Israel: Borders and Security

Colonel Merrill A. McPeak

From Foreign Affairs, April 1976

Summary:  "Israel," as Mrs. Meir put it, "is entitled to defensible borders." But where might such borders be drawn? The lines on which Israel's army stood at the end of the war of June 1967 seemed formidable, but have disappeared into history. The U.N. Security Council, in its celebrated Resolution 242 of November 1967, visualized that "secure and recognized boundaries" might be placed essentially along the lines obtaining before the outbreak of the June hostilities. Although it has refused to "draw maps," Israel has made it plain that the old lines will not do, in part owing to security concerns. But genuine security depends on regional accommodation, which the Arab states say cannot occur until all of the occupied territory is returned. All parties agree that some kind of demilitarization arrangement in returned territory would be needed in any overall settlement, but little serious public attention has been given to ways in which comprehensive demilitarization might be useful as a security safeguard in the context of comprehensive territorial return.

($mil)

Defense

Spending 7.9 9.8 14.7 17.0 19.7 23.6 22.6 20.6

(% of GDP)

Israel's standing military establishment, cadre and conscript, also expanded during this period. Total, full-time forces numbered 71,000 at the end of the June War, increased to 75,000 by mid-1970 and to 115,000 by mid-1973, with each component growing and the Air Force roughly doubling.

These trends might have been even more adverse for Israel had it simply withdrawn from the occupied territories without obtaining suitable security arrangements. However, in view of the importance attached to human loss, and considering national requirements for development funds and skilled manpower, these indexes-casualties, defense spending, men under arms-have the highest significance for Israel. And none of them signaled improved security.

III

In retrospect it seems clear that Israel's larger security interests were not well served by a unilateral redrawing of its boundaries in conformance with perceived defense requirements. But it remained for the war of October 1973 to demolish this notion entirely. It fades from memory, now, how impressively the Israelis "won" what is sometimes called the Yom Kippur War. The sights and sounds of Egypt's stranded Third Army have somehow been erased in the aftermath of a strategic setback which Israelis, most of all, recognize.

But it is also clear that Israel has a legitimate security interest in what happens in the occupied territories. Israelis wonder how much worse it might have been in October 1973 had the Arab attack been launched from the old lines. Perhaps, then, it may be in order to try to describe the character of Israel's security interests in each of the territories, and to ask how these interests might be protected.

Taking the territories one at a time, two practical invasion corridors lead through the Sinai from Egypt to Israel. The traditional route is a relatively narrow coastal passageway through El Arish and Gaza. Alternately, Egypt has access through the Mitla and Gidi Passes to the central Sinai and thence to the Negev. Military leaders naturally prefer to cut hostile invasion routes as far forward as possible and the Suez Canal seems ideally suited to this purpose. But the Canal line was first breached by Egypt in the October War and then abandoned when Israel accepted withdrawal in the "first step" Disengagement Agreement of January 1974. The next best line, which would include physical occupation of the Sinai passes, was relinquished by Israel in the "second step" agreement of September 1975.