“Is Palestine Burning?”

 

by

 

P. S. Sahni

 

[Benjamin Netanyahu asked the Chief of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at the War Cabinet Meeting somewhere in Circa 2027, May 1^st.]

 

IDF Chief: Sir, we have killed over 200,000 Palestinians so far. Worse, Hamas is alive and kicking; besides our intelligence reports indicate that it had managed to dig a tunnel over 240 feet deep in the Negev Desert, roughly thirteen km south-east of Dimona city. A suicide squad of Hamas fighters have with them about one million pounds of high explosives laid 100 feet beneath the underground facility directly below the nuclear installations!   

 

Netanyahu: How could it happen right under our nose? Intelligence failure again? Collusion?

 

IDF Chief: Permit me to present a holistic view. The air space over the Dimona facility is closed to all aircrafts and the area around it is heavily guarded and fenced off. Constructed in 1958 with French assistance, it underwent a major expansion in 2021. Air defenses protect the facility and are full proof. True, it is vulnerable to attacks from Iran, in October-November 2012 Hamas fired rockets at Dimona. Also, in July 2014 Hamas again fired rockets towards the area surrounding the facility. Yes, even as late as April 2021, a Syrian surface-to air missile landed in the vicinity of the place. All along we have been worried about Hamas using its artillery rockets to shell the Dimona reactor. Dimona is approximately 80 km away from the closest point to the Gaza Strip.

 

Just to recapitulate that in February 2008 two Hamas fighters crossed from Hebron, in the West Bank and reached Dimona in the south.  The separation barrier could not really protect us. That’s the truth.

 

All along we were aware of the capabilities of Hamas fighters to use air and ground routes to strike. In all fairness we were able to protect the nuclear facility at Dimona from 1958 till date.

 

Ultra Right-Wing Member: So, you did not keep the possibility of construction of a deep tunnel by Hamas to reach the Dimona facility? The whole world is aware that Hamas has constructed a 500 km long tunnel network in the small area of Gaza Strip. Why, then, the complacency? And now you present us with a fait accompli.

 

IDF Chief: You recall that a technician, Mordechai Vanunu who worked at the Dimona Reactor and had defected to the UK in 1986 where he made public the details of the secret nuclear reactor and the buildings underneath it. Remember that Hezbollah was established in 1982; and Hamas in 1987. A Hezbollah operative got in touch with a French civil engineer and learnt about a long underground tunnel extending from Dimona reactor to a point 100 yards away from the Israel-Gaza Strip border. The French had constructed this tunnel in the 1960s; it was to function as a mass quarantine centre to escape the ill-effects of radiation. The tunnel never got to be used and was all but forgotten.

 

Scapegoating can be left for a future date. Let us first ensure our very own survival. Permit me to present the whole issue threadbare. In the first place Israel has never officially accepted to the international community that it has a Dimona reactor. Secondly, we are not a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. If Hamas is able to use the explosives we have had it. We will face the embarrassment that Israel has cheated the whole world since 1958 about its nuclear reactor. Worse, Hamas – whom we have managed to project successfully as a terror group rather than a freedom fighter organization – would be credited with being instrumental in letting the world know about our secret nuclear program. Besides, with the genocide of Palestinians we have committed, the entire world community – barring half a dozen western democracies, is already spitting at us.

 

On the positive side, Mr. Netanyahu you would get yet another solid reason to postpone elections as you have done since 7 October 2023. Remember public memory is short. Besides the intelligence reports indicate that were you to hold elections anytime, you would be booted out of power; your pending corruption cases in the Supreme Court could get you life imprisonment. Moreover, the International Criminal Court could award you 30 years of incarceration. Lucky for you, capital punishment is not an option for ICC.

 

True the explosion at Dimona would have consequences – mass deaths, injuries, destruction, congenital defects in newborn babies in the future generations; besides air, water and soil contamination with radio- active material leaking out and spreading far and wide.

 

Remember that as time passes by masses forget even mass tragedies. Take the U.S bombing of Japan. Has the U.S ever faced any Nuremberg-type trial? Recall that in 1945 the Allies called for unconditional surrender of the Imperial Japanese armed forces, the alternative being “prompt and utter destruction”. The Japanese government ignored the ultimatum.

 

Sir, I am at the end of my briefing. Israel today stands at the same point of deflection as Japan stood on 26 July 1945. Hamas deadline is fast approaching – think fast and decisively – are we surrendering to Hamas or are we getting Israel destroyed.

 

Netanyahu: Quick, get me to the U.S President on the hotline

 

IDF Chief: Sir, we had kept him informed all along about the mess we are in. The FBI has safely deposited him at an under-ground facility, since the President feared that the security of even the Oval Office would stand compromised in such troubled international times.

 

Netanyahu: How about getting to the French President?

 

IDF Chief: He, too, was kept in the loop all along. The only message he has for you is that we should not confess even in a court of law that the Dimona reactor was built with French assistance.

 

The War Cabinet Meeting ended with a consensus note: No to surrender to Hamas; the death and suffering of several hundred thousand Israelis is a small price we have to pay. We will re-built Israel all over again as the Japanese did after WW-II. As the meeting ended a loud explosion of unparalleled magnitude was heard instantly; apparently a Hamas mole within the War Cabinet had sent a message to Hamas about the green signal to go ahead with the explosion. Rest is history.