by Uzi Dayan
U.S. Secretary of State
John Kerry is visiting our region again. Borders are a core issue and
the main component of any framework deal between us and the
Palestinians, and Kerry knows that Israel has a proven right --
historically and internationally -- to defensible borders, either
through U.N. Resolution 242 or through former U.S. President George W.
Bush's letter of recognition in 2004. Members of Bush's own party signed
the letter, which discussed America's commitment to "secure, defensible
borders, and to preserve and strengthen Israel's capability to deter
and defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination
of threats."
The need for defensible
borders is getting stronger. Israel is not weak, but it is small and
narrow and therefore vulnerable: 70 percent of the population and 80% of
our industrial manufacturing capabilities are concentrated along a
narrow coastal plain controlled from the east by the hills of Judea and
Samaria. Considering these geostrategic conditions, the history of
hostility toward the Jewish state, the chronic lack of stability in the
Middle East and the developments in recent years -- the Arab winter, the
Iranian nuclear threat and the unrelenting terrorism -- Israel needs to
have some security buffers.
The first security
buffer is basic strategic depth, which has become even more important in
an era of missiles and rockets threatening our population centers and
hindering our ability to call up our reserve forces. Therefore, we need
land and aerial depth, both for the deployment of warning and
interception infrastructure and systems and to provide operational room
for the standing army, which will have to perform alone for longer until
the reserve forces can join -- not only to stop the enemy in its tracks
but also to neutralize his ability to launch rockets and missiles at
the Israeli home front. The increasing threat posed by regional
nuclearization only highlights the need for the strategic depth to
deploy warning and interception systems. Is 40 miles, which is the
average distance between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, too
much to ask for?
Secondly, we must
maintain defensive depth, which allows us to wage a defensive battle
against outside threats. For years it was claimed that there is no
threat, that there is no "eastern front." Today we know the bloody civil
war in Syria will go on even if Bashar Assad's chemical weapons
stockpiles are destroyed, that in Jordan there are 1.2 million Syrian
refugees and a radical Islamist opposition comprising tens of thousands
of global jihadist terrorists that have flowed into the region, that the
situation in Iraq is an ongoing cause for concern and that Iran is
continuing to establish forward operating bases across the globe. Shall
we continue to ignore the possibility that an eastern front can emerge?
Finally, we must
maintain an anti-terrorism buffer. We see what happened in Gaza and
Lebanon after we left "up to the very last centimeter." Only an Israeli
presence along the eastern environs of the West Bank will facilitate the
implementation of a demilitarized Palestinian entity, which, it is
known, is one of the basic conditions put forth by Israel before
agreeing to "two states for two peoples."
The Jordan Valley is
the answer -- it provides the minimum vital strategic depth, it is a
defensive strip against outside threats and allows the fight against
terrorism to be effective. Full Israeli sovereignty in the Jordan Valley
will negate the need for pointless discussions over security
arrangements -- give us sovereignty and we will tend to our security
needs. Even those who are prepared for less understand that there is no
technological system replacement for a defensive buffer and that we
cannot trust foreign forces to protects the lives of our soldiers and be
the first to retreat during a crisis. The entire Jordan Valley, under
complete Israeli control, is Israel's eastern border.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan is a former IDF deputy chief of general staff and former head of the National Security Council.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=6897
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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