Zionist thinking is based on the establishment of "Greater Israel", a state with a clear Jewish

identity that should always be the regional superpower. And this goal requires "reshaping" of
the Arab world. The Zionist attitude towards "Arab unity" emanates from Israel's belief that
such unity threatens its very existence and continuity.

Hence the unwavering Zionist support for all sorts of plans aimed at the region's
disintegration into new ethnic and sectarian structures. This vision was the brainchild of
Theodor Herzl, founder of political Zionism who, in 1904, openly declared: "We have
discussed the issue, and agreed that we want a state from the Nile to the Euphrates. What we
need is not a united, but a weak, fragmented and divided Arab Peninsula void of any potential
to unite against us."

That said, the Zionist project is not only concerned with the creation of a Jewish state in
Palestine, but also with weakening and dividing the Arab world, and maintaining its
dependence and backwardness, as this would allow the Jewish state to play the dominant
political, economic, security and even cultural role in the Arab world and the wider Middle
East.

Partitioning

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In June 2003, the US Defence Department's journal, the Executive Intelligent Research
Project, republished well-known American Zionist historian Bernard Lewis's thesis on
partitioning the Middle East into more than 30 ethnic and sectarian states. This plan also
includes the fragmentation of Iraq into three mini-states.

Lewis also believes that these miniature entities would be crippled by ethnic and sectarian
differences, and overcome by the struggle for oil, water resources, borders and power - all of
which would ensure Israel's supremacy for the next 50 years at least.

Another dangerous strategic study was conducted by Oudid Yinon, a Zionist writer. This was
presented to the Israeli foreign and defence ministries, and was published in February 1982.
Its danger lies in Yinon's view of the Camp David accord with Egypt as "a sin committed by
Israel". He says that redressing it "would require a consistent effort towards dividing Egypt
into four mini-states: a Coptic mini-state in the north, a Nubian mini-state in the south; a
Muslim mini-state with Cairo as its capital and a fourth mini-state under Israel's dominance.

Yinon also spoke about partitioning Lebanon into seven cantons, Sudan into three and Syria
into four, and called for "the disintegration of Iraq because its strength constitutes the greatest
threat ever to Israel in the short run".

In 1985, the Israeli army published a book that included Yinon's study, and touched upon
"Israel's efforts to deal a blow and divide Iraq". It further detailed Israel's plans "to disrupt
Syria, Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan and the Gulf".

And in this context, reference can be made to a seminar held at the Dayan Centre for Middle
East and Africa Studies in Tel Aviv University in 1990, under the title The Disintegration of
the Arab World, and to a symposium at the Bar Ilan University in 1992, which recommended
an intensification of efforts for the fragmentation of Arab states.
Thus the area's disruption is an old plan. Any form of integration and unity among Arab states
is anathema to Israel.

Under these circumstances, the United States will play the decisive political, economic and
security role. It aims to achieve two targets: preserving American economic and strategic
interests, and consolidating Israel's dominance in the region. Therefore, whatever plans these
two countries come up with are eventually intended to remake the region through the
framework of the "new Middle East".

'Absolute security'

This is being done by separating Arab countries in the east from those in the west; including
Israel in the new Levant; excluding Iraq from the Arab system and merging it into a regional
security system of the Gulf that could include Iran and the former Soviet Muslim states;
integrating Arab states of the western flank (in North Africa) into the Mediterranean domain;
and marginalising and isolating peripheral Arab countries such as Sudan, Somalia and Yemen
with a view to including them in African and Horn of Africa blocs.

Hence, the "absolute security" of the Zionist state requires the destruction of the region's
civilisational identity, and subsequently a change in its socio-political structure into a
sectarian, regional and local mosaic where the Zionist state emerges as the strongest sectarian
entity.

Professor As'ad Abdul Rahman is the Chairman of the Palestinian Encyclopedia