I think the discussion makes more sense without the Golan Heights. What makes the West Bank and Gaza an issue, of course, is that there are people living there, and they don’t want to be Israelis. This doesn’t apply to the Golan, apparently.
Besides which, it doesn’t seem to even be an issue in the periodic Middle East peace talks, and the Israelis - as Sofa King has already pointed out - aren’t giving them up, and for good reason.
I think nswgru1 got the questions right:
In the 1948-78 period, Israel had to be prepared to defend against a number of hostile nations attempting to execute a classical military invasion. Buffer zones are useful against that sort of threat, which was why Israel kept the West Bank and the Sinai after the 1967 War.
Now, it’s a different story. Israel has diplomatic relations with Egypt and Jordan, neither or which has indicated a serious interest in military engagement with Israel in decades. And Syria’s not going to go in by itself, especially as long as Israel holds the Golan.
Instead, the primary threat comes from the Palestinians - from within the buffer zone!
So exactly how is the buffer helping Israel? It may be, in ways that I can’t see - but it sure looks like a loser to me. It’s great against tanks and battalions of footsoldiers, but it sucks as a defense against terrorists, especially when the terrorists live there. And they’re the threat.
Okay, let me preface by saying that I am in the process of learning as much about middle east as I can, because my pre-exisiting knowledge was shamefully lacking. If you see a hole here, let me know.
It seems to me that “indefensible” is the popular term for the 1967 borders. I think the popular term is the incorect term. Perhaps “highly vulnerable” would better describe the pre '67 borders.
Looking at a map and considering present day realities, it seems that Israel could defend the 1967 borders. The most realistic, to me, invasion scenario in a pre-1967 bordered Israel, comes from a joint Syrian/Iraqi attack. I negate Jordan and Egypt, simply because I believe they have more to lose than to gain in the world power structure from ACTIVELY participating. So Syria poors out of the North, while Iraq transverses Jordan to strike through the West Bank. This scenario makes Northern Israel highly vulnerable. What Israel does have going for its own defense is Iraqi troop movement would either have to wait until Syria started the offensive, or precede the Syrian movement. Syria attacking first would put Israel on even higher alert for other military movement in the Gulf, allowing time for at least some preparation for Iraq. Iraq moving first would throw up huge warning signs, removing any surprise. Either way, Israel has time to stall one throng while preparing for the second. Given Israeli military superiority, that may be enough.
Now, this is given present facts. If Jordan or Egypt were to become more visibly antagonistic to Israel, pre-'67 borders allow Israel no room for error. Israel would have to be on full military alert 24/7. The 1967 borders are not indefensible today. They would probably give Israel an even greater feeling of vulnerability than even today, and that may be an even worse thing for stability in the Middle East.
One of the reasons the new borders would be indefensible is because artillery positions from within the West Bank and Gaza can hit over 90% of Israel’s population. The Palestinians wouldn’t even need suicide bombers. Groups like Hamas could set up an artillery barrage and vanish, Arafat could deny responsibilty, etc.
It’s not that I think Israel could be destroyed, but that they would be forced to take extremely brutal actions that would be disastrous for the Palestinians and sicken Israelis at having to do it.
I don’t see that, Sam. Artillery barrages from across the border can be interpreted in either of two ways: (1) an act of war, or (2) failure of the other nation to maintain sovereignty over its own territory. Either of which justifies calling out the troops, and invading the other country if deemed appropriate.
To me, that translates into defensible.
If you’re asking, “are they defensible without likelihood of casualties,” that’s a whole different thing. But the current borders aren’t defensible in that sense.
Sam, another point in opposition is that rockets lessen the importance of distance as protection from an artillery attack. Rockets can hit 90% of Israel’s population from outside the occupied territories (including over the Golan).
The smaller your country, the less widely you can disperse your assets. This is particularly important if potential enemies surround you. Even if much of the country is still in range of rockets and artillery with the current boarders, these are largely unguided munitions. The closer you can get to the intended target the better. Fixed wing aircraft are particularly vulnerable, because you don’t necessarily have to hit them, just the runway. From this map http://www.aeroflight.co.uk/waf/israel/isr.jpg it appears many of the air bases along the Mediterranean benefit greatly from the buffer zone. I think the Egyptians would testify to how damaging it is to loose your air force on the ground.
