When identifying the axioms of geometry, our eighth-grade mathematics teachers were not entirely correct. To wit, in both physics and world politics, force-multiplication (“synergy”[1]) creates a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Though ominous for Israel, potential synergies between Palestinian Arab statehood and regional nuclear war remain generally ignored. For Jerusalem, this means that continuing to treat these threats as separate and unrelated could portend existential peril.
There are clarifying particulars. Inter alia, a Palestinian Arab state would significantly impact the Israel-Iran balance of power. For the moment, there is still no law-based Palestinian Arab state (i.e., there has been no Palestinian Arab satisfaction of the authoritative statehood requirements delineated at the Montevideo Convention of 1934), but this conspicuous jurisprudential shortfall would have few tangible consequences.
If there should ever come a time when Palestinian Arab statehood and war with Iran coincide, variously lethal effects of "Palestine" could prove determinative for Israel. In near-to- worst case scenario, accelerations of competitive risk-taking would (1) enlarge risks of unconventional warfare between Israel and Iran; and/or (2) heighten destructiveness of jihadi terrorist foes. Already, the fall of al-Assad’s tyranny in Syria is producing assorted reconfigurations and recalibrations of Islamist terror organization. One common feature of now-competing groups, including Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is a more-or-less undiminished commitment to violent jihad.
Nonetheless, there are meaningful nuances. For the moment, though Iran and its principal sub-state surrogates (Hezbollah, Hamas and Houthi) have been weakened, the Islamic Republic has not backed away from its relentless nuclear ambitions. Though any impending war between Israel and Iran would be fought without a “Palestine factor,” one predictable war outcome would be increased pressure on Israel to accept a new enemy state. For the most part, Iran’s leaders are unconcerned about Palestinian Arab well-being per se, but even a faux commitment in Tehran to Palestinian Arab statehood could weaken Israel’s overall security. Here, the “whole” war outcome would be greater than the sum of its “parts.”
There is more. Any formal creation of "Palestine" would be viewed by Iran as favorable to its own regional power position. While nothing scientifically meaningful could be said about such an unprecedented scenario (in logic and mathematics, true probabilities must always be based on the determinable frequency of relevant past events), there are persuasive reasons to expect that "Palestine" would become a witting belligerent proxy of Iran.
For Israel, these issues should be viewed as an intellectual problem, one requiring increasingly challenging victories of mind-over-mind. A “Two-State Solution” would enlarge not “only” the jihadi terror threat to Israel (both conventional and unconventional), but also the prospects for a catastrophic regional war. And even if such a war were fought while Iran was still pre-nuclear, Tehran could use radiation dispersal weapons or electromagnetic pulse weapons (EMP) against Israel and/or target Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor with conventional rockets.
There are some reinforcing narratives. In one widely ignored scenario, Iran’s North Korean nuclear ally would engage in direct belligerency with the Jewish State. Should that be allowed (and this narrative would not be without historical precedent), a continuously ambiguous Israeli nuclear posture could fatally undermine Israel’s nuclear deterrent.
These are all complex strategic assessments. In this connection, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations ought never be confined to “general principles.” Instead, specific issues will need to be addressed head-on: borders; Jerusalem; relations between Gaza and the "West Bank;" the Cairo Declaration of June 1974 (an annihilationist “phased plan”); the Arab "right of return” and cancellation of the "Palestine National Charter" (a document which calls unapologetically for the eradication of Israel “in stages”).
Memory will be important. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), “parent” of the extant Palestine Authority (PA), was formed in 1964, three years before there were any “Israel Occupied Territories.” So what, it must be asked, was this terror group seeking to “liberate?”
For Israel, among other things, any "justice"-based plan for Palestinian Arabs would need to acknowledge the historical and legal rights of the Jewish people in Judea and Samaria. Such an acknowledgment would represent an indispensable corrective to lawless Hamas claims of resistance “by any means necessary” and to genocidal Palestinian Arab calls for “liberation from the river to the sea.” On its face, unhidden, the “official” Palestinian Arab expectation is that Israel would become part of “Palestine.” This open expectation ought never come as a surprise. From the beginning, Islamist/Jihadist populations have steadfastly regarded Israel in its entirety as “Occupied Palestine.”
