Highly placed U.S.-based sources have provided this news service with details of Ariel Sharon's plans for a new Mideast war, in the works within days of his taking office as Israel's Prime Minister earlier this year. According to the sources, shortly after he was elected, Sharon met with a small group of trusted political and military allies, and spelled out, in confidential memos, a war plan targeting the Palestinian Authority, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and other Arab neighbors.
Two factors were identified by the sources as key to the "Sharon Plan:" Sharon's ability to use Hamas as a tool for destabilizing Jordan, ultimately overthrowing King Abdullah II and establishing Jordan as a "Palestinian homeland" under Hamas control. To this end, Sharon, who was instrumental
in the launching of the Hamas movement earlier in his career, has dispatched his son as a personal back-channel emissary to the Islamist group. Key Hamas personnel have already been infiltrated into Jordan, in preparation for Sharon's provocation of a new general Mideast war - in the days or weeks ahead, the sources said. In many ways, the Sharon-backed Hamas targetting of Jordan is a replay of the early 1970s "Black September" destabilization which involved Abu Nidal, long suspected of being an asset of British and Israeli intelligence. In the 1970s, Hamas was built up by Israeli
occupying forces as a "countergang" to the PLO of Yasser Arafat. Hamas leaders were granted licenses by Israeli authorities to set up food kitchens, clinics, schools and daycare centers, to create a governing structure alternative
to Arafat's Fatah.
Sharon's ability to manipulate the Bush Administration into giving de facto support to the war drive. Sharon has been operating on the assumption that President Bush can be manipulated into supporting Israeli war provocations because Bush et al. seek to justify a serious defense buildup, which would require a perceived war danger, to win Congressional support.
Indeed, last week, testifying before Congress, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged that a war crisis would give the Administration leeway to crank up defense spending, from the current 3% of GDP, to 8-10%. Sharon also
assessed that Colin Powell and others in senior positions, who might not favor a war provocation, would be outmaneuvered by Israel and by wealthy and well-connected U.S.A. Israeli Lobby assets.