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Edited on Sat May-28-11 10:07 AM by bemildred
It's not all about long range capabilities.
The indefensible borders argument pretty much is about defense in depth, not short range sniping or whatever, the model is being able to do a strategic retreat, the old "pushed into the sea" before you can re-organize and resist argument, which has merit in terms of WWII style warfare, but is now obsolete for the most part IMHO. Tanks are just fat targets without air cover.
There are drawbacks to siting your forces on low ground (the Jordan Valley) too, and one hears all about the advantages of high ground in the context of hanging onto the Golan, but somehow that is OK in the Jordan Valley.
Israel has no solution to short range weaponry, shoulder rockets, etc. That should be VERY apparent from the Sderot example and the '67 lines would be far worse than Sderot.
Indeed, but that has nothing to do with where the border happens to be, it is a property of any border, wherever it is, that foreigners on the other side can take pot-shots at you, if they want to.
As to your other point, the IDF was stationed at the Gaza border NOT to prevent tanks from coming in - same as the Jordan valley - but also to prevent really bad guys from crossing over and to prevent really rotten weaponry from coming in. I can't remember where I read it but Jordan prefers it this way as their border with the W.Bank and Israel has been quiet a long time. Jordan also prefers not to have a repeat of September 1970 w/o the IDF controlling that border.
I understand why borders are guarded, the issue was whether "defensible" borders buy you much nowadays, and or whether the Jordan Valley constitutes a defensible border in terms of modern military capabilities.
For example, Hezbollah, in the 2nd Lebanon War, had a very defensible border, high ground, heavily fortified, and with a sound defensive strategy, which was the main reason I thought it was stupid to attack there. But that did nothing to protect Beirut, or anyplace else, from rockets and missiles. There was a good deal of slogging around in the mud down by the border, but things just bogged down there, despite the vast technical superiority of the IDF. There is no reason at all to think that some future Arab force is going to do better against the IDF than the IDF was able to do against Hezbollah.
Also, any such attack requires that one mass ones forces, which takes time and creates a fat target, and I have no doubt that the IDF and IAF would promptly bomb and disperse any such attempt at concentration of forces. Remember the successful attacks on the IDF while it was massing forces to attack Lebanon? There was one lucky hit that killed a bunch of IDF soldiers. So what is the IAF going to do if some Arab forces tries to concentrate for an attack across the Jordan? Why it's going to bomb the shit out of them.
The Jordan valley is easily attacked from above to the East, on the other hand, and as I pointed out, is not the route a sensible person would take to get to Tel Aviv, you'd come up from the Sinai or down from the North along the coastal plain, as in the past.
To summarize, in modern warfare with aircraft, missiles and rockets, it is difficult and dangerous to concentrate ones forces, especially without air cover, so there is little reason to expect such an attack on Israel, and even if someone were foolish enough to consider such an attack, they would not be doing it from the East towards Tel Aviv.
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