Three problems, Dr. Pipes.

Submitted by Aymenn Jawad (United Kingdom), May 2, 2010 at 06:45

Dr. Pipes:

1. Why do you include Syria in this list of threats? Syria would not dare attack Israel with mustard-gas warheads or any of its other WMD. Bashar Al-Assad may be committed to the destruction of Israel, but he knows that the costs would be too high for a military attack (most importantly, Israel has nuclear weapons, Syria has not). Remember Operation Orchard? Also, Israeli intelligence could pick up easily on any transfer of Syrian WMD to terrorist groups.

2. You can remove Egypt from that list of threats as well. Egypt fears Israel. After losing so heavily in 1948, 1967, and 1973, together with the fact that they know Israel has nuclear weapons and that any conventional military attack would be viewed as an act of aggression (thus the US, upon which Egypt depends partly for financial aid, would turn against Egypt), do you even imagine for one second that Egypt would have the chutzpah to launch any sort of attack?

3. What's the point in including 'right of return' here? Only the fringe-left in Israel (Uri Avnery and his ilk) advocate this. The overwhelming majority of Israel's public and politicians would never accept such a clause in a future agreement.

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