by Jeff Nesbit
“You really believe that’s possible? A solution? Because it doesn’t seem possible. Iran won’t give up their path to a nuclear state. And Israel can’t afford to let that happen.”
“Yes, I do believe it’s possible.” Anshel moved into DJ’s office and pulled a chair toward his desk. He sat down sideways, casually draping his right arm over the top of the chair. “Listen. Keep this between the two of us, for the time being. I’ll brief you more fully when the time is right. But I’ve been working on something, a new plan, for months.”
“A new plan?” DJ couldn’t help himself. A flicker of hope emerged where none had been before. He trusted Dr. Gould as much as he trusted the president.
“Something I’ve been working on quietly with the Israeli government, ever since they released their plan for a Palestinian state.”
“But that plan was absolutely insane!” DJ exploded. “No one thinks it will work, because it won’t. It’s the craziest plan I’ve ever seen. A superhighway running under the Negev, connecting the West Bank to Gaza? With both Israelis and Palestinians running around with monitors that identify their nationality? Three different parts of a Palestinian state, none of them connected? The West Bank taking most of the land mass right out of the center of Israel, dividing it in half? Relocating one hundred thousand Israeli settlers from the Jordan River to other parts of Israel? No way. It won’t work. Not in a million years.”
Anshel smiled at DJ’s passion. “You’re right. It’s an insane plan. It’s completely unworkable. It’s unacceptable. It doesn’t solve the Palestinian refugee problem. There isn’t enough land to take in several million Palestinians from all of the refugee camps in the region. You can’t keep one section of a country, Gaza, disconnected from another section in the West Bank. And, you’re right—the West Bank, as it’s currently defined, practically cuts Israel in half.”
DJ considered Anshel intently. Once upon a time, in a former life as a member of Congress, Dr. Gould had been quite adept at the tricky art of political gerrymandering. In fact, he’d managed to pull off the impossible—creating a political map that protected members from both parties and wasn’t so crazy that it couldn’t survive a court challenge.
And, in one sense, this was gerrymandering—on a world stage.
“So you have an idea in mind?” DJ asked. “Something that can end most of the conflict with countries other than Iran?”
“I do. It could calm things down with almost everyone outside of Iran’s immediate influence.”
“A peace process that could isolate Iran?”
Anshel’s eyes sparkled. “Precisely.”
“And you think the Israelis will go for it?”
“Some will—hopefully enough of the right parts of their leadership. The ones who are reasonable and understand that we need a solution.”
“It’s the kind of plan that might bring along countries like Egypt and Jordan?”
“Especially Egypt and Jordan,” Anshel answered. “And it will give Israel a fighting chance against Syria and Lebanon—something they don’t have if they give up land in the West Bank in the north.”
DJ sat forward in his chair. “Absolutely! It’s why the Israelis don’t want to give up the northern land in the West Bank—why they’re allowing the settlements to go forward there. If you give up that land, and establish a new Palestinian country that practically comes right up to the northern part of Jerusalem, you might as well allow Syria and Lebanon to camp out on your front porch….”
“Which Israel will never allow,” Anshel finished quietly. “A freestanding Palestinian country north of Jerusalem in the West Bank puts it just a stone’s throw from Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem and gives Syria and Lebanon easy access to every major population center in Israel.”
“Not to mention you’d have to move all of those settlements along the Jordan River north of Jerusalem. You’d have civil war on your hands in Israel.”
“So we don’t move them.” Anshel peered directly down at DJ, as if waiting for the plan to sink in.
“But if you don’t move the Jewish settlements, then what’s left as an important centerpiece in a new Palestinian country? What’s their capital city?”
“Beersheba.”
DJ just stared back. The concept was almost unthinkable. But everything about Israel seemed a little surreal on the world stage. “Beersheba’s a real city,” he said finally. “It’s one of the largest in Israel.”
