June 2005

After the Gaza Disengagement: Establishing Defensible Borders for Israel

President George W. Bush has made clear his commitment to defensible borders for the State of Israel. With the Gaza withdrawal slated for completion in August 2005, what will the president's commitment mean for Israel? What does the concept of "defensible borders" mean for the West Bank, and will it have implications for final status arrangements? Can the international community find answers that will satisfy the political and security requirements of both Israel and the Palestinians? These and other questions were the subject of a June 27 AEI presentation and discussion.

Dore Gold
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

Those for and against the impending disengagement from Gaza agree on at least one critical point: the months following the pullout will be marked with great uncertainty. The imminent unilateral withdrawal, initiated by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, has opened the floodgates for discussion surrounding what to do with disputed territory outside of Gaza--namely, the West Bank. In particular, many have entertained the possibility of a complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, also known as the pre-1967 boundaries. While the creation of a Palestinian state has featured prominently on the international agenda, the now invigorated debate over the disputed territories has foisted a critical, even existential issue to the political forefront.

Underlying any negotiated agreement should be the complete assurance of defensible borders for Israel. Although this point is increasingly overlooked in the public discourse, it has long earned political consensus in important diplomatic circles. As recently as in an April 2004 promise by President George W. Bush and dating back as far as the frequently misunderstood November 1967 UN resolution 242, secure boundaries for Israel have been a guaranteed fixture in political discussion about the future of the Middle East.

Many American government officials throughout the years have shown a commitment to defensible borders for Israel, including former Presidents Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush. However, popular dialogue marches to a different beat. EU representative Javier Solana, the RAND Corporation, and the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution are among those people and institutions who neglect Israeli border concerns by calling for an Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 boundaries as critical measure of negotiated settlement. There are massive security considerations involved in such a withdrawal, including the transfer of strategic high ground and water sources, and the reduction of Israel’s highly developed coastal region to a ten-mile-wide swath.

If the diplomatic promise for defensible borders is so positively assured, how does this dichotomy with the public dialogue emerge? Some adhere to the prevailing wisdom of a “panacea state,”--the idea that Palestinian statehood will necessarily be an end-all measure towards peace in the Middle East. If one were to finally establish a state somehow all the collective grievances of radical Islam would be assuaged and the entire Middle East would suddenly snap together like a jigsaw puzzle. Another possibility is a carry-over effect from previous negotiations. Many assume that the proposed concessions regarding the West Bank made at Taba and Camp David during the later Clinton years have become a fixed point of departure for any future settlement. Given the two primary aspirations of compromise--Israeli peace and Palestinian sovereignty--the natural inclination is to favor the concrete over the abstract. As a result, Palestinian statehood becomes the focal point of discussion while “peace” recedes into murky and inconsequential language.

It is therefore vital to assert forcefully the idea of defensible borders into the communal dialogue. Defensible borders must become a concrete element of the negotiating agenda on par with Palestinian statehood. Israeli self-defense has long been a part of the American vision of the Middle East and is a crucial a priori condition of any negotiated settlement.

Major-General (Res.) Yaakov Amidror
Israeli Defense Forces

As a military officer, my initial inclination is to treat the issue of defensible borders as a technician. Taking topographical, geographical, and strategic considerations into account, the ideal solution would be to draw the best possible line and so affirm a sure perimeter. In fact, ignoring political consideration, a Pentagon group drew such a line and determined, as many have before, that pre-1967 Israel just lacks the territorial capability to defend herself. Certain factors, particularly the relative elevation of the West Bank, the width of the coastal region--especially in terms of its strategic significance--and simply the lack of an adequate buffer for mobilization make a complete withdrawal to 1949 armistice lines a veritable death knoll for Israeli self-defense.
 
In the event of another Israeli war, it is important to note that there is no “second-chance” status; a serious military loss would be a terminal prognosis for the Jewish state. With this consideration in mind, it is clear that despite all political and diplomatic assurances regarding treaties, intervention, or international aid, defensible borders remain as the preeminent consideration--it is the only conclusive guarantor to the survival of Israel.

Israel faces three fundamental threats. First, it faces the (currently remote) possibility of an outright war in classical terms; second, it faces the (currently more imminent) threat of missiles; and third and most pressing, it faces the threat of terrorism. A serious problem in its present state, it only stands to escalate with the international drift of newly trained terrorists fresh from an open front--namely, the Iraqi insurgency. As the Americans are experiencing now and Israel has known definitively since Oslo, forces on the ground are absolutely necessary to combat a terrorist attack. Isolation and proximity, for both intelligence and staging purposes, are the best tactical means a military can have during an unconventional conflagration, and they cannot be achieved without defensible borders.

