Defensible Borders for Israel After the October 7th Invasion
An Existential Necessity for Israel’s Survival
Strategic depth, buffer zones, and demilitarization — the military, legal, and diplomatic foundations for Israel’s security in a post-October 7 world. A comprehensive collection of essays by Israel’s foremost security experts.
Executive Summary
Why Defensible Borders Are Israel's Existential Necessity
For nearly six decades, Israel’s quest for defensible borders has been driven by its basic right as a sovereign state to defend itself, by strategic necessity, and by military and diplomatic achievements enshrined in internationally recognized instruments of law.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023, border invasion shattered the defense assumptions that had governed Israel’s national security concept. The conceptual failure was threefold: it assumed economic development would moderate Hamas’s ideology; it presumed limited military presence with technological surveillance could provide adequate warning; and it underestimated adversaries’ capabilities for coordinated multi-front attacks.
Israeli strategic thinking has now crystallized around two complementary requirements: comprehensive demilitarization and territorial buffer zones. These principles apply across all fronts — Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and the Jordan Valley.
"The borders of the State of Israel will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six-Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines. The security border of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term."
Last Knesset Address, October 1995
"The United States reiterates its steadfast commitment to Israel's security, including secure and defensible borders."
Letter to PM Sharon, April 14, 2004