Facing A Nuclear Third World War

Many political scientists claim that we are already in a Third World War, Muslims against the rest of the world, especially the Judeo-Christian world.   It has been manifested in Chechnya, in putting Muslims in camps in China, the Balkan War over Kosovo, the war in Afghanistan, Iraq, the 9/11 disaster, the open conflicts in India, and now the war in the Middle East.

Some political scientists agree that there is going to be a nuclear war, the only question is not whether but when.  There are signs that the idea is becoming legitimized. Putin has been openly threatening to use his arsenal if the situation in Ukraine becomes unacceptable to him, and during the Cuba crisis America was very close to using it. In the Yom Kippur War, the Israeli chief of staff, Moshe Dayan, recommended to use a nuclear device because Israel was under the danger of extinction. Recently, Erdogan, President of Turkey, warned Israel about the use of nuclear power. (on YouTube)

If, like in the First World War, all conditions for a world war exist, If the devices and the confrontations are already present, and there are open threats that the nuclear power might be used, the barrel with the gunpowder is there, all that is needed for it to explode is a lit match thrown into it.

I believe the match is lit already and has been burning for a while. The question is when it will ignite the gunpowder barrel.

Here is how, I fear.

For 2000 years like during the Inquisition and during the pogroms in Eastern Europe, millions of Jews were hanged, burned alive, shot, because they were Jews. And then the worst of all, in the Holocaust, during the Second World War, six million were gassed, shot, and hanged.  It gave an impetus for the country of Israel to be born, to where the Jews escaped to create their own defenses, to protect themselves from a hostile world. There is no family in Israel that does not have somebody and more than one member of the family that was not killed, wounded, or murdered because he or she was Jewish. In my family we count 108, my extended family, they was burned alive in Treblinka. Israel is also populated by Jews that escaped from Arab nations where they were prosecuted, and all their assets were taken over. (Speaking of ethnic cleansing, there are no Jews left in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan. There are Arabs in Israel)

Israel is a nation traumatized by memories of 2000 years of persecution and threats to its existence. This trauma was activated on October 7, 2023. Hamas crossed the border from Gaza, surprised the Israeli military and carried out an incredible and unprecedented massacre of Jewish men, women, children, and babies. An atrocious attack, cutting heads of babies in front of their parents, killing parents in front of their children, burning a little toddler in an oven while the parents are forced to watch.... terrible, well documented atrocities.  In my judgment, it was all planned to provoke the already traumatized Jewish nation to over-react.

Israel did. It entered Gaza to destroy Hamas, although it was clear from the beginning that the Hamas cannot be destroyed. Its political leadership is abroad in a secure place in Qatar, and its military leadership is deep underground in a maze of tunnels, 350 kilometers long. It will take thousands of Israelis to sacrifice their lives to find them in that maze of tunnels which are very well defended.

But in the search for the Hamas, Israel destroyed Gaza and that's exactly what Hamas wanted. Thousands of children died from the bombing. Hamas said openly they are willing to sacrifice millions of Palestinians to reach their goal to see the Jews out of the land from the river to the sea.  The pictures of dead and wounded children, of the destruction of Gaza posted in social media worldwide, generated a popular sentiment against Israel and hundreds of thousands of people marched the streets of major cities in Europe and in the United States, calling for the destruction of Israel.   (I just saw new entries in social media:  Israeli women in military uniform, happily singing and dancing.  It is followed by entries of Arab children dead. I have no doubt these girls are not Israeli, and it is staged material produced and posted by very well financed Palestinians. It gets you in the gut. You cannot help but hate Israelis.....) Since politicians have to pay attention to the sentiment of the voting population, Israel was and is losing the support of the world community.

Once the world is sympathizing with the Palestinians, Hezbollah started bombarding Israeli settlements in the north. 100,000 Israelis had to leave their homes and move to the South. (If Hezbollah attacked with Hamas at the same time in October, the sympathy of the world would have been with Israel that was attacked without provocation. Now, with the anti-Israel sentiment worldwide, Hezbollah gets a free hand to act.)

If Hezbollah bombs Israel full scale, Netanyahu warned Lebanon that Israel will level Beirut like it leveled Gaza.  Hamas will celebrate. The Muslim world will be in an outrage and the West Bank Palestinians will rise. (It happened already. They attacked in the heart of Israel, in Raanana, which is few miles from Tel Aviv, killing dozens of people.)

Israel will be surrounded by enemies who launch rockets day and night from the north and the south and who will terrorize from the East, from the occupied territories.

Israel will have to spread its army on three frontiers. The problem is that Israel has mostly an army composed of soldiers on reserve. These are people in their middle age, with families, with jobs, and now they must fight ongoingly for a long time. The economy is collapsing already and as Israel might start losing the war and feels a threat to its existence, in moment of despair, with the possibility of Palestinians in Tel Aviv repeating the massacre of the 7th of October, traumatized as they are already, Israel might use the nuclear bomb on Iran that is orchestrating this war. If Israel does that, this might be the match that will make the gunpowder barrel explode. This might be an opportunity for Putin to finish its fight with Ukraine by nuclear means, for North Korea to do whatever it can against South Korea, Pakistan against India, China takes the opportunity of the turmoil to take over Taiwan, and the whole world is in a turmoil of nuclear war.   Israel and the Jewish people will be accused of causing this war and antisemitism will go sky high. It will be dangerous to send kids to school, to ride a bus or a train or go to a synagogue.  

This is the next Holocaust,   but who is in danger is not only the Jewish people.  As the West bomb each other and the Muslims in Europe riot, the Muslim religion  will spread all over Europe, and the West, Hamas’ and  Iran’s vision will be accomplished.  

This scenario can be ameliorated or prevented by forcing the Israeli and the Palestinians to have two states, but those states must be closely controlled not to threaten each other’s existence, or we are back to the new holocaust scenario presented above.

PS: I do not share animosity toward the Muslims. On the contrary. I and my immediate family were saved by Albanian Muslims during the second world war. Some of my best friends are Muslims from Albania, Azerbaijan and Turkey. See the story of my life in Ichak Adizes : The Accordion Player, From Fear to Love,  A Memoir, available on Amazon.