Hopefully our security need is an interim one. If America succeeds in its efforts to help alter the situation in the Middle East, Israel will not be so actively concerned for its safety. But until then it is imperative to understand the complicated interplay of strategic, geographic, and topographic factors which can critically limit Israel’s ability to defend itself and avoid a catastrophe from which there may be no return.

Scott Lasensky
United States Institute of Peace

Outside parties can certainly play a role in any final borders settlement. In fact, the potential exists for outside parties to play a far more central role in the West Bank than in the Golan or the Sinai. One of the chief functions of a U.S. intermediary is that of a security broker--offering security swaps to help support Israel’s safety. The United States has a long tradition of security cooperation and exchange with Israel. It can continue to provide security goods and to encourage Israel to exercise “defensible restraint,” as it did in influencing Israel’s building of the security fence.

This is not to say that outside parties offer the final key to a successful and safe settlement. There have been instances, most notably when UN forces deployed in Sinai, when Israel relied much too heavily on the international community. “Trip-wire” measures for intervention are hardly sufficient grounds on which to base the Israel’s future existence. But overall, in the West Bank, unlike in Sinai, there is no “edge” for maneuverability, either logistic or diplomatic, which would allow for a more distant and static solution. There exists a dynamism in which “overlapping conceptions of homeland and heartland” beckon a vital but well-conceived role for external parties.

Discussing defensible borders in strategic terms alone fails to do justice to the richness of the debate. Many reasonable theories for defensibility have been equally concerned with demographic implications as a crucial element in boundary making. Likewise, Israel’s “footprint” in the West Bank is far deeper and more nuanced than a purely logistic solution entails. It would be disingenuous to ignore the obvious nationalist elements that interact with the strategic to complicate the landscape.

Finally, it is not necessarily the case that the Clinton offering in 2000 and the Bush statement in 2004 contain mutually exclusive conditions; they can be understood well in accordance with each other.

My suggestion would be first to securely maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge, an undertaking which the United States has embraced for years and will continue to pursue. Second, we must harden the parameters for outside intervention through extensive debate and thorough analysis. Third, America must continue to enhance its cache of influence and rapport with the Israeli administration, even by supporting programs it may have opposed from the outset, such as the security fence. The value of sustained import into the political process far outweighs the arguably objectionable particulars of specific policies.

John Foss
U.S. Army (Ret.)

The pre-1967 boundaries of Israel are conclusively indefensible, especially those surrounding the coastal region. Furthermore, the precedent of U.S. forces in Sinai as a proposed model for intervention in the West Bank is misguided because it underestimates the magnitude of such an undertaking. In contrast to the West Bank, the Sinai passage is virtually desolate with very minimal security and patrol requirements. The dense populations centers of the coast and Jerusalem would necessitate a security apparatus no foreign power, including the United States with its current commitments, could seriously undertake.

Richard Perle
AEI

The 1949 armistice lines are a completely indefensible situation from an Israeli perspective. While this fact is incontrovertible, it has nonetheless been lost in the ongoing debate. Even Menachem Begin in his first visit to Washington as prime minister failed to mention defensibility amidst a whimsical lecture on the Jewish connection to Judea and Samaria.

Many of Israel’s major population centers, particularly along the coast, are within range of 155-milimeter artillery fire. General Amidror mentioned the threat of missiles, but he need not look so far to find a discernable threat. Simple ammunition fire is capable of striking the Israeli heartland, especially given the topographic advantages of the western high ground. A final settlement may include provisions for limitations on artillery movement, but the general lack of enforceability and the likelihood of violation will erode any faith in such an arrangement. One need only look to the example of Egyptian missile violations in 1970 to illustrate the weakness of a similarly toothless agreement.

Israel must be able to insure its own security, ultimately without help or foreign intervention. Devoid of sufficient space and logistical advantage, Israel will not have the time needed to mobilize a force large enough to safeguard its borders, cities, and infrastructural lifeblood. Nor is such a claim to self-sufficiency so outlandish; no nation beckons the day when the existence of its country is tied to the fate of some outside party.

AEI intern Moses Sternstein prepared this summary.