In 1983, Israel received an unexpected endorsement for its call for defensible borders when the Pentagon declassified a June 29, 1967 memorandum from the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In the memo, the Joint Chiefs concluded, "From a strictly military point of view, Israel would require the retention of some captured territory in order to provide militarily defensible borders."
Specifically, the Joint Chiefs recommended a defense line down the middle of the West Bank "as a minimum." The hills of the West Bank, if possessed by Jordan, would offer it a "route for a thrust to the sea" which could "split the country [Israel] in half," the Joint Chiefs warned. The new defense line "would widen the narrow portion of Israel and provide additional buffer for the airbase at Beersheva."
From a military point of view, the memorandum also recommended Israeli retention of the Golan and Gaza strip. "The organization of an adequate defensive position" in the Jerusalem area required that "the boundary of Israel be positioned to the east of the city," which, in effect, endorses Israel's refusal to redivide Jerusalem.
In an era of weapons like the Stinger anti-aircraft missile --smuggled by mule into Afghanistan to lethal effect against Sovietaircraft in the mid- and late-1980's -- Israel must ensure that no hostile force controls the mountain tops of Judea and Samaria.
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