Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2003

"How eerily prophetic 'The Last Jihad' was," author Joel C. Rosenberg recalled in an exclusive interview with NewsMax.com. "In the first chapter kamikaze suicide planes target the United States, and that leads to a war with Iraq over the weapons of mass destruction. And this was all written before 9/11.

"Now the first chapter of my new book, 'The Last Days,' opens with a U.S diplomatic convoy heading into Gaza as part of the peace process when it is suddenly attacked by that massive explosion. Incredibly, a few weeks before ‘The Last Days’ hit bookstores I turn on the news and see all the networks broadcasting live from Gaza about a U.S. diplomatic convoy being attacked by a massive explosion tragically costing three Americans their lives," Rosenberg said.

Central to both books is a U.S.-backed peace proposal that uses the fictional discovery of oil and gas fields as a powerful incentive to Israelis and Palestinians to make a permanent peace treaty. Once again, Rosenberg shows himself to be a prophet.

"In the late '90s, British Petroleum discovered huge tracts of natural gas off the southern Israeli coast and off the coast of Gaza. It was a front-page New York Times story in September of 2000 – that there’s so much gas there that some experts believe that it could make Israel energy independent for decades and provide tremendous wealth for the Palestinians and provide the basis of a peace treaty," Rosenberg told NewsMax.com.

Standing in the way of his fictional bonanza of oil and gas becoming a reality is the need for money, lots of it, he said. "The problem, is, they need a billion dollars of venture capital to make it happen, and given the violence in the area nobody wants to put in a billion dollars, so that’s the catch-22."

Rosenberg said that "a few months ago Haaretz ran a big story saying that they have found oil in Israel now, and they are doing tests to see if it’s of commercial quantity. If there is more evidence that there may in fact be these massive amounts of oil and gas, and if that really does bear itself out over the next year or 18 months, it will be huge news around the world and will make 'The Last Jihad' and 'The Last Days' seem ahead of their times. But it could be dramatic in terms of the peace process."

What has been missing for the last 30 or 40 years of negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians are tangible benefits for the parties, he said.

"If I give up something what am I going to get?" he asked. "Israelis believe that they are going to get empty promises, and Palestinians think they’re not going to get enough, and at the core of it is a very blue economic model that they both need land because land in an agrarian society is what’s valuable. But in an information-age economy Hong Kong can become one of the richest places on then planet with no natural resources and no land.

"If you add in an industrial-age discovery of oil and natural gas the least you do is move the mind-set among the Israelis and Palestinians forward by one economic model. They’ll both realize that ‘Gee, if we could get a piece of that action, if the companies that were to produce and sell this oil and gas were privatized so that all the Israelis and Palestinians would have a piece of the rock, it would be a huge incentive.' Then as the value of the company goes up the value of everybody’s stake in making the peace process work goes up."

Rosenberg has the credentials that qualify him as a seasoned observer of Middle Eastern affairs. Before writing 'The Last Days' he went to Israel for meetings which gave him material that provided the backbone of the book.

"In February of this year then-Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invited me to Jerusalem to spend a week with him and his top counterterrorism advisers to war game out the scenarios of what happens if somebody tries to assassinate Arafat – what would happen if a Palestine civil war were to break out, how would the Israelis respond, how might the Americans respond. I took those discussions and wove them through this book fictionally but based it and rooted it in reality, and I think that’s why it’s resonating with people."

The book ends with peace negotiations well on their way, thanks to the U.S. plan to use the newly discovered energy supplies as a key to bringing about a pact. But in reality, Rosenberg is not optimistic about the prospects of peace in the near future.

Arafat the 'Monster'

"I believe that we have not seen the worst of the violence in the West Bank and Gaza, and I believe that the all those roads of terror lead back to Yasser Arafat," he said.

"He’s a thug. He’s a monster. He really is the godfather of modern terrorism, and I believe that as long as he is in power Americans are not safe in the Middle East.

"The suicide bombers that he has funded and set into motion with the help of Iran and Syria and Saudi Arabia and Iraq can directly affect our homeland security here.

"You have to think of Yasser Arafat as being like the Mafia boss in 'The Godfather.' What happens after the godfather dies in the movie is a bloody battle within the godfather’s own family as well as among other crime families in New York for succession. I believe that when Arafat leaves the scene either by natural causes, arrest, expulsion or assassination either from the Israelis or the Palestinians, when he’s gone the worst-case scenario, which is the most likely, is a bloody battle to succeed among the various crime families that make up the various Palestinian factions. It’s a grim prognosis."

It is that grim prognosis that plays out in "The Last Days." Like "The Last Jihad" the characters move from one violent crisis and confrontation to another, almost without let-up. The reader is so caught up in the action that he finds himself in the middle of it.

Several reviewers of "The Last Jihad" remarked that Rosenberg’s grasp of the ins and outs of the arms of U.S. national security – the CIA, the military, etc., and the situation in the Middle East – is so deep that he appears to be as familiar with his subject as Tom Clancy, author of the classic "Hunt for Red October" and many other thrillers.

One reader remarked, "I found myself so involved in 'The Last Days' that when I saw Yasser Arafat on television while I was reading the book I wondered why they were showing him – didn’t they know he’s dead?"

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