– IISS’s new Hebrew video –
Terror, Tunnels and Transportation: Will there be a Jihadi state adjacent to Trans-Israel Highway?
(English version in production – English transcript provided below)
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– English Transcript –
Hello to our viewers and welcome to our video studio at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
For over two decades the notion of“Two-states-for-two-people” has been the dominant paradigm that has monopolized the discourse on the Arab-Israeli conflict in general, and the Israeli-Palestinian one in particular.
Our institute (IISS) has long been in the forefront in opposing the implementation of this idea, and has worked resolutely to expose the existential dangers this policy proposal entails for Israel. In this short video, we illustrate one aspect of the perils that Israel and Israelis can expect, if the “two-state” principle is actually implemented.
One of the gravest threats—but one that for some reason has received scant public attention –is the threat to the nation’s major transportation axes that would arise should a Palestinian state be established in the areas adjacent to Israel’s coastal plain.
In numerous articles and interviews in the past, the founder of IISS Dr. Martin Sherman has warned repeatedly of the dangers involved in the proximity of borders of the envisaged Palestinian state to some of the country’s principle traffic routes One of the most important of these routes is the Trans-Israel Highway (Highway 6), that connects the North of Israel with the South.
Several portions of the Highway run close to the territory designated for a future Palestinian state and in some places it Route 6 Qalqiliya animated 2is even immediately adjacent to it. In numerous locations the distance between Highway 6 and Palestinian population centers is less than one kilometer—and in some places, only a few dozen meters.
Little imagination is required to envisage the gory outcomes that are likely to occur if Israel were to relinquish control of the area that abuts the highway. Israel’s harrowing experience following its pull-out of Gaza must be a red-light warning against what will take place if the area east of the highway is transferred to Palestinian control. Two locations are particularly sensitive – the towns of Qalqiliya and Tulkarm –located immediately adjacent to the highway, and in the past have been sources of murderous terror attacks—such as the horrific carnage at the Park Hotel in the coastal city of Netanya.
Only continued Israeli control can prevent the continued bloodshed and violence inside Israel.
The menace of terror tunnels and attacks cannot be dismissed as unfounded scaremongering. To the contrary, in the recent past, attempts to dig such terror tunnels under the security barrier were exposed by the Israeli security services The intensive agricultural and commercial activity in the vicinity of the barrier provide ample cover, concealment and camouflage for the excavation of terror tunnels or for setting up firing positions close to the busy highway. It is not difficult to envision the ease with which it would be able to lay deadly ambushes along the course of the highway or to envisage the huge economic damage that would be caused by the constant threat of disruption of traffic on the major artery connecting the North and the South of the country.
In conclusion – some words of warning from Prof. Amnon Rubinstein, Israel Prize laureate and former MK and Minister of Education for the far-Left Meretz faction:
“Israel, small and exposed, will neither be able to exist nor to prosper if its urban centers, its vulnerable airport and its narrow winding roads, are shelled….
…That is the terrible danger involved in the establishment of a third independent sovereign state between us and the Jordan River.”
Once again: your generous donation (tax deductible in the US) will help sustain this IISS video initiative
