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Israel's Right to Maintain Security Zones and Demilitarized Areas
Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Amb. Alan Baker - Every territorial withdrawal Israel has undertaken - whether in the Sinai following the 1956 Suez crisis, and pursuant to the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, in Syria in the 1974 Israel-Syria Disengagement Agreement, in southern Lebanon in the late 1980s, and in Gaza in 2005 - has been accompanied by security and demilitarization arrangements, monitored and supervised in order to prevent hostile forces from embedding themselves along Israel's borders. Yet these various security and demilitarization arrangements, dependent on foreign forces and UN approval, proved to be totally inadequate to prevent violations of the demilitarization requirements. As long as a real and immediate danger continues to exist along Israel's borders, and as long as Israel's security continues to face ongoing threats from neighboring territory, Israel is fully justified in insisting on security zones and demilitarized areas under its monitoring and supervision. Insistence by Israel on such ongoing presence and supervision is a prerequisite for any hope of regional stabilization and an essential requirement to ensure Israel's justified and proven right to ensure its security in accordance with its internationally acknowledged rights to defend itself and its people. The writer, former Legal Adviser and Deputy Director-General of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, heads the international law program at the Jerusalem Center. (Jerusalem