“You’re right. It is. But it was always planned as part of an Arab state. In fact, it was central to the original UN partition plan for a new Palestinian country right after World War II,” Anshel explained. “It was supposed to be included—until the IDF kicked the Egyptian forces out in 1948. If you look at the old discussions, right after the war, the UN meant for Beersheba to be the capital city of a new Arab state. It should have been—and could be today.”
“Beersheba belonged to the Arabs after World War II?” DJ asked. “I didn’t know that.”
“Most people don’t,” Anshel answered. “But a Palestinian historian, Aref al-Aref, was actually the governor of Beersheba during the British Mandate after the UN partition plan in 1947.”
“Hamas loves to lob bombs from Gaza out toward Beersheba,” DJ mused.
“So take away their target.”
“Israel would never let Hamas get near Jerusalem,” DJ said.
“Hamas would lose its power in a free Arab state,” Anshel shot back. “They flourish only because Gaza is completely isolated from the rest of the world.”
“So you would unite Gaza with parts of the West Bank in the South, and make Beersheba the capital?”
“Exactly.”
DJ sat back in his chair. He was stunned. It would actually give something of value to a new Arab state—and end forever the constant drumbeat of criticism that Israel was an aggressive nation-state intent on taking land in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Jordan.
DJ called up a Google map of Israel on his computer monitor and examined it, connecting the dots. It was a radical solution—one that had not been considered since the chaotic days right after World War II.
It was radical—but also held out the possibility of a sustainable solution. If you created a real capital city at the heart of a new Arab state, surrounded by a valley fed by water from the Hebron mountains, the land would actually have value as a home for the millions of displaced Palestinians. It was a true measure of land for peace.
“You’re talking about giving Israel’s Southern District to the Palestinians,” DJ said.
“Yes, I am.”
“You’d give up the South—all of it—to create a free, united Palestinian country?” DJ asked finally. “And force both Egypt and Jordan to make sure it worked?”
“It’s in their interest to make it work. Both of them once went to war with Israel for the South.”
DJ looked back at the map. The Southern District of Israel formed a perfect triangle, wedged in between the Mediterranean to the west, Egypt to the south, and Jordan to the east. Jerusalem was at the top.
“What about Ashdod, north of Gaza? It’s Israel’s largest port city.”
“It stays in Israel. It’s almost directly west of Jerusalem anyway.”
“And what about Ashkelon?”
“A bargaining chip,” Anshel said. “It’s changed hands so many times in history it might as well be on the table one more time, in the interest of a permanent solution for peace. But, most likely, it remains in Israel as well. The key is Beersheba. The new, united Palestinian country will need a capital, a center—with a real economy and a chance to succeed.”
DJ pursed his lips. “Israel would never give up their access to the Red Sea at the southern tip. It allows them to handle oil tanker traffic to and from the oceans to the south. Israel is counting on bringing in oil traffic through their pipeline from Ashkelon to Eilat, and then out through the Red Sea. They’ve been negotiating with Russia, Georgia, and others over that for years—ever since they
took it over completely from Iran after the Shah fell.”
“Yes, that’s potentially a problem,” Anshel mused. “It is odd to think that Israel once had a fifty-fifty partnership with Iran to secretly bring in oil through the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline—until the Shah fell and the partnership went away—and that this same pipeline may now make Israel the key exchange point for oil from the north to the Far East.”
“So how do you solve that problem?”
“Obviously, Israel would own it,” Anshel answered. “But the new state would guarantee its security—much as Iran and Israel once held joint ownership of the pipeline. Oil pipelines run through many countries, with joint ownership and security considerations. This one would be no different, in the end.”
“Israel would never give up Eilat,” DJ said flatly. “It’s a popular resort—not to mention key as a port for oil tankers someday.”
“True. But pirates are making it less attractive as a resort,” Anshel said. “And we’ll need to negotiate the oil pipeline question. Peace only comes along once for Israel. Everything needs to be on the table.”
