Israel's Security: The Hard-Learned Lessons

Summary from the Daily Alert newsletter of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations of an article in The Middle East Quarterly by Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror.

The most significant aspect of the Oslo experiment, from 1993 to 2000, was the surrender of control over Palestinian populated areas. It was due largely to this that the Palestinians were able to launch and fight a war that, in its first three years, cost Israel nearly 900 lives, mostly civilians. In comparison, during the final seventeen months of Israel's military deployment in southern Lebanon, Israel lost a total of just 21 soldiers - fewer casualties than the number of civilians killed in many single Palestinian terror attacks.

Control of territory is an essential advantage in fighting terror. It is the key to gathering intelligence. A military force without control of the territory from which terrorism emanates cannot destroy the infrastructure of terrorism.

When Israel maintained control of the populated areas of the West Bank and Gaza, its line of defense against terrorism was in the cities and towns from which the terrorists set forth. In the absence of such control, Israel's real line of defense is its own cities and towns.

Based on this experience, Israel must realize that it would be a grave risk if it were to cede total territorial control to the Palestinians in any future agreement.

Israel must insist on retaining the right to operate throughout the territories in perpetuity, not only for a limited number of years, not only in emergency situations, and not only upon the approval of third parties.

Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror commanded Israel's National Defense College and headed the research and assessment division of Israeli military intelligence. He was the Ira Weiner Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy when he prepared this study.