Israel Matzav

Can Israel be safe without Judea and Samaria?

The percentages of Judea and Samaria that Israel has been willing to give up for a fake 'peace' with the 'Palestinians' are overwhelming. 88%. 92%. 96%. 98%. But what does it all mean for Israel's security? That's a factor that most people outside Israel don't understand (except for vague references to those percentages endangering Ben Gurion Airport) and don't consider in deciding on our behalf that Israel should go back to the 1967 borders.

But giving up all of Judea and Samaria - or even giving up all of Judea and Samaria except for the 'settlement blocs' - would cause a clear and present danger to the rest of the country. And it's not 'just' a danger of rocket fire on the airport, although that would be bad enough. The 1949 armistice lines were nine miles wide at their narrowest point (near Netanya in the country's center). And the mountains act as a natural barrier to tanks attacking us from Jordan. Yoram Ettinger explains.

2. Judea and Samaria, the cradle of Jewish history, consists of two over-towering mountain ridges: A 3,000ft steep eastern slope above the Jordan Valley – the most effective tank barrier in the region; a 2,000ft gentle western slope – a dream platform of invasion to the 9-15 miles sliver along the Mediterranean (pre-1967 Israel). Judea and Samaria constitutes the "Golan Heights" of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the coastal plain and the 4 mile wide corridor between the coast and Jerusalem.

3. Israel's security predicament in perspective:

The width of pre-1967 Israel (without the over-towering mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria) is equal to 1/90 of the width of Texas, the distance between JFK and La Guardia airports, between Wall Street and Columbia University, between the Pentagon and Mt. Vernon, roundtrip between Kennedy Center and RFK Stadium, the length of DFW airport, less than the width of San Francisco, Miami and Washington DC, less than the distance between downtown London and Heathrow Airport, roundtrip between Albert Hall and the Tower of London and between Bois De Boulogne and La Place de la Bastille.

4. A 16 mile radius "killing zone" was established by the US Command in Bosnia, in order to safeguard the personal security of US servicemen. A 9-15 mile sliver along the Mediterranean, over-towered by the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria in the Mideast context, cannot safeguard the national security of the Jewish State.

A study done by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly after the 1967 Six Day War concluded that Israel cannot give up much of Judea or Samaria without endangering the country's security.

In a report to the Secretary of Defense in 1967, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff wrote that, at a minimum, "Israel would need a defense line generally along the Bardala-Tuba-Nablus-Bira-Jerusalem axis, and then to the northern part of the Dead Sea. This line would widen the narrow portion of Israel and provide additional terrain for the defense of Tel Aviv."

The report also provides support for a united Jerusalem under Israeli control. To defend Jerusalem, the Joint Chiefs concluded, Israel would need to have its border "positioned to the east of the city.

That's most of Judea and Samaria, and certainly would not leave space for a 'contiguous' 'Palestinian state.'

Keep that in mind the next time someone tells you that Israel should give the 'Palestinians' all the land outside the pre-1967 borders.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:04 AM