Weekly Commentary: Would you buy a peace plan from the 100 meter wide Philadelphi gang?

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
Weekly Commentary
07 April '11

The critical element of the Israeli Peace Initiative (IPI) launched today by a collection of ex-brass and former heads of the security services is the assertion that Israel’s security can be safeguarded via various international forces and arrangements that substitute for defensible borders and for Israeli security control of the West Bank and the inclusion of the Gaza Strip in Israel’s security envelope. ( Koby Huberman, one of the drafters of the IPI even told me today that the IAF won’t be able to fly over the West Bank without Palestinian approval under their plan).

The group behind IPI argue that we should defer to their records in active service in the military and intelligence and simply accept their assertion as a given.

But we know who these people are. We know their records.

They are indeed people who held key position in the military and intelligence services.

But while these Israelis have been involved in some very impressive and important operations for which they most certainly deserve our nation’s praise and gratitude we also know that these same Israelis were intimately involved in the design and implementation of a series of security arrangements in the last decades that cost us many lives.

Let’s keep this simple with an intuitive example that doesn’t require any particular expertise in military affairs to appreciate:

Israel set the width of the Philadelphi Corridor running between the Gaza Strip and Egyptian Sinai to 100 meters and declined to widen it when the opportunity presented itself to do so in the various stages of Oslo negotiations.

Many of the top people behind the IPI were directly responsible for this.

The 100 meter width made it child’s play for the Palestinians to turn the Corridor into an ongoing killing field and in turn an area where Israel found it extremely difficult to effectively prevent the digging of smuggling tunnels between Sinai and Gaza and their operation

The 100 meter wide Philadelphi Corridor is only the tip of the iceberg.

Again, while these Israelis have indeed been involved in some very impressive and important operations for which they most certainly deserve our nation’s praise and gratitude we also know that these same Israelis were intimately involved in the design and implementation of a series of security arrangements in the last decades that cost us many lives.

Caveat emptor.

This group is going to have a to a lot more than flash their brass to convince us that Israel’s security can be safeguarded via various international forces and arrangements that substitute for defensible borders and for Israeli security control of the West Bank and the inclusion of the Gaza Strip in Israel’s security envelope.

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