Like the cliché from an old Western film where the hero squints at the horizon and says “it’s too quiet,” General Amos Yadlin, the outgoing chief of Israel’s Military Intelligence, issued a warning in his recent briefing to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. He said, “The recent security calm is unprecedented but there should be no mistake that there are efforts [by elements] in the area to grow stronger.” Israel’s enemies are lying low for two reasons. First, the 2006 (Lebanon) and 2008 (Gaza) conflicts generated deterrence. But second, the current calm serves their purposes. They make use of the time to arm themselves with new weapons.
Retired General Giora Eiland noted the dangers that would confront Israel should a Palestinian state arise that was not completely demilitarized:
- 1. Rockets and missiles of different varieties, positioned throughout the West Bank, would be able to reach the entire State of Israel.
- 2. Advanced antiaircraft missiles would be capable of shooting down not only large passenger aircraft flying into Ben-Gurion Airport, but also helicopters and even fighter planes.
- 3. Anti-tank missiles that are highly effective up to a range of 5 km. can easily cover strategic positions such as Israel’s north-south Highway 6 and other sites that are crucial to Israel’s defense.
Eiland points out that all these weapons are small and easily smuggled, so that demilitarizing a Palestinian state by depriving it of tanks and airplanes will not address the threat. Eiland urges revising the discussion of what constitutes “secure borders.” He specifically suggests thickening Israel’s narrow waist beyond its current 16 kilometers in order to allow a margin of safety and guarantee Israel’s internal lines of communications in the event of war.
Further complicating the situation is the Iranian nuclear program. While many assume that solving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians will make it easier to deal with Iran, the inverse may be more accurate. Yadlin reports the Iranians now have enough enriched uranium to create one nuclear bomb and are well on the way to enriching enough for a second. Failing to deter or neutralize the Iranian nuclear program would make the current discussion of future borders largely irrelevant.
An Iranian nuclear weapon would mean that Israel must enhance its capacity to survive a first strike. Israel is particularly vulnerable because its population lives largely along the coast and many of its security resources are located there. To withstand a first strike Israel will have to move resources away from the coast. Since it is about the size of New Jersey, Israel does not have vast, empty lands to which it can disperse crucial facilities and population. The logical diredction for dispersal is Jerusalem. That is a Muslim holy city and is surrounded by 1.5–2.3 million West Bank Palestinians, and so is regarded as a less likely Iranian nuclear target. Thus, as Prof. Martin Kramer, a noted academic expert, expressed it: “… a nuclear Iran creates a dynamic where Israel, from a strategic point of view, is compelled to keep a tight grip on Jerusalem and a large swath of the West Bank for the simple reason that it creates a deterrent to an Iranian attack. If all our strategic assets are concentrated on the coastal plain around Tel Aviv, we’re vulnerable.”
Combining the analyses of Yadlin, Eiland and Kramer, we see how the concept of secure borders may become ever harder to define. Iranian nuclear-weapon capacity; a decline in the significance of demilitarizing Palestine of armor and airplanes; the rising importance of readily smuggled or manufactured missiles all elevate the strategic significance of much of Jerusalem and the West Bank, even as the Israeli public has shown disregard for the much discredited “greater Land of Israel” ideology.
This weakens the arguments supporting the feasibility of a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish State of Israel behind “safe borders.” Conversely, it strengthens the hand of the pragmatic “security right” in Israel (as opposed to the “Greater Land of Israel” right). And it may well encourage a majority of Israelis, who tend toward pragmatism, to question their safety under current formulations of possible borders, such as those indicated by former President Clinton in his recent remarks on the 15th anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Iranian nuclear-weapons capacity will alter Israel’s fundamental safety calculations that currently guide their negotiators.
So much hinges on the results of the U.S. initiatives to stop Iran’s nuclear program. If they succeed, we may yet have a peace accord in this region. If they fail, efforts at peace between Israel and the Palestinians may well be sent back to the drawing board.
First published at http://bit.ly/1m47UQ3
“It’s Too Quiet”
Like the cliché from an old Western film where the hero squints at the horizon and says “it’s too quiet,” General Amos Yadlin, the outgoing chief of Israel’s Military Intelligence, issued a warning in his recent briefing to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. He said, “The recent security calm is unprecedented but there should be no mistake that there are efforts [by elements] in the area to grow stronger.” Israel’s enemies are lying low for two reasons. First, the 2006 (Lebanon) and 2008 (Gaza) conflicts generated deterrence. But second, the current calm serves their purposes. They make use of the time to arm themselves with new weapons.
Retired General Giora Eiland noted the dangers that would confront Israel should a Palestinian state arise that was not completely demilitarized:
Eiland points out that all these weapons are small and easily smuggled, so that demilitarizing a Palestinian state by depriving it of tanks and airplanes will not address the threat. Eiland urges revising the discussion of what constitutes “secure borders.” He specifically suggests thickening Israel’s narrow waist beyond its current 16 kilometers in order to allow a margin of safety and guarantee Israel’s internal lines of communications in the event of war.
Further complicating the situation is the Iranian nuclear program. While many assume that solving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians will make it easier to deal with Iran, the inverse may be more accurate. Yadlin reports the Iranians now have enough enriched uranium to create one nuclear bomb and are well on the way to enriching enough for a second. Failing to deter or neutralize the Iranian nuclear program would make the current discussion of future borders largely irrelevant.
An Iranian nuclear weapon would mean that Israel must enhance its capacity to survive a first strike. Israel is particularly vulnerable because its population lives largely along the coast and many of its security resources are located there. To withstand a first strike Israel will have to move resources away from the coast. Since it is about the size of New Jersey, Israel does not have vast, empty lands to which it can disperse crucial facilities and population. The logical diredction for dispersal is Jerusalem. That is a Muslim holy city and is surrounded by 1.5–2.3 million West Bank Palestinians, and so is regarded as a less likely Iranian nuclear target. Thus, as Prof. Martin Kramer, a noted academic expert, expressed it: “… a nuclear Iran creates a dynamic where Israel, from a strategic point of view, is compelled to keep a tight grip on Jerusalem and a large swath of the West Bank for the simple reason that it creates a deterrent to an Iranian attack. If all our strategic assets are concentrated on the coastal plain around Tel Aviv, we’re vulnerable.”
Combining the analyses of Yadlin, Eiland and Kramer, we see how the concept of secure borders may become ever harder to define. Iranian nuclear-weapon capacity; a decline in the significance of demilitarizing Palestine of armor and airplanes; the rising importance of readily smuggled or manufactured missiles all elevate the strategic significance of much of Jerusalem and the West Bank, even as the Israeli public has shown disregard for the much discredited “greater Land of Israel” ideology.
This weakens the arguments supporting the feasibility of a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish State of Israel behind “safe borders.” Conversely, it strengthens the hand of the pragmatic “security right” in Israel (as opposed to the “Greater Land of Israel” right). And it may well encourage a majority of Israelis, who tend toward pragmatism, to question their safety under current formulations of possible borders, such as those indicated by former President Clinton in his recent remarks on the 15th anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Iranian nuclear-weapons capacity will alter Israel’s fundamental safety calculations that currently guide their negotiators.
So much hinges on the results of the U.S. initiatives to stop Iran’s nuclear program. If they succeed, we may yet have a peace accord in this region. If they fail, efforts at peace between Israel and the Palestinians may well be sent back to the drawing board.
First published at http://bit.ly/1m47UQ3
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Edward Rettig