The areas of Judea and Samaria contain mountainous terrain. These mountains, better known as the Judean Hills, rise from the coastal plain along the Mediterranean coast, to heights of 3000-5000 feet. Beyond them, there is a narrow valley, and another range of mountains which are slightly lower in altitude. And beyond these is the Jordan River valley, containing the lowest geographical point on Earth, the Dead Sea.
The coastal plain, on the coast, varies in width from 15-18 miles in the portion south of Tel Aviv, to a width of only 7 miles in the area of Netanya, roughly 45 miles north of Tel Aviv. The mountainous regions of Judea and Samaria are anywhere from 35 to 50 miles wide, and make up the vast majority of Israel's current territorial width.
It is not lost on many people that the recently concluded agreement between Israel and the PLO will eventually lead to the creation of a Palestinian state, fully independent, in the areas of Judea and Samaria. While this agreement is certainly welcome news in the world of neighbourly relations, promising that peace may at last be around the corner for the Jewish people and the Jewish state, it causes strategic nightmares for planners from the United States Defense Department and throughout the Western world.
These hills provide Israel with the only strategic security it currently has. The argument that, in today's age of missiles a little extra land is meaningless, is totally backward. Rather, in today's age of missiles, a proper defense means early warning and detection. This early warning is provided by radar installations on the heights of the Judean and Samarian mountains. I toured a number of such installations, and they are by no means meaningless. It is to their credit alone that Israel managed to have 10 minutes warning of scud attacks during the 1991 Gulf War. Repositioning these installations on the coastal plain eliminates any detection of activity on the other side of the mountains.
Currently, Israel holds the strategic high ground. Climbing 6000-7000 feet from the Jordan River to the heights of Samaria is too difficult for most invading forces to accomplish, especially if tanks are involved. But bringing such heavy force down from the mountains is almost too easy. A ground attack launched from the mountains on Tel Aviv or Netanya or Haifa could be concluded in a matter of 4-5 hours. And again early detection is nearly impossible with the geographic barrier provided by the mountains themselves.
For more in depth information on these problems, consult Michael A. Widlanski, Can Israel Survive a Palestinian State, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, 1990.
There is also a third issue involved in this strategic equation. The United States maintains its sizeable sixth fleet just outside the limit of Israel's territorial waters in the Mediterranean. For repairs, they dock in Haifa harbour. At their cruising grounds, or in Haifa harbour, these American ships come under direct threat from mobile and shoulder-launched missiles in the mountains. Even a completely de-militarized Palestinian state, even with Israeli monitoring of such de-militarization, cannot totally ensure that one lunatic can get a missile into the mountains and blow up an aircraft carrier in Haifa harbour. The death toll in both American and Israeli life, plus the damage to American armed force and prestige, would be too harsh to risk. And there are plenty of Palestinians in the Middle East who would be all too willing to see such an act succeed. They belong to Hamas, Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad, and those factions of the PLO who recently broke away from Arafat in reaction to the agreement. Arafat cannot control these elements, and they pose the largest threat to Israel, and the Western World.
If the PLO succeeds in setting up a state in Judea and Samaria, for which this agreement lays the groundwork, and this is done before these subversive elements are eliminated, the strategic danger is just too great to risk -- political considerations aside.
Copyright 1993. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
