Neocons in 1996 advised Netanyahu to destabilize and overthrow Arab governments.

Evidence

In 1996, the neocons advised Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom they continue to have close ties, that what Israel needed to do to secure itself was to destabilize and overthrow 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. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 390

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘Clean Break’ document connects to larger scholarship (e.g., writings on neocon strategy) and to the reader’s interest in how domestic ideology becomes state policy. — connects to: Neocons opposed the Oslo Accords as a unilateral Israeli retreat to hostile Arabs. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 389; Neocons framed land-for-peace diplomacy as strategic retreat toward Arab destruction; Neocons urged Israel to destabilize Arab states to defeat the Palestinian cause
• QUESTION: Worth chasing the Clean Break document itself and how directly its prescriptions were implemented in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion.