by David M. Weinberg
In his final speech to the Knesset in
October 1995, just two weeks before he was assassinated, Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin presented to the Knesset his vision for a Palestinian "entity" that would
be "less than a state." Rabin made it clear that Israel would "not return to the
June 4, 1967 lines" and he pledged that Israel would retain control over the
Jordan Valley "in the broadest meaning of that term." He also explicitly stated
that Israel would not freeze building over the Green Line.
By contrast, Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu today advocates the establishment of a Palestinian state; has largely
frozen settlement building; and insists only upon "maintaining Israeli military
forces along the Jordan River." Netanyahu's cautious formulation -- Israeli
forces along the Jordan River -- means something other than full sovereignty,
and clearly less than what Rabin intended.
Tellingly, Netanyahu has failed to
promote the development of Jordan Valley settlements. I have learned that
Netanyahu has even quietly hinted to prominent businessmen that they might not
really want to invest in the development of hotels on the north shore of the
Dead Sea.
Netanyahu's government also has
turned a blind eye to the seizure by Mohammed Dahlan and Jibril Rajoub of 5,000
dunams (two square miles) of land near Jericho for lucrative date tree
plantations, nurtured with water stolen both from Mekorot pipes and from
Jericho's residential drinking water lines.
All this tells me, worryingly, that
Netanyahu is not truly committed to keeping the Jordan Valley under Israeli
control. This is deeply regrettable, since the Israeli residents of that area
are true pioneers, and only full Israeli control of the entire Jordan Valley
region can provide Israel with sufficient security for the long-term.
On recent tours of the Jordan Valley
Regional Council and the Megilot Regional Council, organized by the Begin-Sadat
Center for Strategic Studies, I learned of the sacrifice and incredible
agricultural productivity of the 6,000 residents and 27 communities in these
areas -- most of which were established by the Labor Party. Regional council
heads David Elhayani and Motzi (Mordechai) Dehaman are heroic figures that have
steered their communities through decades of disadvantage, political neglect,
and security adversity.
I also learned that the Jordan Valley
is indispensable to Israel's national security, despite some recent punditry
which argues that Israel no longer needs the Jordan Valley as a shield against
aggression from the east.
It's true that the conventional
military threat to Israel from the east has currently diminished -- with the end
of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, the weakening of war-torn Syria, and the
impressive stability of Jordan despite the turmoil in the Arab world. Yet this
is a very short-term perspective, motivated by the desire to convince the
Israeli public that the Jordan Valley is militarily dispensable. This
perspective ignores the immense potential for escalated political upheaval in
the region, including possible jihadist destabilization of Iraq, Syria, Saudi
Arabia and Jordan.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan, who was
head of the Israel Defense Forces Central Command, IDF deputy chief of staff,
and National Security Adviser to the prime minister, has cogently and clearly
laid out the argument for defensible borders that necessarily include the Jordan
Valley.
Dayan says that Israeli security
requires three things: fundamental strategic depth; room to wage war against the
threat of conventional attack from the outside; and room that allows for
effectively combating terrorism.
The minimal strategic depth and
indivisible air space required is the 65-kilometer (40-mile) average width of
Israel from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.
As for room to wage war, that is the
Jordan Rift Valley, which ranges from six to 14 kilometers (four to nine miles)
wide. The mountains on the valley's western edge (which range from 900 to 1,400
meters high) create a physical defensive barrier that is traversable only
through five mountain passes. Thus, even a limited IDF force deployed in the
valley should be able defend Israel against an attack from the east.
Furthermore, the Jordan Valley is the
eastern buffer zone that prevents the West Bank mountain region from becoming a
full-blown terrorist entity.
Additionally, Professor Efraim Inbar,
director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, has argued for years
that if Israel wants to maintain a defensible border along the Jordan Valley it
needs to secure the road from the coast to the valley, via an undivided
Jerusalem and via the West Bank city of Maaleh Adumim. This is the only
west-east axis with a Jewish majority, and the only safe route via which Israel
can mobilize troops from the coast to the Jordan Valley in a case of military
emergency.
Thus Maaleh Adumim is the linchpin in
establishing an effective line of defense along the valley against aggression
from the east. Bolstering the populated Jewish corridor from Jerusalem to Maaleh
Adumim (including the five kilometer [three mile] connecting strip of land known
as E1) is necessary to secure the road to the Jordan Valley and prevent the
division of Jerusalem.
Some American and Israeli officials
argue that Israel can achieve security on its eastern border by the placement of
early detection systems in the Jordan Valley and by the deployment in the valley
of foreign forces. That was the essence of the plan proposed by U.S. General
John R. Allen on behalf of Secretary of State John Kerry. Defense Minister Moshe
Ya'alon reportedly dismissed the plan out of hand, and Dayan concurs.
Dayan says that experience proves
that no warning system can replace the defensive space of the Jordan Valley, and
that Israel must never rely on foreign forces. Foreign troops will not risk
their lives in the war on terror, and they will be the first to flee the region
should a crisis develop.
In fact, Dayan says that Israeli
negotiators of the past 20 years have approached security and diplomacy with
their heads screwed on backwards. Israel must move, he says, 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." We have to think of defensible borders, he explains, not
only as markers that ensure Israel's security needs, but as key building blocks
which guarantee that peace treaties will be sustainable.
Elhayani has a 10-year plan to triple the
population in the Jordan Valley. He should receive full government backing. With
the Kerry process dead-ended, Israel should move to reinforce its presence in
areas well within national consensus -- such as the Jordan Valley and the E1
corridor.
David M. Weinberg
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=8419
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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