Three fundamental questions crystallize the distinction between the various positions on the matter of annexing the Jordan Valley.
The first question: How wide a swathe of the Jordan Valley must Israel keep to meet its security needs – should it merely span the area between the border crossings and Route 90, or go farther inland to include the more than 15 kilometers (9 miles) to the west?
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The second question: Is the Israeli demand for the Jordan Valley as a natural defensive barrier on its eastern front based solely on current security circumstances – rendering it open to future reconsideration and negotiations – or is it a fundamental and intractable imperative for Israel's future?
The third question is how this geographic region coincides with the overall national plan to build and expand communities, roads and infrastructure there, as the country's eastern pillar.
Most of the people familiar with these matters are in agreement that under the present circumstances the Jordan Valley is vital to Israel as an isolated space controlled by the IDF. The question pertains to the width of the territory.
According to the IDF's war doctrine, for the purpose of its defense, Israel needs to control the entire area from the actual border on the Jordan River to the Samarian hills to the west. This doctrine cites two primary lines of defense. The first line is the hills immediately overlooking Route 90, which runs north-south along the Jordanian border. Israel must control this line in order to safeguard freedom of movement along the critical route. The second line pertains to the hills to the west of the Allon Road (Routes 458, 508 and 578 in Judea and Samaria).
Those who argue for ending the Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley, among them former premiers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, do not reject this military assessment. Barak, who agreed at Camp David in 2000 to give up the entire Jordan Valley, was certainly aware that he, as IDF chief of staff, determined himself that Israel's eastern defensive line needs to stretch from the Jordan River to the western Samarian ridges of Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim.
Many changes have occurred in the region since Barak and Olmert's concessions, including the strategic threat that has emerged from Gaza and the Iranian threat in the form of the Islamic regime's proxy militias in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Through these changes, we are again reminded of the limitations of relying on international forces, who struggle to impose an effective presence in hostile areas over time.
The Right's answer to these three questions is clear: The Jordan Valley in its entirety is critical to Israel's security and is not subject to negotiations.
