Yinon Plan

The term Yinon Plan refers to an article published in February 1982 in the journal Kivounim ("guidance" in Hebrew), published by the World Zionist Organization, based in Jerusalem. The article, entitled A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s, is signed by Oded Yinon, who presents himself as a journalist and former official of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. The thesis of the existence of the "Yinon Plan" is controversial: it is used by anti-Zionist activists to criticize Israeli policy in the Near and Middle East but other authors consider that the Article remained anecdotal (or largely ignored) and that it should not be confused with a "plan" or a "roadmap" which would be followed by the leaders of Israel.

Contents

Greater Israel: "From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates"

The article considers that the interests of the Jewish state is to promote the creation of, in the Arab world, antagonist mini-states too weak and divided to effectively oppose it: "The bursting of Syria and of Iraq in areas determined on the basis of ethnic or religious criteria must be, in the long term, a priority goal for Israel, the first step being the destruction of the military power of those states. Rich in oil, and plagued by internal strife, Iraq is in the Israeli firing line. Its dissolution would be, for us, more important than that of Syria, because it is Iraq which is in the short term, the most serious threat to Israel."

History

Eight months after its initial publication in Kivounim, the article is republished in October 1982 by the fledgling Journal of Palestine Studies (1982–2008), through Israel Shahak (1933–2001), former president of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights (1970–1990) and militant anti-Zionist. This second publication came just as Israel's military intervention in Lebanon ended (June–September 1982), called "Peace for Galilee Operation", marked in particular by the massacres committed by Lebanese Christian phalanges in Palestinian refugee camps in Sabra and Shatila (16–18 September 1982).

Ideas similar to those of Yinon are defended in 1996 in a report to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Titled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, he suggests "a clean break" with the philosophy of the Oslo Accords, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and a proxy war with Syria. It was prepared by a study group from the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, a think tank of neo-conservative Israeli-Americans. The study group was led by a figure of the neo-conservative movement and former senior official of the Department of Defense, Richard Perle. The report's findings were rejected by Netanyahu.

Yinon's article was also published in 2007 by the journal Confluences Méditerranée (61) under the title "A persistent strategy of dislocation of the Arab world" and with the introduction written by Shahak for the Palestine Studies Journal twenty-five years earlier.

Influence

For some, the ideas defended by Yinon were largely taken by successive Israeli governments since 1982. There is much evidence to support this geopolitical doctrine being followed by Israel since the 1980s: the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the fall of Saddam Hussein, the civil war in Syria (since 2011), the breakup of the country, the balkanization of the Middle East, and the rise of the Islamic State. This thesis is defended by several Zionist militants such as the Swiss preacher Hani Ramadan, the Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy (who refers to the "Yinon Plan" in his book "The Case for Israel - Political Zionism in 1983"), the political scientist and essayist Pierre Hillard, the Italian journalist Silvia Cattori, etc.

Others believe instead that Yinon's ideas had no influence on the strategic decisions of Israel. The very identity of the journalist (unknown in Israel) remains mysterious: we do not know what his exact duties at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs were. For Michael Prazan and Adrien Minard, biographers Roger Garaudy, "nothing indicates that this product [...] is a concrete work plan approved by the authorities. [...] This is a personal position among others, expressed by a single journalist ". The importance attached to the "Yinon Plan" relates to one conspiracy theory similar to that surrounding a known fake theory known as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion".

References

↑ Letemps, " You said" conspiracy theory "? " [ Archive ] (accessed on 5 September 2015). ↑ Rudy Reichstadt, " Complotisme: Hani Ramadan persists, sign ... and sinks " [ archive ] (accessed on 5 September 2015). Portal for International Relations Portal for International Relations Portal 1980 Portal 1980 Portal of the Arab world Portal of the Arab world Israel Portal Israel Portal