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Why International Peacekeepers Cannot Replace the IDF in the Defense of Israel

(Friends of Israel Initiative) Dore Gold - The Jordan Valley has been viewed as a vital defense line in the event of conventional warfare, as well as for dealing with terrorist challenges and efforts to launch an insurgency campaign against Israel. Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin declared on October 5, 1995, that "the security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term." By agreeing to the deployment of international peacekeepers instead of the IDF in the Jordan Valley, Israel would be placing its security in the hands of a force that might be easily removed, leaving Israel completely exposed in the future. Recognizing that no foreign forces can realistically be expected to risk their lives for the defense of Israel, the national security doctrine of the Jewish state has been that Israel must defend itself by itself. Part of the reason why the U.S. and Israel have had such a unique security relationship emanates from the fact that, unlike West Germany during the Cold War, or South Korea today, Israel never asked U.S. forces to risk their lives for its defense. The writer, a former Israeli Ambassador to the UN, is president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Under the leadership of former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, the "Friends of Israel Initiative" has been joined by such notable figures as Nobel Peace Prize Laureate David Trimble, Peru's former president Alejandro Toledo, Italian philosopher Marcello Pera, former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, British historian Andrew Roberts, and others. Their key aim is to counter the growing efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel and its right to live in peace within safe and defensible borders.
2013-08-08 00:00:00
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