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Israel 'must keep Jordan Valley' claim

By United Press International

JERUSALEM, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Israel is likely to retain large tracts on the West Bank and in the Jordan valley for security reasons, argues former ambassador to the United Nations Dore Gold, an influential adviser to successive Israeli governments, in a new policy paper.

"The massive electoral victory of Hamas in the Palestinian parliamentary elections has created an entirely new strategic reality for Israel which vastly increases the importance of the Jordan Valley (a desert zone almost devoid of population) for Israel's security in the near term," Gold writes.

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"With Hamas dominating the Palestinian Authority, Jordan could find itself sandwiched between the pro-Iranian forces in Iraq and a pro-Iranian Palestinian Authority," Gold adds in his new paper, "After the Hamas Victory," published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Should Israel face a new round of armed Palestinian violence, its ability to isolate the Hamas regime from external reinforcement will be a key security requirement, Gold emphasizes.

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Gold goes on to argue that the Iraq war has had a number of unintended side effects which could destabilize Israel's eastern front. He cites, for example, the letter intercepted last summer from Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, requesting that the Al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi extend his Sunni insurgency to the secular states neighboring Iraq (meaning Syria and Jordan) and prepare for the "clash with Israel."

"Control of the Jordan Valley enables Israel to deal with any likely eventuality to the east," Gold writes.

"Should Israel withdraw from the Jordan Valley to the line of the security fence, it would not be able to stop the flow of insurgents and equipment into the West Bank to the terrain dominating Ben-Gurion Airport and other vital parts of Israel's national infrastructure along its coastal plain."

If adopted by the Israeli government, which faces elections next month, Gold's urging that large parts of the West Bank be retained is likely to prove highly controversial with the Bush administration as counter to the spirit and the letter of the internationally-agreed "road map" to a peace settlement.

The road map envisages a two-state solution with Palestine including Gaza and the vast bulk of the West Bank. This would be contradicted by an Israeli security belt along the Jordan Valley, which would cut off direct Palestinian access to the state of Jordan.

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Gold also insists -- as have other senior advisers to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- that there has been considerable misinterpretation of Sharon's ultimate map of withdrawal in the West Bank, asserting that he planned to pull back to the line of the security fence or even to the line that President Clinton had proposed in 2000.

"All evidence indicates that Sharon was determined to retain the Jordan Valley and many other vital areas beyond the security fence," Gold writes.

Lying in a coma since the stroke that felled him last month, Sharon's precise intentions are unclear. Gold's policy paper is intended for the government headed by the acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who looks likely to retain his position after next month's elections, according to Israeli opinion polls.

The zone in question was first defined by Israeli Foreign Minister Yigal Allon, shorty after the 1967 war when Israel conquered the West Bank as "the arid zone that lies between the Jordan River to the east, and the eastern chain of the Samaria and Judean mountains to the West from Mt. Gilboa in the North through the Judean desert until it joins the Negev desert. The area of this desert zone is only 700 square miles and it is almost devoid of population."

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Gold claims that Allon, after whom the new road along the Jordan Valley is named, former premier Yitzhak Rabin and Sharon "all appreciated the importance of the Jordan Valley for the conventional defense of Israel."

"The Jordan Valley's role in Israel's defense is not to serve its traditional function as a steep strategic barrier blocking a numerically superior conventional military attack on Israel's eastern front. Its new role must be understood in the context of the increasing terrorist threat emerging to Israel's east," Gold writes.

"Over the years, Israel has established a series of military bases for its armored and infantry forces throughout the Jordan Valley. The main early-warning station of the Israeli Air Force was situated at Baal Hatzor, the highest point in the West Bank, which was also near the Allon Road, making the entire area a major defensive network in the event of war. Topography and terrain explained why the area was ideally suited for this purpose," Gold adds.

Gold's main argument is that while the conventional military threat is reduced, Israel now faces a rapidly changing strategic landscape marked by the direct threat of jihadi terrorism. He cites last year's rocket attacks in the Jordanian port city of Aqaba and the triple suicide bombing of hotels in Amman, and claims "an even greater strategic threat" in the potential destabilization of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan itself.

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"Control of the Jordan Valley enables Israel to deal with any likely eventuality to the east. Should Israel withdraw from the Jordan Valley to the line of the security fence, as some observers have suggested, it would not be able to stop the flow of insurgents and equipment into the West Bank to the terrain dominating Ben-Gurion Airport and other vital parts of Israel's national infrastructure along its coastal plain. In addition, the vacuum created by any such Israeli pullout could draw insurgent volunteers into Jordan in great numbers, which would destabilize the Hashemite monarchy," Gold concludes.

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