If the Israelis thought there were even an outside chance of their air force being destroyed/stranded on the ground, they would surely have aircraft carriers in the Med.
If they don’t have them now, I can’t see what would prevent the Israelis from obtaining some if the need arose in the future.
One Nimitz Class Carrier: $4,500,000,000.00 (4.5 Billion US Dollars) (a)
This is just the cost of production. While I don’t have the exact numbers, the cost of OPERATING a carrier has to be staggering. For that sum you can carry 85 aircraft, of which you have:
No Bombers.
No Cargo/Transport.
No AWACS/ Forward air control.
Not much of an air force, even if they were willing to spend HALF of their Military budget (b) on ONE piece of equipment.
a) http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/ships/ship-cv.html
b) http://www.cdi.org/issues/wme/spendersFY03.html
OK, but I’m assuming a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier is state of the art. (From your first link: “The Nimitz-class carriers, seven operational and two under construction, are the largest warships in the world.”) A nation that has created its own nukes might be able to manufacture something a bit cheaper that still suits its needs.
After all, the USA made major use of aircraft carriers in the Pacific Theatre in WWII. Bombers flew missions from carriers in WWII, even if they don’t fly off the Nimitz-class carriers today. So there’s no reason why the Israelis can’t have bombers that fly off a carrier. (Cite: George H.W. Bush Presidential Library.)
I have a hard time believing that such carriers would cost $4.5B to manufacture today. Not everything needs to be Nimitz-class.
Yes, it’s the biggest in the world… and it let’s you ferry less than 100 aircraft “safely” out to sea. That’s kinda the point. Aircraft Carriers are not going to be the way to protect Israel’s air force. Even if it was, India is in the market for a new Carrier and since negotiations for an old Russian ship fell through, the Head of India’s Navy Admiral Madhvendra Singh has concluded:
“India will “have to plan indigenous manufacturing” because “nothing suitable” was available in the international market. He, however, said building an indigenous aircraft carrier would take at least 15 years.”
From http://in.news.yahoo.com/020116/43/1dt9y.html
I don’t know enough about the manufacturing capacities of each nation to draw a direct parallel (although since India also built it’s own nukes…) but it’s safe to say Israel won’t have one built any time soon.
As far as launching a bomber from a carrier in like in WWII, I don’t remember anything about the US making “major use” of the tactic. IIRC it was more of a retaliation/moral stunt by Gen. Dolittle than a military strategy even then. Traditional bombers need more runway than a carrier can provide.
So…I still believe giving up the occupied territories significantly increases the risk to Israel’s military operations.
Great Thread,
Just wanted to interject another couple reasons why Israel won’t be putting an AC in the Med anytime soon…
One AC doesn’t do you too much good. If you are lucky you might be able to keep an AC on deployment 6 months out of the year, the other six it will be in port doing repairs. So figure on needing at least 2-3 carriers in order to keep just one on station at all times.
You need carrier capable planes for your ACs. To my knowledge Israel doesn’t have any. So add the costs of 100+ new planes to the cost of your AC.
An AC needs a huge fleet of resupply vessels to keep operating for any period of time. More $$
These are just some additional capital costs to consider. We haven’t even touched on the R&D costs to produce an AC domestically.
As Sgt. J has pointed out the operational costs are enormous as well.
So much of this thread is geared toward fighting the wars of 67 or 73, which we were asked to do. But realistically that isn’t likely to happen.
It is absolutely inconceivable to me that, say in the next 30 years, Israel would somehow allow Syrian armor on the heights or the Palestinian authority to acquire and deploy heavy armor on the West Bank, but IF they did that, then yes her enemies COULD surprise Israel. Ultimately defeat Israel with their 1988 Soviet specials and assorted Chinese junk no, but surprise them yes. As part of Camp David, the Sinai has international monitors, I do not think there in any realistic scenario should include a true surprise from Egypt, but if Israel somehow missed armor massing at the border (again inconceivable to me) they could have a less than 24-hour notice on that border.
IMO the true threats to Israel, are spirit-sapping terrorist attacks, political suicide of various stripes, international isolation, immigration issues (arab/jew), the economy and mass destruction in the form of missiles fired from Western Iran or Iraq or the outskirts of Damascus or Tripoli– not a 60’s /70’s style armed invasion of Arab armies.
