Where To "Start" The Borders or "Territorial Retention" - My New Campaign

Politicians are afraid of movement, initiative, change. Presented with plans for immediate application of sovereignty or suggestions of additional annexation moves, even Israel supporters would become nonplussed and nervous.

So, I suggest a new campaign:

Retain The Territories

Retention, which I employed in this 2005 op-ed, means lets keep matters as they are for anything else is too dangerous.

It avoids the issue of "sovereignty" which scares people because they think - wrongly - that Israel doesn't have the better international law legal claim. It does (see this summary; also here; Shmuel Katz; and here; and here.

It preserves a situation of a continuing Israeli adminsitration as the best way; allows for a possible autonmy development; avoids the threat of a 'Palestinian' state; and it is a word used in Washington previously

In a response to the 1967 US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara request of the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding the relationship of land that had come under Israeli control to that country's security. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Earle G. Wheeler, replied on June 29, 1967, submitting this:

Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense from the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCSM-373-67)

which includes this opinion of senior and experienced military experts:

1. Reference is made to your memorandum, dated 19 June 1967, subject as above, which requested the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, without regard to political factors, on the minimum territory, in addition to that held on 4 June 1967, Israel might be justified in retaining in order to permit a more effective defense against possible conventional Arab attack and terrorist raids.

2. From a strictly military point of view, Israel would require the retention of some captured territory in order to provide militarily defensible borders. Determination of territory to be retained should be based on accepted tactical principles such as control of commanding terrain, use of natural obstacles, elimination of enemy-held salients, and provision of defense in-depth for important facilities and installations. More detailed discussions of the key border areas mentioned in the reference are contained in the Appendix hereto. In summary, the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding these areas are as follows:...

Oh, you want to know what they thought of Judea and Samaria?

Here:

a. The Jordanian West Bank. Control of the high ground running north-south through the middle of West Jordan generally east of the main north-south highway along the axis Jenin-Nablus-Bira-Jerusalem and then southeast to a junction with the Dead Sea at the Wadi el Daraja would provide Israel with a militarily defensible border...

That's not a bad start.  And we increase the territory neccesary for retention because of:

1.  the increase military technology in Arab hands;
2.  the bad behavior of the Arabs for over 40 years of attemtping to negotiate a peace and their continuous unabting terror campaign;
3.  the existence of a Hamas-government in Gaza waiting to take over from Fatah in Judea and Samaria;

and for many other reasons.

So, while Benjamin Netanyahu is caught up in a media blitz (of his own making?) about where the borders should "start", as President Obama would wish - and read my remarks here on this matter, i.e.: "If it is the start, does that mean that either Israel goes backwards or is it permitted to go foward territorially/geographically from those armistice lines fixed in 1949 after the first Arab invasion? Or is there to be only Israel that has to pay a price of "territorial compromise"? - my suggestion is

Retain The Territories

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