[(Continued from p.5)]
one to five mile wide coastal dune belt. Hence, to this day it remains the only route with adequate water available to supply large regular formations on the march. It is noteworthy that the watering and reorganization areas of the invading armies of Pharaoh Sethos 1, which he depicted on reliefs in the Temple of Karnak in the 13th century B.C.E., are the very same sites that supplied Napoleon's army in 1799, the British army under Allenby in 1917, King Farouk's Egyptian army in 1948 and Israel's army, albeit moving in the opposite direction, in 1956 and 1967.
Hundreds of armies have marched over this route from Egypt: Tuthmosis I in the 16th century B.C.E. reached the Euphrates, Necho in the 7th century overran Judea and Assyria, Psametichus II in the 6th century conducted a siege of Ashdod that lasted almost 27 years. The list is endless, representing every historical stage of military technology and strategy. Israelis who fought in the south in the War of Independence well remember the rapid Egyptian advance through Gaza, with probes reaching to the dunes of Yavneh, a mere fifteen miles from Tel Aviv. So also do the villagers, like those of Be'erot Yitzhak, Nirim and Negba, who fought the Egyptian onslaught, and those who survived the Egyptian capture of Kfar Darom, whose destroyed village remained under Egyptian rule in what became known as the "Gaza Strip." (Reconstituted as a Jewish village after Israel's victory in the Six Day War of 1967, Kfar Darom is one of the communities Sharon now proposes to abandon to Arafat.)
There is no better testimony to the strategic importance of Gaza than its place in the Allon Plan. A commander of the Palmach, Yigal Allon was a general in the War of Independence and a minister in a series of Labor governments (including Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister). The Allon Plan, which was adopted by the Labor government, sought to integrate into Israel the minimum amount of territory vital for security after the 1967 war, at the same time ensuring that Israel did not rule over hostile Arabs. Thus the plan called for Israeli retention of the uninhabited Jordan Valley, which would be settled by Jews, while the populated Arab areas of Judea and Samaria would be returned to Arab rule.
It would seem obvious that under a plan to relieve Israel of rule over hostile Arabs, the Gaza Strip would be first in line to be turned over to Arab control. Not so. In Allon's view, the Gaza Strip was so vital to Israel's security that his plan called for removing much of the Arab population from the Strip, resettling it in western Judea and Samaria, and making much of the Strip part of Israel. This aspect of the Allon Plan is rarely cited today. Nonetheless, it is a powerful reminder that even Allon, from the left of the Zionist movement, saw Israeli sovereignty over Gaza as a sine qua non for Israel's defense. Allon remembered what Israel's leaders now ignore: that prior to 1967 the Strip was the base for an endless stream of attacks by terrorists (they were known as fedayeen then) on Israeli settlements in the south. Giving up Gaza, Allon recognized, would not only add 33 miles of hostile borders to Israel but provide Israel's enemies with a port into which arms could easily be brought by sea.
In Halkin's deluded scenario, Gaza lost its strategic importance once Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel. With Gaza cut loose, claims Halkin, Egypt will have no choice but to resume responsibility for the area, which it exercised until 1967. The trouble with this is that, as chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Yuval Steinitz has warned in a series of intelligence briefing papers, Egypt is approaching a state of active war with Israel. The first step has been facilitating the construction of tunnels at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, which have been used to smuggle arms into the area, and which Israel's Defense Forces have been in a constant battle to shut down. Without Jewish communities in the area, and the Israeli forces stationed there to protect them, the buildup of arms from Egypt will proceed far more rapidly.
Sharon's proposed unilateral retreat is too much even for former intelligence chief Shlomo Gazit, a staunch leftwinger. Says Gazit (Ma'ariv, Feb. 9): "Our exit from Gaza will transform it into a big armed camp into which weapons of all kinds will stream via land, sea and maybe even air. It will also become an arsenal for independent development and production of arms. Moreover this capitulation will rightly be viewed as an unambivalent victory for the Palestinian armed struggle." The IDF Command has come to the same conclusion. Israel Radio (Feb.17) reports the IDF has declared that a condition for Israeli retreat must be that the Palestinian Authority not be able to operate a sea port or an airport from the Gaza Strip, or they will be able to import weapons threat-
[(Continued on p.7)]
Outpost - 6 - March 2004