Reply #39: Wherewithal To Defend Borders, Mr. Fatwa [View All]

[The Magistrate]

Does not require or imply an identity of forces. In modern war, the defensive has considerable advantages over the offensive, and less force is needed to defend a border than to cross one into someone else's land.

Again, if both states foreswear territorial ambitions at the other's expense, which is certainly implied in mutual recognition of each other's legitimacy and boundaries, no more than defensive capabilities are required, though more than that capability may be present on one side or another. It is true that a state of Arab Palestine would not be the only possible enemy for Israel, to which a large number of local states already in existance proclaim undying hostility at the present day. It could well be, though, that a genuine peace with a state of Arab Palestine might end that condition: it would certainly undercut the proclaimed justification for it most cases, with the exception only of Syria.