ABSTRACT
In the order of US priorities in the Middle East, the security of Israel stands first; the secure access to the oil wells of the Gulf stands second. Today, the Soviet threat to US strategic control of the Middle East has evaporated and, with it, the threat to Israel of an attack by the former Soviet Union's Muslim clients. The US strategic control of the region does not signify the end of violence in the region. The Middle East is the largest repository of arms outside the past and present lands of the superpowers. The hatreds that poison Middle Eastern relationships have not been quenched. Israel being a Middle Eastern state, the demographic problem cannot be solved by the intervention, however well-meaning, of extra-regional powers, however friendly. It is Israel's sovereign prerogative to decide whom it will admit, and to decide where on its sovereign territory those it admits will settle.
