`Sharon Plan' for Mideast War Exposed
This article appears in the July 16, 2001 issue of New Federalist newspaper.by Jeffrey Steinberg
July 11 (EIRNS)—Highly placed U.S.-based sources have provided this news service with details of Ariel Sharon's plans for a new Mideast war, in the works within days of his taking office as Israel's Prime Minister earlier this year.
According to the sources, shortly after he was elected, Sharon met with a small group of trusted political and military allies, and spelled out, in confidential memos, a war plan targetting the Palestinian Authority, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and other Arab neighbors.
Two factors were identified by the sources as key to the "Sharon Plan":
1. Sharon's ability to use Hamas as a tool for destabilizing Jordan, ultimately overthrowing King Abdullah II and establishing Jordan as a "Palestinian homeland" under Hamas control. To this end, Sharon, who was instrumental in the launching of the Hamas movement earlier in his career, has dispatched his son as a personal back-channel emissary to the Islamist group. Key Hamas personnel have already been infiltrated into Jordan, in preparation for Sharon's provocation of a new general Mideast war—in the days or weeks ahead, the sources said.
In many ways, the Sharon-backed Hamas targetting of Jordan is a replay of the early 1970s "Black September" destabilization which involved Abu Nidal, long suspected of being an asset of British and Israeli intelligence.
In the 1970s, Hamas was built up by Israeli occupying forces as a "countergang" to the PLO of Yasser Arafat. Hamas leaders were granted licenses by Israeli authorities to set up food kitchens, clinics, schools and daycare centers, to create a governing structure alternative to Arafat's Fatah.
2. Sharon's ability to manipulate the Bush Administration into giving de facto support to the war drive. Sharon has been operating on the assumption that President Bush can be manipulated into supporting Israeli war provocations because Bush et al. seek to justify a serious defense buildup, which would require a perceived war danger, to win Congressional support.
Indeed, last week, testifying before Congress, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged that a war crisis would give the Administration leeway to crank up defense spending, from the current 3% of GDP, to 8-10%.
Sharon also assessed that Colin Powell and others in senior positions, who might not favor a war provocation, would be outmaneuvered by Israel and by wealthy and well-connected U.S.A. Israeli Lobby assets. - Hit Teams Dispatched -
According to the sources, Sharon has dispatched at least two Israeli hit teams to Europe, targetting Arabs aligned with Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. Hamas teams are also reportedly activated—with clandestine Israeli backing—to target American assets in Europe and the Middle East.
Sharon's so-called "moderation" after the June 1 Tel Aviv disco bombing was, say the sources, geared to win support from rightwing and center-left Israelis for a later war drive.
Further, the sources say, Sharon is conducting a vicious psychological operation in Israel, to secure popular support for a war by staging nearly non-stop terror scares. A prominent Israeli businessman confirmed to this news service that almost nightly, Israeli police enter restaurants, hotels, shops, etc., ordering patrons to evacuate due to "bomb threats." The businessman, a former Mossad official, checked with Israeli authorities and confirmed that the bomb scares are in almost all cases hoaxes, perpetrated by Sharon to traumatize the public into accepting as justified any anti-Arab military actions.
Sharon has, according to the U.S. sources, gotten the blessings of high-level factions in Britain for a conventional war in the Mideast, which would offer London an opportunity to extend its sphere of influence in the Persian Gulf. Sharon will soon seek a meeting with Russian President Putin, in an effort to win some degree of Moscow support for the war moves. - LaRouche Factor -
One U.S. source reported that Sharon's ability to deploy Jewish Underground terrorists in a provocation against the Temple Mount Islamic holy sites was undermined by last December's release of the Executive Intelligence Review special report, "Who Is Sparking a Religious War in The Middle East?" which exposed Sharon's hand, and the British monarchy's, in the plan to blow up the Mideast.
Now, the sources add, Sharon is preparing to use a new terrorist attack against Israeli civilians—an attack likely to come from Hamas-linked terrorists under de facto Sharon control—to justify a general war.
The sources noted that high-level Israeli military and intelligence officials share Lyndon LaRouche's assessment that Israel cannot win a protracted irregular war. For a majority of Israeli military professionals, this means Israel must accept a meaningful peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority.
For Sharon and his rabid allies, it means that Israel must provoke a general war, under cover of which Israel could occupy the territories currently under the control of the Palestinian Authority, and either eliminate or exile the PA leadership from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The sources warned that Sharon would use any pretext to justify a military strike against Iraq, probably in a ground invasion of Jordan that would also topple King Abdullah II. Israel has already attacked radar installations in Syrian territory, in hopes of forcing Damascus into war.
By launching such a regional war "in reaction" to a terrorist attack, particularly in the context of simultaneous terrorist actions against American targets, Sharon would hope to assure that Israel would win the solid support of the U.S. and Western Europe.
Ultimately, the sources concluded, Sharon would move to "transfer" large portions of the Arab population of Israel—along with a majority of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians—to the east bank of the Jordan River, under a Sharon-sponsored Hamas regime, thus achieving the "final solution" to the "Palestinian problem."
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