Likud strategists sought to weaken Arab states to destroy Palestinian support

Evidence

In 1996, the neocons advised Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel’s security was based on destabilizing Arab governments. They published a document titled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, arguing that Israel should attack Syrian military targets in Lebanon and even Syria if necessary. At the time, conventional wisdom saw Iraq as a major threat to Israel, and the neocons urged Netanyahu to support the Jordanian Hashemites’ challenge to Iraq’s borders. This argument was similar to a position developed in the 1980s by the right-wing Likud Party in Israel. The argument went that Israel should fragment, dissolve, or otherwise weaken the neighboring Arab states as a way to shore up its own safety. The logic was that since most of the support for the Palestinian cause came from Arab nations, weakening the latter would help destroy the Palestinian movement. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 435

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the imperial-policy reading of Islamophobia already in the vault via Aziz/Razack/Rana; this establishes the Israel/Likud lineage of the destabilization doctrine that later justified invading Iraq. — connects to: Neocons urged Israel to destabilize Arab states to defeat the Palestinian cause; Israel’s strategy of fragmenting Arab states dates to 1980s Likud thinking. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 391
• QUESTION: The quoted Chomsky framing likening Israel’s course to South Africa’s regional destabilization invites unpacking of that apartheid parallel.

Broader Connections

• Neocons urged Israel to destabilize Arab states to defeat the Palestinian cause #corroborates (1.00)
• Israel’s strategy of fragmenting Arab states dates to 1980s Likud thinking. #expands (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 391