EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY: Israel has a natural right to, and an internationally recognized
need for, defensible borders. The Jordan Valley is the only truly defensible
eastern border for Israel.
UN Security Council Resolution
242 of November 1967 stated that Israel must have “secured and recognized
boundaries” – borders that are not necessarily identical to the indefensible
lines that preceded the war. The resolution did not demand that the IDF retreat
completely to the 1947 lines. Even back then it was understood that the 1967
lines were too tempting to Israel’s enemies.
In 2004, the United States gave
Israel a letter of guarantee that recognized Israel’s right to “defensible
borders that would allow it to defend itself by itself.” This document was
signed by President George W. Bush and backed by a bi-partisan majority in the
American Congress.
As we seek to determine the
location of these defensible borders for Israel, we must take into account two
main factors, with a long-term and historic perspective. First, we have to
consider the threats to Israel – conventional warfare, missiles and rockets,
terrorism, nuclear weapons. Second, we have to consider the geo-strategic and
the topographic situation.
The State of Israel is by no
means a weak nation, but it is vulnerable because it is small and narrow.
Seventy percent of its population and 80 percent of its industrial capacity is
concentrated in the narrow coastal strip between the Mediterranean Sea and the
West Bank.
The hills of the West Bank
topographically dominate the exposed coastal plain, which contains a
significant share of Israel’s national infrastructures, including: Ben-Gurion
International Airport, the Trans-Israel Highway (Road 6), Israel’s National
Water Carrier, its main high-voltage electric power lines, and more. This
topography gives a distinct advantage to any attacker in terms of observation,
firepower, and good defensive capability against an Israeli ground response.
These reasons led the
architects of Israel’s national security doctrine, from Yigal Alon and Moshe
Dayan to Yitzhak Rabin, to tenaciously oppose Israel’s return to the vulnerable
1967 lines; which, they believed, would only invite aggression and endanger the
future of Israel rather than pave a path towards peace.
Many years have passed and the
need for defensible borders has only increased. Indeed, the history of Arab
aggression against Israel and chronic instability in the Middle East has
recently been compounded by a number of significant developments.
The “Arab Spring” or ‘uprising’
has led to civil wars and unprecedented bloodshed, increased terrorism, and
even introduced global jihadist terror to the Middle East. This threatens
regimes and reinforces the region’s fundamental uncertainty.
Iran is doggedly moving towards
nuclear weapons, and is aggressively involved in every conflict in the region;
establishing “outposts” in neighboring countries.
Never-ending terrorism is on
the rise, and its effectiveness has grown with the development of
terror-by-rocket. The involvement of terrorist organizations in regime
struggles, the introduction into the region of global jihadist terrorism and
Iran’s involvement have made terrorism a strategic threat that could lead to
war in the region.
Renewed efforts to bring the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a peaceful resolution places the issue of
borders on the negotiating table and puts it at the forefront of the core
issues under dispute.
Defensible borders for Israel
must meet the following criteria: Fundamental strategic depth; room to wage war
against the threat of conventional attack from the outside; and room that
allows for effectively combating terrorism.
In the south of Israel (with
the demilitarization in Sinai) and in the north (given that Israel has held
onto the Golan Heights), Israel has defensible borders.
What is the meaning of the
criteria for defensible borders on the eastern front?
First, Israel requires
fundamental strategic depth, whose importance only increases in the age of
ballistic missiles and long-range rockets – which threaten civilian population
centers and even impact upon military recruitment and the deployment of reserve
forces.
Under these conditions IDF
ground units will be forced to operate for long periods of time without
significant assistance from the Israeli Air Force. The air force will be busy
achieving air superiority through destroying enemy air defenses and suppressing
the launching of ballistic missiles and rockets aimed at Israel’s cities. In
addition, the threat of nuclear arms in the region reinforces the need for a
strategic depth required to deploy early warning and interception systems.
Second, Israel needs depth to
wage defensive war against the threats from conventional attack from the east.
Uncertainty and concern regarding the directions in which Iraq and Jordan may
develop, and civil war in Syria that threatens to spill over to its neighbors,
makes this depth critical.
Third, Israel must retain room
to fight terrorism effectively. Only Israel’s presence on the outer eastern
border of the West Bank (the Jordan River and Valley) will enable genuine
demilitarization of the Palestinian Authority, which is a condition for any
stable arrangement and one of Israel’s fundamental conditions for agreeing to a
two state solution.
Thus Israel’s only possible
defensible border is in the Jordan Valley!
It is important to remember
that Israel is on average only 40 miles wide from the Mediterranean Sea to the
Jordan River. This is, in all opinions, the minimal strategic depth and
indivisible air space.
The width of the Jordan Rift
Valley ranges between 6.7 and 14.5 km. The Jordan River flows at an altitude of
some 400 meters below sea level, and to the west is a ridge of mountains rising
up to a height of up to more than 1,000 meters above sea level. Thus, the
Jordan Valley is a physical defensive barrier with a height of 900 to 1,400
meters, which is traversable only by five essential mountain passes. Therefore,
even the limited force of the IDF standing army should be able to successfully
defend Israel against an attack from the east as long as it is deployed in the
Jordan Valley and on the ridges that control it from the west.
The Jordan Valley is the
eastern buffer zone surrounding the State of Israel in general and the city of
Jerusalem, its capital, in particular. Experience from Israel’s withdrawal from
southern Lebanon and Gaza has taught us that if Israel fails to control the
buffer zone, the entire area we withdraw from will become a terrorist entity.
And it is important to note that the Jordan Valley is an arid region with very
little Palestinian population.
All this makes the Jordan
Valley a vital line of defense for Israel’s security. It is no wonder that
Yitzhak Rabin, in his last speech to the Knesset in October 1995 stated that
Israel must, in any peace agreement, control the Jordan Valley “in the broadest
meaning of the term.”
There are those who would
attempt to dispute this security statement by proposing the placement of early
detection systems in the Jordan Valley backed by the deployment of foreign
forces. However, experience proves that no warning system can replace the
defensive space of the Jordan Valley, and that Israel must not rely on foreign
forces for the combat of terrorism nor as a defensive force. Foreign troops
will not risk their lives for the war on terror and they will be the first ones
to leave should a crisis arise. Only Israeli forces can provide the security
Israel needs.
Consequently, Israel must move
from a policy of “security based on international agreements and diplomatic
guarantees” to a policy of “agreements based on security provided by Israeli
forces deployed in defensible spaces.” Neither the Green Line nor the Security
Fence can serve as Israel’s defensible border. Only full Israeli control of the
entire Jordan Valley region as a security area, based on the Jordan River as a
boundary line, will be able to provide Israel with sufficient security.
Defensible borders will not
only ensure Israel’s security needs but will also guarantee that peace treaties
are sustainable.
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