Oded Yinon was an official in the Foreign Ministry of the State of Israel and a journalist who outlined a comprehensive strategy of balkanisation for its neighbours.
This Yinon Plan as it is known advocates for the deliberate fragmentation of Arab states into smaller and weaker sectarian or ethnic entities.
The paper is not merely as theoretical analysis but as an accurate and detailed blueprint that reflected high level thinking within the military and intelligence establishment of the State of Israel particularly during the premiership of Menachem Begin and the tenure of Ariel Sharon as Defence Minister.
The long term security strategy of the State of Israel relies on the dissolution of surrounding Arab nations and their reconfiguration into a mosaic of mutually hostile micro states.
Their Perception of the Arab World
The foundational premise of Yinon's strategy is the characterisation of the Arab world as a fragile and artificial construct. The document asserts that the Muslim Arab world is built like a temporary house of cards put together by foreigners specifically the British and French empires in the wake of World War I without regard for the wishes of the inhabitants.
These states are viewed not as cohesive national entities but as heterogeneous collections of ethnic and religious groups held together only by authoritarian force.
It argues that the region is riddled with internal conflict and that every Arab state faces ethnic and social destruction from within. This inherent instability serves as the basis for the proposed policy.
The strategy contends that because these states are externally manufactured, they are illegitimate and therefore valid targets for partition. The fragmentation of these nations is framed not as a tragedy to be avoided but as a strategic opportunity to be exploited by the State of Israel.
The Strategy of Balkanisation
The paper argues that the State of Israel must abandon the pursuit of coexistence and the status quo in favour of hegemony through destabilisation. The model for this transformation is Lebanon, which by the early 1980s had fractured into distinct sectarian provinces.
Yinon envisions a region composed of powerless mini-states incapable of challenging Israeli dominance. This geopolitical restructuring is intended to ensure Israel's regional superiority by surrounding it with weak, feuding entities rather than unified sovereign nations.
The immediate short-term target is the dissolution of the military power of these states, with the long-term goal being their permanent fragmentation along ethnic and religious lines.
Reconfiguring the Arab World
- Iraq and the Persian Gulf:
Iraq holds specific prominence due to its oil wealth and military potential, who is identified as the greatest short-term threat to the State of Israel.
The strategy explicitly calls for the dissolution of Iraq, positing that the ongoing Iran-Iraq War would facilitate this disintegration. Yinon outlines the creation of three or more states centred around major cities, mirroring the administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire: a Shiite state in the south (Basra), a Sunni state in the central region (Baghdad), and a Kurdish state in the north (Mosul).
- The Levant (Syria and Lebanon):
Syria should fall apart in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure. The goal is the creation of several mutually hostile states, including a Shiite Alawite state along the coast, a Sunni state in Aleppo, another hostile Sunni state in Damascus, and a Druze state potentially incorporating the Golan Heights.
The fragmentation of Lebanon into five provinces serves as the precedent for this wider regional dissolution.
- Egypt:
Yinon viewed the 1978 Camp David Accords as a mistake and described Egypt as a "corpse." The strategy advocates for breaking the territorial integrity of the largest Arab state to reduce it to a collection of distinct geographical and sectarian entities, including a Christian Coptic state in the north.
It implies a return to the _status quo ante_, specifically the return of Israeli control over the Sinai Peninsula.
- Jordan and the Palestinian Question:
Yinon argues that genuine security requires Jewish rule between the Jordan River and the sea: Pax Judaica.
Consequently, the policy dictates the dissolution of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the transfer of the Palestinian population from the West Bank to the East Bank.
Jordan is viewed as the only potential Palestinian state, and the liquidation of its regime is presented as the solution to the demographic threat within _Eretz Israel_.
Neoconservative Alignment and "A Clean Break"
The strategic vision shows a strong continuity with policies advocated by American Neoconservatism in subsequent decades.
In 1996, a study group led by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser produced a policy paper titled _A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm_ for incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mirroring the Yinon Plan, _A Clean Break_ advised Israel to reject the Oslo peace process and engage in regime change to reshape the strategic environment.
It explicitly called for the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq to foil Syrian ambitions and weaken Iran. This alignment indicates that the concepts of destabilisation and fragmentation originated in Israeli strategic thought and were later adopted by US policymakers who used American military power to achieve these objectives.
Implementation
The history of the Middle East since the early 1980s has followed the trajectory outlined in the Yinon Plan with remarkable fidelity.
The invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the subsequent civil wars in Syria and Libya are seen by analysts as the execution of this strategic instruction manual. The Middle East today looks much more like Yinon's "House of Cards" than the bloc of Arab nationalist states that existed in the 1980s.