Every territorial withdrawal Israel has undertaken, whether in the Sinai following the 1956 Suez crisis, and pursuant to the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, in Syria in the 1974 Israel-Syria Disengagement Agreement, in Southern Lebanon in the late 1980s, and in the Gaza Strip in 2005 – all have been accompanied by security and demilitarization arrangements, monitored and supervised in order to prevent hostile forces from filling the vacuum and embedding themselves along Israel’s borders, resulting in territorial vulnerability and cross-border attacks.
Hence the creation of UNEF in the Sinai after the Suez Crisis in 1956 to supervise the cessation of hostilities and withdrawal of foreign forces, and UNEF II in 1973 to supervise the Israeli-Egyptian ceasefire after the Yom Kippur war, UNDOF in 1974 to maintain the ceasefire between Israel and Syria and supervise the disengagement of forces, and UNIFIL, established in 1978 and remodeled in 2006, to restore peace and security along the border between Israel and Lebanon.
These various security and demilitarization arrangements proved to be totally inadequate inasmuch as dependence on foreign forces and UN approval failed to prevent violations of the demilitarization requirements.
As October 7 tragically confirmed, both with regard to the Gaza Strip as well as Southern Lebanon, Israel’s insistence on defensible borders, supervised and monitored demilitarization, and buffer zones, including the presence of Israeli forces to monitor and to guarantee security, is an indispensable component for ensuring the defensibility of Israel’s borders.
As long as a real and immediate danger continues to exist along Israel’s borders, and as long as Israel’s security continues to face ongoing threats from neighboring territory, Israel is fully justified in insisting on security zones and demilitarized areas under its monitoring and supervision.
Insistence by Israel on such ongoing presence and supervision cannot be seen in any manner whatsoever to be an obstacle to peace.
To the contrary, it is a prerequisite for any hope of regional stabilization and an essential requirement to ensure Israel’s justified and proven right to ensure its security in accordance with its internationally acknowledged rights to defend itself and its people.
