinated the anti-Zionist US Secretary of State James
Forrestol, were involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, as
Michael Collins Piper in the Final Judgment makes clear, for the American
president insisted on nuclear disarmament of Israel. Recent assassination of
Anna Lindh, the Swedish Foreign Minister, who supported boycott of Israel,
still remains a mystery.

They are not particularly secretive: today we know who assassinated Count
Bernadotte in 1948, and who committed mass murder of German POW in 1946, and
who murdered the Egyptian POWs in 1956, for their perpetrators boast about
it. Tomorrow we shall know who did other atrocities. But our knowledge won't
help, for Israel is a safe haven for criminals. Whenever caught red-handed,
Israel brushed away the world public opinion, for as Ben Gurion, our first
Prime Minister said, 'what the goyim say is of no importance, only what the
Jews do is of importance'.

This sad record refreshed by the air strike on Syria and the preparation for
nuclear strike on Iran proves there is no way to make Israel a suitable
member of the community of nations. It also answers the question whether the
peace efforts and attempts to roll Israel back to its old borders are still
relevant. They are not. In borders of 67', 48' or 73', Israel remains a
bridgehead of aggression, a threat to world peace and a physical threat to
world leaders. Like the bloodthirsty sect of Assassins, who once plagued the
region, Israel-supporters undermine or murder better rulers, and support
weaklings who are prepared to act on their orders. Israel's withdrawal from
the West Bank will not change its nature. The leopard can't change his
spots, as Jeremiah the prophet had said (13:23).

Israel's behaviour is partly connected to the Jewish superiority complex,
and its consequence, the apartheid structure. The South Africa before
Mandela also was involved in destruction of its neighbours, Mozambique and
Namibia, and in many plots elsewhere in Africa. This superiority complex
should be treated by dismantling the apartheid state. The events of last
year proved it beyond reasonable doubt. Dismantlement by peaceful means of
democratisation is the only viable alternative to Israel's otherwise
inevitable ruination. While bringing the brinkmanship policy to the level of
'calculated madness', Israeli leaders failed to predict they will bring to
life a whole generation that does not care whether they are dead or alive.

Until recently, fear of Israeli retaliation kept its adversaries at bay. In
1991, the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein had powerful WMD, but he did not
use it against Israel, for he did not feel desperate. He believed the threat
of Israel to destroy Iraq if he uses WMD. He thought that he can survive the
defeat. He did not understand that Israeli idea of war is drawn on the
Jewish religious tradition that knows no mercy. If Saddam would know that
bodies of his tortured sons would lie in a Baghdad morgue, that he would be
turned into a homeless refugee, that his country will be ruined by ten years
of sanctions and afterwards become prey to Zionist invader, he might be well
tempted to do the Samson solution, and take the Jewish state with him into
nether regions in 1991.

Saddam Hussein is gone, but by now, every leader in the world knows what he
should expect if Israel asks its American Golem for his head. Paradoxically,
the very cruelty of Israel turned its threat into an empty sound, for if
they will do their worst anyway, it makes no sense to surrender to their
demands.

The Jews of Israel repeated the folly of Napoleon in Jaffa. In 1799, the
young Corsican general crossed the Sinai desert and marched north into
Palestine. Rafah and Ramleh surrendered to his troops, for the Palestinian
soldiers saw no reason to fight the passing European force. Napoleon
proceeded to the port of Jaffa, where six thousand strong garrison of the
city also preferred to surrender. They thought they will be disarmed and
sent home, to their villages, but Napoleon was reluctant to leave so many
enemy soldiers behind his lines and ordered to kill them all. It took the
French three days to kill such mass of people. They were brought in groups
from the Armenian St Nicolas' Convent to the shore and bayoneted.

After this massacre, all Palestine took to weapons. Napoleon's troops were
ambushed at every orange grove, and when he came to the walls of Acre, there
was no talk of surrender. People understood that it just makes no sense.
They could as well die fighting. After a few months of fruitless efforts,
Napoleon turned back, leaving his wounded soldiers to be slaughtered by
advancing enemy. In the gentrified centre of Jaffa, there is a squat
papier-mache figure of le petit caporal in his triangular hat reminding the
tourists and the locals of backfiring nature of cruelty, but probably the
Israeli leaders did not pay it sufficient attention when their policies
brought the country on the brink of destruction.

The heavy feeling of looming disaster is one of the unmentioned reasons
behind the 'One State Solution' we proposed and advocated. True, 'one state'
would be good for the Palestinians; it would be good for Israelis. But a new
partition, Two States' solution could also alleviate the Palestinian
suffering, as Prof Neumann and many moderate peace activists rightly noted.
It could be even preferred by the Israeli and Palestinian elites, though an
independent state in the West Bank and Gaza won't solve the problem of
refugees. However, in no way the partition would alleviate the threat to the
world peace poised by the rogue Jewish state, and it won't prevent the
imminent disaster in the Holy Land.

Even a smaller Jewish state will be the seat of Mossad and its assassination
unit, Kidon. Even a smaller Jewish state will possess nuclear weapons. Even
a smaller Jewish state will be poisoned by its deeply rooted and extremely
xenophobic ideology, and will remain a source of ideological contamination.
Even a smaller Jewish state will be heavily involved in politics of
subversion from Moscow to Washington, DC. And then, it is just a question of
time, when a pushed too far leader of a state - be it North Korea, Iran,
Egypt, or Russia - will remember the bodies of Saddam' sons and decide to
follow the path of Baibars and of Mongol sultans who removed the Assassins
from their eagle nests. For without Israel, the US forces would hang around
their bases in Georgia and Texas instead of seeking the Jew-haters in the
five continents. Demise of Israel is inevitable; the only question whether
it will be forcibly removed and the land destroyed, or it will be peacefully
absorbed in the region.

Equality in the Holy Land - it is not only a moral demand; it is the only
way to save the country of approaching destruction. Not us, not the
do-gooders or peace-lovers, but the inevitable course of events leads us to
the choice: equality or death.

Israeli cruelty, vengefulness and inability to respect others called
hundreds of Palestinians to the horrible martyrdom. If, or rather when a
potential martyr will be equipped with a miniaturised nuclear device instead
of home-made dynamite, the sad story of the Jewish state will be over.

The Jewish belt of Israel is quite small, and just two well-placed
half-megaton nuclear devices can wipe it off the face of Earth. It is
possible that in its last throes, it will make true its threat vocalised by
Prof van Crefeld of Hebrew University and 'go down by taking the world along
', for Israeli nuclear weapons are trained, according to van Crefeld, at
European capitals, as well as on the neighbours. But no amount of security
measures will be able to stop a nuclear suicide bomber, and she may
disregard the fate of people who failed to protect her and her family.

And then, some years later, the ruins of Tel Aviv will blend smoothly with
the ruins of Arsur.