Invest in and secure the Jordan Valley

DAVID M WEINBERG, ISRAEL HAYOM

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