“The Negev desert is a harsh place. It isn’t worth much.”
“The United States can change that,” Anshel said. “Massive irrigation and water storage can change anything—even the Negev. And we would obviously commit to those sorts of big terra-forming construction projects there, in the interest of permanent peace.”
DJ shook his head in awe. “It would give the Palestinian refugees a real place to migrate to—not a make-believe land with cobbled together, half-baked, piecemeal, scattered plots of property with gates and walls, barbed wire fences, and permanent Israel military outposts everywhere.”
“Yes, it would.”
“And you think the Palestinians in the northern parts of the West Bank would move there?”
“They would if they had a real country to go to. They have no home right now. The West Bank isn’t a real country. Never has been—and isn’t likely to be any time soon.”
“And Jerusalem? There’s no way that ever gets sorted out.”
Anshel smiled. “Don’t be so sure of that. You might be surprised.”
“I’m not surprised by anything these days,” DJ said. “So?”
“I believe the original Green Line, from 1949, is possible—Arab to the west and south, Jewish to the east and north. We can bring everybody except Hamas on board, and we isolate Hamas from everyone else to make it happen.”
There was only one other piece of the most complicated peace puzzle the world had ever known—the Temple Mount.
“There are some parts of Israel that will never give up the dream of building a third temple on the Temple Mount,” DJ said. “It’s one of the reasons they keep control of the overall city.”
“A small, narrow group—not in the mainstream, much too conservative for the majority of Israel,” Anshel said. “But there’s a solution there as well, which everyone can buy into.”
“Which is?”
“The Israeli government has been quietly studying the grounds south of the Dome of the Rock for years now, in concert with some of the archaeologists from American universities who’ve received permission to dig outside the Temple Mount area for comparison purposes,” Anshel said. “They’ve reached some fairly concrete conclusions, which they’re willing to go public with soon.”
“Let me guess,” DJ said, laughing. “The original temple was never where the Dome of the Rock is currently located?”
“Never,” Anshel answered. “That ground is too high. The temples were further south, closer to the City of David. They’ve concluded that the temples were sitting where the El Kas fountain is, halfway between the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque.”
“And there’s proof?”
“The IDF has quietly conducted some ground-penetrating radar probes that clearly indicate there had once been vaults and arches beneath the ground to the south. It’s solid rock to the north, where the Dome is—not a likely candidate for a temple structure thousands of years ago. Thermal infrared scanning also shows there were likely structures once to the south—not on the northern part of the Temple Mount, where the Dome stands.”
“So the temples were south of the Dome?”
“And will be for a third temple, if Israel ever chooses to build one.”
“Israel would sanction that location—south of the Dome of the Rock?”
“They will.”
“So the Dome of the Rock could coexist, peacefully, side by side with the site of a third temple,” DJ said in awe. “Both sides get what they need. If that piece works, you’re talking about a permanent solution to the Palestinian problem and the potential for a lasting peace—”
“Potentially.”
They both looked back at the Google map of Israel that was still up on DJ’s screen. As he sat there staring at the screen, DJ vaguely recalled a phrase he’d once heard in his Sunday school classes. Something nagged at the back of his mind, something he knew he’d heard but couldn’t quite recall. It had been years since he’d actually read parts of the Bible that talked about Israel and the Promised Land, but he knew the stories.
And then he remembered.
“From Dan to Beersheba,” DJ said quietly. “That’s what this is. It recreates the land that the Jews historically controlled and occupied. That phrase is used in the Bible quite often to describe the land that the Jews actually lived in for most of their history—from Dan to the north, to Beersheba in the south. It keeps Israel’s enemies to the north, and creates a free, united Palestinian state to the south, where Egypt and Jordan can keep a careful eye on it. It’s almost the only way to get to peace.”
Anshel smiled. DJ was a smart kid. “There you go,” he answered softly.
