According to the Mandate for Palestine, the Jewish state was to be reconstituted in all of western Palestine. Even if for some reason you wish to ignore the Mandate for Palestine – which no one should – there is still UN Resolution 242, passed unanimously on November 22, 1967. And according to its provisions, Israel had a right to retain territories it needed for its defense, in order to have, as the key phrase in the Resolution puts it, “secure [i.e. defensible] and recognized boundaries.” These would certainly include all of the Jordan Valley and many of the settlements, too, which are not merely places to live, but part of Israel’s defensive network, given that almost all of their adult inhabitants have undergone military training, served in the military, and form part of the army of reservists that would be called up in any major conflict.
It is not only Israeli military men who think the Jordan Valley must be incorporated into Israel.
In 1967, President Johnson asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to study what territorial adjustments would be necessary to meet Israel’s minimum defense needs. They duly presented their military assessment of what, for Israel, would constitute “secure and defensible borders.”
The Joint Chiefs thought Israel should retain Gaza; it did not. Gaza then became a terrorist center, lobbing missiles into Israel, and ultimately to the October 7 attack which led to the present war.
The Joint Chiefs endorsed Israel maintaining control of a strip of land to the immediate west of the Jordan River, and extending southward to the Dead Sea. This means it is the Jordan Valley, and the Judean heights to its west that overlook it, that would provide Israel with “a militarily defensible border.” Indeed, the Joint Chiefs also recommended that Israel retain Gaza, and some small part of the Sinai, both of which the Israelis decided in the end not to retain. But the Jordan Valley is very different: there may be some disagreement among Israeli leaders over which settlements in the West Bank to annex, but there is no disagreement among Israel’s military men as to the need to retain the entire Jordan Valley. To understand why control of the Jordan Valley is so critical, consider that the eastern slopes of the 2-3,000 foot high West Bank mountain ridge rise from the Jordan riverbed which is located 1,200 feet below sea level. By holding onto the Jordan Valley, in its broadest sense, Israel would maintain security control of a steep geographical incline that could provide Israeli forces with a defensive barrier having a net height differential of up to 4,200 feet.
Keir Starmer promised to rid the Labour Party of antisemitism. He may think that anti-Israel attitudes are not antisemitic. Not always, perhaps, but far too often. If Israel is held to an entirely different standard of behavior than all other countries, and vilified if it doesn’t measure up to impossible standards, that is antisemitic. If in the UN Human Rights Commission there is only one country that is permanently on the agenda, as Item #7 – “Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories” — that is antisemitic. If people, countries, the “international community” refuse to recognize the significance of the Mandate for Palestine, and Israel’s longstanding claims under that Mandate that have been part of international law since 1922, that is antisemitic. If the meaning of UN Resolution 242, as set out clearly by Lord Caradon, entitling Israel to hold onto territory it won in the Six-Day War that is necessary for the Jewish state to have “secure [i.e., defensible] and recognized boundaries,” is simply ignored, that is antisemitic. If you think it right that Israel should be squeezed back into those “1967 lines” – that is, the armistice lines of 1949, with a nine-mile-wide waist at Israel’s narrowest point, from Qalqilya to the sea, what even dovish Abba Eban called “the lines of Auschwitz” — that is antisemitic.
I don’t think Keir Starmer is antisemitic. But he clearly needs to study, far more than he has until now, the history of modern Israel, in order to be fair both to that permanently imperiled tiny state, and to himself as the new British prime minister. He does not belong in the same galere as Corbyn, or Long-Bailey. He can do a great deal of good for the Labour Party, and for himself, if he reads, studies, grasps the significance of, both the Mandate for Palestine and UN Resolution 242. He might even commit the most important parts of those documents to memory, ready to be quoted in those interminable House of Commons debates. Now Starmer has responsibilities far beyond simply being the leader of the Labour Party. What better time for him to do the homework on Israel that we pesky schoolmarms have dared to assign him?
Dave says
Under the Mandate Jordan (Transjordan at the time) was created to be the Arab (Palestinian) state. Since you are a major author of articles on the subject, why do you think Israel refuses to state IT is the land “Between the River and the Sea) and JORDAN is the “palestinian” state? Good articles like this one become meaningless when Israel itself, a country marching again into the ovens and dragging world Jewry along with it, REFUSES to demand its rights under the Mandate.
memi says
Great article!
Starmer has an opportunity to even “mediate” in the Gaza-Israel future negotiations–provide he does not promote any anti-Israeli policies that run contrary to the human rights and very existence of the Israeli staet and Jewish people. At the moment Israel is under attack since the Octobe r7th Massacre by Hamas and Muslim Bros. terrorists stationed in Istanbul Doha and exporting their ideology with huge funding to NGO groups in Britain and exporting imams to further the jihadist cause with anti-Semitism.
Starmer should not abandon Israel. It’s the only Democracy left in the Middle East and capable of negotiating with other neighboring Arab countries who are also under the threat of Muslim Brotherhood terrorists (parent of Hamas) and their destabilizing effect in the region.
libertyORdeath says
Antisemitism is all about intent in my humble opinion. I think that much of the intentional confusion is caused by the sudden directive for Mockingbird Media outlets to use Islamist propaganda in news coverage as if it is fact.
Now, I do think that a majority of critics are acting ignorant despite them knowing full well the facts on the ground. This is mainly a political move rather than an antisemitic one. Never forget that Muslims outnumber Jews around 100 to 1 and therefore have more political sway around the world. Not to mention the dozens of Muslim nations within the UN compared to lonely Israel.
I just think that focusing on whether the people attacking Jews are doing it out of a hatred for Jewish people is unproductive. It really doesn’t matter. Things are much more simple than that. One side is a bunch of third-world genocidal fundamentalists who constantly attack civilians while the other opposes their terrorism.