“Everything is very simple in war,” warns classical Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz in On War, “but the simplest thing is still very difficult.” Always, dispassionate legal authorities have rightfully insisted that regional peace be predicated on Arab recognition of the Jewish people's right to security in their own sovereign state. During the ongoing Gaza War, many Arab leaders secretly hope for a decisive Israeli victory over Hamas and Hezbollah. For these duplicitous leaders, Hamas represents a foreseeably unmanageable scion of Egypt’s "Moslem Brotherhood." Accordingly, their de facto support of Israel is entirely rational.
What about North Korea and future wars in the Middle East? Pyongyang has a documented history of active support for Iran and Syria. On ties with Damascus, it was Kim Jung Un who built the Al Kibar nuclear reactor for the Syrians at Deir al-Zor. This is the same facility that was preemptively destroyed by Israel in its “Operation Orchard” (also known in certain Israeli circles as “Operation Outside the Box”) on September 6, 2007. In the absence of “Orchard,” new post-Assad jihadists in Syria (primarily HTS) would have inherited an already-existing nuclear weapons option.
Doesn’t this fact now warrant much greater attention and acknowledgment?
For Israel, nuclear weapons, doctrine and strategy remain essential to national survival. Nonetheless, the country’s traditional policy of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” or “bomb in the basement” should be updated immediately. The key objective of needed changes would be more credible Israeli nuclear deterrence, a goal that would correlate closely with “selective nuclear disclosure.”
While counter-intuitive, Iran will need to be convinced that Israel’s nuclear arms are not too destructive for operational use. Arguably, in what amounts to a supreme irony, the credibility of Israel’s nuclear deterrent could sometime vary inversely with its presumed destructiveness.
There are still more synergy-related issues to consider in Jerusalem. For Israel to construct theory-based nuclear policies, not policies that are merely visceral, ad hoc or “seat-of-the-pants” creations, Iran should be considered a rational foe. It remains conceivable, of course, that Iran could still act irrationally, perhaps in alliance with other presumptively rational states or kindred jihadi terror groups, but such prospects ought always to be anticipated as exceptional, episodic or idiosyncratic.
What about non-Arab Pakistan? Unless Jerusalem were to consider Pakistan an indirect but genuine enemy, Israel has no present-day nuclear foes. Still, as a potentially-unstable Islamic state, Pakistan is continuously subject to coup d'état by Jihadi elements and is aligned in various ways with both Saudi Arabia and China. At some point, the Sunni Saudi kingdom could even decide to “go nuclear” itself, largely in response to Iran’s “Shiite nuclear program.”
Would such a consequential decision by Riyadh represent a net gain or net loss for Israel? It’s not too soon to ask this basic question. Facing a nuclearizing Iran, might Israel be better off with a simultaneously nuclearizing Egypt and/or Turkey?
On elemental nuclear issues. truth may remain counter-intuitive. For Israeli nuclear deterrence to work longer-term, Iran will need to be told more rather than less about Israel's nuclear targeting doctrine and about the invulnerability of Israel’s nuclear forces/infrastructures. In concert with such changes, Jerusalem should better clarify its presently too-opaque “Samson Option.” The key objective of such clarifications would not be to suggest Israel’s willingness to “die with the Philistines,” but to enhance the “high destruction” end of its nuclear deterrence continuum.
What about American foreign policy? Seemingly, US President Donald J. Trump does not support Palestinian statehood.[3] For related reasons, Iran will be less likely to consider major conflict options vis-à-vis Israel. At some point in these considerations, however, Israel could need to direct explicit nuclear threats (counter-value and/or counter-force) toward the Islamic Republic. As policy, this strategic posture could represent a “point of no return.”
For Israel, the risks of Palestinian Arab statehood could prove irreversible, irremediable and existential. Plausibly, these risks would be enlarged if they were incurred simultaneously with an Israel-Iran war. It follows that Jerusalem’s most urgent security obligation should be to keep Iran non–nuclear and to oppose Palestinian Arab statehood in any form. On this obligation, the “whole” would assuredly be far greater than the sum of its “parts.”
Backgrounds will need to be considered. Long before the current Gaza War, a significant fraction of Palestinian Arabs wanted Jews "annihilated.” This unhidden exterminatory sentiment remains rooted in canonical hadith, and is specifically quoted in the Hamas Covenant.