“It defines the land you’re talking about here,” DJ marveled. “You might even say it’s a realistic description of a Promised Land—without all the aggressive, unrealistic military expansion notions that have gotten Israeli’s leadership in trouble since the Second World War.”
“Yes, you might.” Anshel stood up. He had an endless series of meetings to get to throughout the White House complex, with the first starting in just two minutes. “But there’s a lot of ground to cover between today and any sort of a permanent solution. We need to get through the immediate crisis, and then we’ll see.”
27
THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ
SOUTH OF BANDAR ABBAS, IRAN
Had anyone bothered to ask Hashem Sanjar, the commander of Iran’s nearly worthless navy, he would have objected. It seemed like a suicide mission. But Sanjar was no fool. The rear admiral had risen through the ranks of the smallest branch of Iran’s military by learning when to be quiet and do as he was told. And this was a time to be quiet.
When the Guards had told him to pull the navy’s three destroyers out of mothballs at Bushehr a year earlier and move them to the port at Bandar Abbas—the Iranian navy’s home port—Sanjar had dutifully dispatched the engineering and cleanup crews. The destroyers were more than half a century old and hadn’t seen action for years. But no matter. They were now allegedly in service.
When the Guards told him to re-equip all five of their frigates with Chinese anti-ship missiles and move all of them to Bandar Abbas, he did so without question. He’d likewise pulled one of the Corvettes back from the Caspian Sea months ago, repositioned it at Bandar Abbas, and moved the rest of their Corvettes there as well.
In fact, Sanjar was more than a little surprised that the Guards had made such a great show of moving the destroyers from Bushehr to Bandar Abbas several months ago. They’d also made a show of consolidating their frigates at Bandar Abbas. Every intelligence network in the world had taken note of the movements. They were impossible to miss.
Had they forgotten Pearl Harbor at the start of World War II, when the Japanese had laid waste to American Navy ships sitting there in port? Moving so many of the Iranian navy’s larger ships to Bandar Abbas was akin to that American mista
ke at Pearl Harbor. Their big ships were sitting ducks.
But when Sanjar had asked Bahadur, quietly, if he was sure about the move, he’d been assured that the relocation of the big ships to Bandar Abbas was a temporary measure as they evaluated all of their options. Sanjar had not pressed the issue further.
But those “temporary measures” had become permanent, and virtually every big ship and submarine under Sanjar’s command was now stuck at port in or near Bandar Abbas at the most critical moment in Iran’s military history. Sanjar was fuming, but he also knew his duty. He would go down with his ships in flames, if need be. But he would fight.
When he heard directly from the Rev. Shahidi in the past twentyfour hours that he needed to position all three of their Russian-built Kilo submarines just twenty miles or so away from Bandar Abbas, where the shallow waters of the Strait began to deepen as it became the Gulf of Oman, he almost said something. But, in the end, he did nothing to dissuade the Supreme Leader of the military strategy.
Those three diesel attack subs were among the quietest in the world. They were of much better use out to sea—not trapped near the Strait’s shallow waters where they would be sitting ducks for the American Navy’s massive fleet. It was an insane move.
Sanjar briefly considered making an end run through close associates of Reza Razavi to see what they thought of the suicide mission the Iranian navy was about to embark on in the Strait. But that was a very dangerous course of action. No matter how much civil unrest had grown within Iran’s diverse population, Razavi was a long way from the presidency in Iran.
So Sanjar kept quiet and put the navy ships in place. He was more than a little curious about one aspect of the military strategy that Shahidi, Bahadur, and the Guards were employing, but he had only raised this privately with two of his direct subordinates.
The Iranian navy had invested heavily in literally hundreds of fast patrol boats of all sizes and shapes, many of them equipped with torpedoes and even fairly sophisticated anti-ship missiles brought in around heavy embargoes from Russia, China, and North Korea. They’d also placed dozens of slightly larger gunboats in service in the past few years as well.