RUTHFULLY YOURS

The video below illustrates graphically what the concept “defensible borders” means in the context of Israel’s need to defend itself against Arab aggression.

It is universally recognized that all countries have the right to defend themselves against aggression.  The first responsibility of any government is to protect its citizenry and its territory; so maintaining defensible borders in the face of belligerent neighbors is a basic necessity for the continued existence of any state under threat of aggression.  In addition to this common-sense right of self-defense, Israel’s right to such borders was specifically enshrined in the 1967 UN Security Council Resolution 242, following Israel’s victory in the 1967 war.  Due to the refusal of the vanquished Arab states to make peace with Israel after the 6-Day War, and their vociferous commitment to maintaining hostilities until Israel’s utter destruction, the authors of the resolution, and those who voted in its favor, understood clearly that Israel was and would continue to be under threat of Arab aggression well into the future.  Thus they wrote into Resolution 242 the language that specifies defensible borders as a sine qua non for Israel in any future peace settlement.

President Obama seems to have forgotten this. He proposes that Israel begin its negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) having already agreed in advance that final borders will approximate the indefensible 1949 Armistice lines, erroneously referred to as the “1967 borders.”  It is important to recall that these lines were merely cease-fire lines drawn by the UN in 1949 between the opposing Arab and Israeli forces after the Arab armies conceded defeat.  These lines were not borders, were never intended to be borders, and were never recognized as borders by any political entity.  They have no political, historical or geographic valence.  Thus any reference to them as “borders” is erroneous and misleading.  These lines leave Israel a mere 9 miles wide at its most populous area, to be all too easily cut in half by a force invading from the east.

Obama’s proposal is the equivalent of a suicide note for Israel precisely because the 1949 Armistice lines are not defensible, the threat of Arab aggression and invasion is dire, continuous and imminent, and the unabashedly ballyhooed goal of that aggression is the annihilation of Israel and the genocide of its Jews.

Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and the Palestinian Authority are still in a declared but inactive state of war against Israel, have added their voices to the call from Iran for Israel’s destruction, and have aided and abetted the terrorist armies that actively engage in terror attacks against Israel.  Hamas, Hezb’Allah, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, the PFLP-GC, the DFLP, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Ansar al-Islam, el-Qaeda and more than a dozen other Muslim terrorist organizations are actively engaged in collaborative terrorist hostilities against Israel and have as their frequently avowed goal the destruction of the Jewish state and the annihilation of its Jews.

As the “Arab Spring” slouches toward Jerusalem, we are witness to the gradually emerging power of Islamic fundamentalist forces, rather than secular democracies, in the power vacuum created by the revolutions and upheavals throughout the Arab world: Iran at work in Bahrain and Yemen, Hezb’Allah in Lebanon, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, Jordan and Egypt.  Thus not only is Israel under immediate threat of terrorist attacks, but it must also plan for the possibility of a higher intensity conflict in the near future, even with Egypt and Jordan  with which Israel currently has peace treaties.  Both the Muslim Brotherhood and Hezb’Allah have unabashedly declared their intent to resume hostilities with Israel once they are in power.

Hezb’Allah has already stock-piled tens of thousands of missiles and rockets for future deployment against Israel.  Iran has made no secret of its intention to “wipe Israel off the face of the map” as soon as it has the nuclear capacity to do so.  Tragically, but undeniably, Israel needs to be prepared to defend itself simultaneously against terrorism from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, against armed invasions on four fronts (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt), and against nuclear ICBM attacks from even farther afield.

No other nation in the world today faces such hostility from so many neighbors on so many fronts.  No other nation faces the threat of total annihilation, of genocide.

The video demonstrates why Israel, in light of such hostility, must maintain military control over the Jordan valley, the central mountain range (territory now under control of the Palestinian Authority), the area around Jerusalem, and the air space over the central hill country.

The Jordan valley is the world’s best natural tank trap.  If the Jordan Valley were not under Israeli military control, a Palestinian Authority government predisposed to an invasion, perhaps launched by coalition forces that could include Jordanian, Iraqi and Syrian troops and armor, could facilitate these invaders’ crossing the Jordan valley and mounting the eastern slopes of the central mountain range.

Understanding this by no means unlikely scenario, the importance of the central mountain range becomes clear.  Once established on the mountain tops of this range, a Palestinian army or the invading forces of other Arab states could easily rain terror and destruction upon Israel’s coastal plain, home to 70% of its population, 80% of its industry, and all of its major air and sea ports.  Thus not only must Israel retain military control over this area, but the Palestinian Authority must also be demilitarized: possessing weaponry needed for a police force to maintain order and arrest terrorists, but not ordnance capable of high intensity military attack, such as artillery, tanks, heavily armed infantry, or air force.

The vulnerability of Jerusalem too is thus graphically explained.  Jerusalem’s capitol is seconds away from rockets launched by terrorists or belligerent forces ensconced in a collaborating Palestinian Authority’s territory.  And the same is true of the highways that cross Israel and permit the rapid deployment of Israeli forces.

But perhaps the truly greatest and most terrifying threat is that posed by Iran: Ahmedinejad’s threat of Iran’s nuclear destruction of Israel.  It takes only 2 minutes for an enemy aircraft to cross the Jordan valley and have Jerusalem and other major cities in range of its air-to-ground missiles.  An ICBM akin to those currently in Iran’s possession needs less than a minute from the time that Israel can detect it to the time of impact.  As Iran’s President has gleefully announced, all it will take is one successful nuclear missile to penetrate Israel’s defenses.  Because Israel is so small, once that missile has struck its target, the entire country will be so devastated that a follow-up conventional attack cannot but succeed.

In June, 1967, the leaders of the vanquished Arab states proudly proclaimed that they would never make peace with Israel, and would continue hostilities until Israel was destroyed, no matter how long it would take.  After all, they crowed, the Arab states are so numerous and populous that they can afford forty defeats, but Israel can afford only one.  Israel will win every battle, they promised, except the last one.

Today, almost exactly sixty-four years later, little has changed.  In fact, it looks like Israel’s position is even more vulnerable than it was then.  Now Israel must be prepared not only to win every battle, but also to stop every missile: an impossible task without defensible borders.