Regarding the Covenant's explicit call for genocide of “The Jews”:
"...the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to realize the promise of Allah, no matter how long it takes. The Prophet, Allah's prayer and peace be upon him, says: `The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews, and kill them...." (Sahih Muslim, Book 41, Number 6985).
What would be most important to those who express such homicidal wishes and intentions? One answer is the avoidance of apostasy, shame, and humiliation. This includes avoiding the unendurable charge that a Muslim had defiled sacred Islamic religious obligations. A reciprocal benefit would be Palestinian Arab leaders’ avoidance of violent death at the hands of Israel. In these cases, Islamist leaders would reject the allegedly binding obligations of "martyrdom."
In jihadi politics, there can be no greater form of power than “power over death.” In turn, such incomparable power must always be based on antecedent “power over time.” Accordingly, Israel would benefit from "decoding" a growing and paradoxical mindset, one that identifies religion-based "suicide" with eternal life. Such an effort would also need to embrace the Islamist idea that all time is either “sacred” or “profane.”
Looking at such complex conceptualizations, Israel's primary task is manifestly an intellectual one. To survive amid multiple synergies or force-multiplications, Jerusalem must first learn how to transform an enemy presumption that links "martyrdom” to the conquest of profane time. As evidenced by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and others, many of Israel's Palestinian Arab adversaries regard "Death for Allah" as the only correct way to soar blissfully into “sacred time.”
In Jerusalem and Washington, key decision-makers should finally realize that the Jihadist fighter sees himself or herself as a religious sacrifice. Here, each individual foe, whether Sunni or Shiite, aims to escape from profane time. By willfully abandoning the profane “clock time” that imprison ordinary mortals, the Jihadist slaughters "heathen" and "infidel" in what amounts to an ecstatically grateful exchange for “immortality.”
In essence, the Jihadist terrorist kills and dies in order to end the sovereignty of unbelievers, a sovereignty that would otherwise prevent the natural supremacy of Islam from transforming the Dar al-Harb into the Dar al-Islam. As for the political sovereignty and “self-determination” popularly linked to a Palestinian Arab state, it is insignificant as an authentic or worthy objective. When Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists raped, tortured and murdered Israeli civilians on October 6, 2023, their aim was lascivious and primal; it was not “political.”
The barbarisms of October 6, 2023 were not merely sanctioned by Palestinian Arab authorities. They were undertaken in alleged fulfillment of divine commandment: “Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of God and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom God doth know.” (Q 8:60) Also: “But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war…” (Q 9:5)
Early Muslims had already grasped the strategic effect that presumptively divine commands could produce. Shortly after the 624 CE Battle of Badr, Muhammad launched a campaign of political assassination of Jewish poets and leaders (among them old men and nursing mothers). These killings were followed by the siege, expropriation, and expulsion of Jewish tribes of Medina; the Banu Qaynuqa and Banu Nadir; and the massacre of Jewish men of the Banu Qurayza. Accompanying this massacre was the doctrine-based enslavement of Jewish women and children.
Horrified, other tribes of the Peninsula capitulated, fled or converted to Islam. A calculated and calibrated application of terror had worked; present-day Jihadi criminals are well familiar with this history-based “lesson.”
Going forward on all pertinent security fronts, Israeli strategists should draw systematically on modern lessons of asymmetric warfare. In The Quranic Concept of War (1979), Pakistani Brigadier General S. K. Malik observes: “Terror struck into the hearts of the enemies is not only a means, it is the end in itself. Once a condition of terror is entered into an opponent’s heart, little remains to be achieved.”
It’s time for analytic summation. All things considered, where it is understood in terms of Palestinian Arab statehood perils, the overriding threat to Israel of jihadi terror would stem from variously force-multiplying interactions with Iranian nuclearization. At that stage, King Lear’s “worst” could rapidly advance beyond any inherent limitations of language.
Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books, monographs, and scholarly articles dealing with military nuclear strategy. In Israel, he was Chair of Project Daniel (PM Sharon, 2003). At Princeton, once intellectual home of both Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer, he studied German literature andGerman philosophy along with nuclear strategy and international law.