Jane's Foreign Report: THE ISRAELI GENERALS' PLAN

[http://www.janes.com]

10 July 2001[IMRA - this story received considerable attention inside
Israel - including some denials]

ON SUNDAY July 9th, the Israeli chief of staff, Brigadier-General Shaul
Mofaz, presented to the government an updated plan for an attack by the
Israeli armed forces on the Palestinian Authority, to be be launched at the
government's discretion. FOREIGN REPORT reveals exclusively what is being
planned.

Our well-placed sources in Israel say the army leaders' predecessors, such
as the late General Yitzhak Rabin, often rejected a military solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They insisted that only a negotiated political
solution would bring a genuine and lasting peace to the Middle East. Our
informants say that the current high command, perhaps reflecting the views
of the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, wants the armed forces to play an
assertive role. The deputy chief of staff, Brigadier-General Moshe Ya'alon,
is the most forceful advocate of the army faction calling for military
action to smash the Palestinian Authority. Our informant has seen the
executive summary of the generals' updated proposal.

Its title is: The destruction of the Palestinian Authority and disarmament
of all [Palestinian] armed forces. The generals envisage a military
operation for up to a month. Estimated Israeli casualties would be in their
hundreds; Palestinian losses would be in their thousands. By the end of the
operation, the generals reckon that the president of the Palestinian
Authority, Yasser Arafat, would have left or been forced to leave the West
Bank or Gaza Strip. The members of what the generals call the 'Tunis
Diaspora' (those leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organisation who
arrived with Arafat from Tunis in 1994 after the Oslo peace agreement) would
be either dead or out of the area. The 40,000-strong Palestinians armed
forces would be disarmed and either dead or held in detention camps.

Justifiable retaliation

The Israeli attack, according to the plan, would be launched immediately
after the next suicide bomb blast which causes numerous deaths and injuries.
The 'revenge' factor is crucial. It would motivate Israeli soldiers to
demolish the Palestinians. The motivation of Israeli soldiers is currently
very high. The timing of an attack just after a suicide bomb would ensure
that morale remained high - and at a vital moment. It would also enable
Israeli ambassadors and other officials to claim in talks with foreigners
that the military action was a justified retaliation.

The Israeli attack would begin with air raids by the latest F-16 and F-15
jets against all the main installations of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza
and Ramallah. The attack would be heavy and might be preceded by a barrage
of heavy artillery. Israel would deploy its paratroopers along with infantry
and armoured brigades - about 30,000 men or the equivalent of a full army.
The Palestinians may run away and that would be that. However, if they
fought back seriously, the generals' proposal to the government says that
one per cent of the 30,000-strong force, or 300 Israeli soldiers, might be
killed.

The army believes that the Palestinian Authority would be smashed.
Interestingly, the generals' proposal also says that as a result of
international pressure, some kind of peace force will be sent to the area to
protect the Palestinians from the Israeli army. However this would take
time: when it arrived, it would be faced with a fait accompli.

Citing forecasts by their military intelligence service, the generals doubt
that the Syrian, Jordanian and Egyptian armies would go to war with Israel
on behalf of the Palestinians. The Egyptian army might send troops into the
Sinai, which will force the Israelis to call up the reserves as a protective
measure. The Iraqi army may be ordered to enter Jordan and go to the aid of
the Palestinians, although these forces would be destroyed by the Israeli
air force before reaching the Jordanian border.