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U.S. General John Allen's Plan for Israel Is Dangerous

(Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies-Bar-Ilan University) Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen - The Trump White House is currently reexamining the Allen Plan, an Obama-era proposal that calls for a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines with no IDF presence in the West Bank whatsoever. In lieu of Israel's demands regarding defensible borders, which include an Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley to ensure the Palestinian state's demilitarization, the plan proposes a varied and complex security solution that includes a U.S. military force that would operate in the Jordan Valley. The basic problem is the notion that Israel will rely for its security on foreign forces. Recall that before the Six-Day War, the security guarantee given by President Eisenhower to Ben-Gurion after the 1956 Sinai Campaign evaporated. Do we want Israel to subsist under foreign protection? Or do we want Israel to be a homeland in which we alone are responsible for our own security and sovereignty? Should the IDF evacuate the territories completely, as envisaged by this plan, the Palestinians would certainly employ their carefully honed talent for non-accountability and ambiguity. They would be able to let "rogue" forces do their work for them, and avoid taking responsibility. What then? Moreover, there is no way to guarantee real demilitarization without a constant effort to keep the territory fully isolated and to operate within it. The writer served in the IDF for 42 years, commanding troops in battle on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts.
2017-06-22 00:00:00
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