Kerry walks a tightrope on Jordan Valley plan
To make his ideas appealing, Kerry brought with him Marine Corps Gen. (retd.) John Allen, who heads a 160-strong US defense and intelligence team that has drawn up a scheme for the day after an Israeli-Palestinian final agreement. Although the American side talked to the Israelis about these ideas, the Israeli government has yet to buy in to the idea of military presence for a specific time.
More than four decades ago, Yigal Allon — the then deputy prime minister of Israel — came up with a proposal whereby Israel to return the West Bank to Jordan in exchange for annexing the Jordan Valley. Although the government rejected the proposal, it provided the Labor-led government in the 1970s with clear guidelines as to where to establish settlements. The Jordan Valley became the focus of the official settlement policy accordingly.
The rationale for keeping the Jordan Valley was very simple: Israel should keep a permanent military presence in the Jordan Valley for security reasons. Israel has for long feared that Iraq would send troops through Jordan to fight Israel. For Israelis, better safe than sorry. Therefore, they thought defending Israel from the Jordan Valley was more strategically savvy.
However, new political and technological developments have rendered the idea of Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley irrelevant. It is worth bearing in mind that Yigal Allon drafted his plan when the military threat was mainly from the “Eastern Front.” Allon advanced the notion of defensible borders. Now with the new technological development, topography is less important for security. Back in 1993, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres argued that missiles could hit Israel from hundreds of miles away. Nothing could have stopped the Iraqi army from striking Israel during the Gulf war of 1991.
Accordingly, Peres belittled the idea of keeping territories to achieve security. Peres could not have been more accurate. The only way to make Israelis feel safe is by having peace and historical reconciliations with their adversaries rather than dictating the terms of peace and perpetuation its occupation to others’ territories.
The 1994 peace treaty with Jordan should serve as the death knell to the notion of Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley. In one of its articles, the peace treaty stipulates that Jordan would not allow the entrance of foreign troops hostile to Israel to its soil. Put differently, the peace treaty with Jordan has shifted the security border for the Jordan to the borders with Iraq. This makes the question of why the Israelis still want to keep the Jordan Valley indefinitely a burning one.
Unfortunately, the American side is dodging this question. Rather than having honest talks with Israel about the irrelevance of the security argument and the benefits of peace, Kerry seeks the to pressure the Palestinians to accept Israelis terms for peace.
I think we have seen this movie before. President Clinton tried to force Arafat to accept a deal in Camp David only to fail. Worse, the Palestinians resorted to the Intifada! Not only did the Intifada compromise the security of Israel but also proved that the American failure to play the role of honest broker did not help the cause of peace. I can understand why Kerry wants the Israelis and the Palestinians to cut a historic deal. His quest for personal success is totally justified. But, the problem, and herein lies the crux of the matter, is that doing that at the expense of the Palestinians is an insane idea. I cannot imagine any Palestinian leader who would accept the Israeli military presence in the future Palestinian state. No Palestinian would accept a new form of Allon Plan either. Not President Mahmoud Abbas!
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