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U.S. Peace Plan a Return to Rabin's Doctrine of Defensible Borders

(Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Dan Diker - The U.S. peace plan offers a return to the security-first approach of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and, specifically, the concept of defensible borders. On Jan. 29, 2020, Shimon Sheves, former Director-General of Prime Minister Rabin's office, told Israel Army Radio, "The Trump plan is essentially the Rabin plan" and a "continuation of Rabin's legacy." Journalist Ben Caspit, writing in Maariv, called it "a modern incarnation of Rabin's plan from 25 years ago." During the ratification of the Oslo Interim Accords at the Knesset on Oct. 5, 1995, Rabin declared: "The borders of the State of Israel during the permanent solution will be beyond the lines that existed before the Six-Day War. We will not return to the June 4, 1967 lines." Rabin continued: "The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley in the broadest sense of that term." He emphasized that Jerusalem would remain Israel's united capital. Regarding the Palestinian entity, Rabin told the Knesset, "We would like this to be an entity that is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority." The defensible borders concept was first formally outlined following the 1967 war by Gen. Yigal Allon, who presented it to Western audiences in Foreign Affairs in 1976. He posited that Israel needed to retain a topographical barrier to defend itself from attacks from the east. Allon insisted on Israel annexing the entire Jordan Rift Valley, including the hilly terrain facing eastwards toward Jordan, as well as the Jordan Valley below. The U.S. peace plan means Israel is being asked to take unprecedented risks by living next to a sovereign Palestinian state in a Middle East plagued by radical regimes and failed states. That is why defensible borders are critical to guarantee Israel's security. The writer is a Fellow and Director of the Program to Counter Political Warfare at the Jerusalem Center. He has co-authored and edited several policy books on Defensible Borders for Israel.
2020-02-05 00:00:00
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