Again, in real life, I don’t think Israel’s borders matter as a STRICLY military matter now, she is too strong vis a vis the Arabsand as has been pointed out rockets and modern artillery make distances less valuable than they once were. I would submit the Israeli’s feel the same way: were Arafat willing to provide (or even make a REAL effort) to try and provide some arrests of terrorists on the West bank Israel was willing to let them have their state & more or less give up military control of circa 90% of the West Bank.
The problem is that once the Palestinians have a homeland, Israel’s ability to control what goes on there drops dramatically. So what happens if Palestine signs a mutual defense pact with Syria, which results in the stationing of 2,000 Syrian tanks in Palestine? How does Israel respond?
We’ve talked many times on this board about blowback from bad political decisions. This is one case where I believe there would be some terrible consequences if Israel completely gave up the occupied territories. Because I honestly believe that the Palestinians will continue fighting. And if that’s the case, then with Israel’s options limited by a sovereign border, any situation like rocket or artillery attacks from Palestine will result in a full-scale invasion.
In addition, I feel pretty confident that other Arab nations WILL try to exploit the situation and station military assets in the occupied territories, which would cause Israel to launch a pre-emptive attack. That could widen the conflict dramatically.
The real solution here lies with the Arabs, and not with Israel. They need to give up their warlike desires against Israel, offer full normalized relations, and in general make Israel feel comfortable with lowering its defenses to some degree. At that point, Israel will be willing to make all kinds of concessions. But as long as the leaders of the Arab countries continue to call for Jihad, and pledge to destroy Israel, and advocate nuclear attacks against Israel, then Israel is not going to budge one inch in matters that involve national security. Would you?
The problem is that “not budging an inch” means being an occupying power.
One thing that comes through loud and clear from reading Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August is that the WWI German leadership, by and large, seemed to have retained a medieval world view with respect to the common people, one in which the peasantry didn’t really care which lord they were subject to. They continually acted as if they believed that Belgian and French sabotage to their war aims would stop when they killed off the local leaders who, almost by definition, had to be organizing it.
This is not to say anything about who’s organizing what in the West Bank. But the reality is that, in today’s world, people do care who their rulers are, the West Bank Palestinians really don’t want to live under even the most reasonable Israeli occupation, and that reality presents a substantial threat of its own to Israeli security. Not to mention the inevitable diminishment of the rightness of Israel’s cause as a result of being an occupying power, regardless of their opponents’ lack of moral standing.
Is that threat greater than the potential threat of more conventional military assault in the absence of Israeli West Bank ownership? For the Israelis, that’s the ultimate question, and has been so for the past two decades. Yet it’s almost never put in those terms.
I thought I would post to this thread again because I read a report today that the Saudi Arabians have positioned troops, eight brigades to be exact, alongside its border with Jordan. As I noted earlier in this thread Saddam has had troops stationed along his border with Jordan.
Sua even though senario you painted above is not complete you might actually get to watch some of the predictions in thread debunked.
Nobody’s borders are as secure as some people might want them to be. Remember President Ron’s conjured specter of hordes of Central Americans overrunning South Texas. What would we do if Canada (under the leadership of a few of our friends from this board) decided to invade down the Hudson River Valley? Remember when some Canadians were convinced that Fort Drum was a staging area for an invasion of Canada, al la Montgomery’s invasion in the American Revolution and the Northern Campaigns in the War of 1812? Remember all the staff time that went into trying to figure out how to defend the Fulda Gap.
There are elements in every nation who want to raise the dreadful prospect of an indefensible border in order to facilitate their acquisition or retention of power. In Israel there is surely an element that claims that the only way to give Israel a defensible border is to create a no-man’s land as a buffer, like Poland between Germany and Russia. In my judgment it is all largely balderdash. It seems to me that Israel needs an external enemy in order to keep the country from tearing its self apart with secular-religious and inter-religious conflicts.
We in the US now have the best of all possible external enemy-indefensible border problems. We have an invisible enemy who may strike at any time from any place. What a great reason to bunker down the whole country. If we spend all our time looking under the bed for the bogyman we get to ignore all the real problems that need looking after. It is, for instance, so much more satisfying to declare a state of alert over a conjectural threat than to deal with social inequity, environmental deterioration and a soft economy.
Regarding the aircraft carrier: It would be a ridiculous waste of resources for Israel, no matter the cost. An aircraft carrier is something you use to project air power overseas. Israel’s enemies are not overseas, they are right next door, and inside the borders.
