{"id":652,"date":"2020-02-28T12:48:36","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T12:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/?p=652"},"modified":"2020-03-13T12:00:05","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T12:00:05","slug":"jordan-valley-annexation-vital-to-israels-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/jordan-valley-annexation-vital-to-israels-security\/","title":{"rendered":"Jordan Valley Annexation\u2013Vital to Israel\u2019s Security?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Uzi
Uzi Dayan pictured with Bella on the recent tour of the Judea and Samaria (which includes the Jordan Valley).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Jordan Valley is a long\nand narrow valley along the Jordan River. It forms a natural eastern border\nbetween Israel and Jordan. Israel considers it to be an important strategic\nregion to protect the country\u2019s eastern region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Wednesday, I (Bella)\njoined about 300 women from the Likud Party on a trip to the Jordan Valley with\nUzi Dayan, our tour guide. Maj. Gen. (reserve) Uzi Dayan was the former head of\nthe IDF Central Command, IDF Deputy Chief of Staff and national security\nadviser to several Prime Ministers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our first stop was a place\nthe Arabs call Qasr el-Yahud (\u201cCastle of the Jews\u201d). Jews believe this was the\nplace at the Jordan River where the Israelites, led by Joshua son of Nun,\ncrossed the river to enter the Promised Land following the Exodus from Egypt.\nThey also believe it is the place the Prophet Elijah crossed the river in the\nopposite direction and was taken into heaven by \u2018fiery chariots\u2019, as witnessed\nby his disciple Elisha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very special\nplace,\u201d Maj. Gen. Uzi Dayan told us. \u201cMaybe the most important historical event\nof Israel took place here.\u201d Joshua 1: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cThe Lord said to Joshua son of Nun: 2 \u201cMoses\nmy servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the\nJordan River into the land I am about to give to them\u2014to the Israelites. 3 I\nwill give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. 4 Your\nterritory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the\nEuphrates\u2014all the Hittite country\u2014to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. 5 No\none will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with\nMoses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. 6 Be\nstrong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I\nswore to their ancestors to give them.<\/em>“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \nDayan also\nbelieves this is the place Moses looked on from nearby Mount Nebo when he ended\nhis role as leader of Israel and saw the people of Israel get ready to enter\nthe Promised Land. Moses himself didn\u2019t enter and died on the mountain on the\nother side of the Jordan River.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Christians, this place\nis also significant as they believe that this was the spot in the Jordan River\nwhere John the Baptist baptized Yeshua (Jesus). Today it is a baptismal site.\nUntil 2011, this baptismal site was a closed military zone, accessible only to\ngroups with special permission after prior coordination with the IDF-Israel\nDefense Forces. Today, this area has a few churches belonging to different\ndenominations, mainly Greek Orthodox, open to visitors who come to be baptized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we drove across the\nvalley to a place commemorating Israeli soldiers who were killed in a battle\nprotecting the valley, Dayan said that Israeli annexation of the Jordan valley\nis a \u2018security buffer zone that is essential to Israel\u2019. \u201cIsraeli security\nrequires three things: fundamental strategic depth; room to wage war against\nthe threat of conventional attacks from the outside, and room that allows for\neffective combat against terrorism. The minimal strategic depth and air space\nrequired is the 65 kilometers average width of Israel from the Mediterranean\nSea to the Jordan River. As for room to wage war, this is the Jordan Rift\nValley which ranges between 6 and 14 km wide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he spoke, the General\npointed out the mountains on the valley\u2019s western edge (which range from 900 to\n1,400 meters edge high) that create a physical defensive barrier. There are\nonly five mountain passageways through them. Even a limited IDF force deployed\nin the valley can defend Israel against an attack from the east.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Jordan Valley is the\neastern buffer zone that prevents the West Bank mountain region from becoming a\nterrorist entity. From the time Israel captured the Jordan Valley from Jordan\nin the Six-Day War in 1967, there have been no military invasions from Jordan\ninto Israel. There now exists a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to provisions of\nthe 1993 Oslo Accords, most of the Jordan Valley is part of Area C, where\nIsrael maintains full civil and security control. However, this strategic\nregion is not yet officially Israeli territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
See the orange area? That is the Jordan Valley. The yellow is the rest of Judea and Samaria: the Biblical Heartland of the Land of Israel.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

While the peace deal\nbetween Israel and Jordan minimizes the threat of attack today, there are still\nmany reasons why Israel needs to control the Jordan Valley. The biggest\nchallenge to Israel\u2019s claim over the Jordan Valley is that the Palestinians\nalso claim the territory as part of what they call the \u2018West Bank,\u2019 the same\narea Israelis identify as historic Judea and Samaria. Prime Minister Benjamin\nNetanyahu has called for applying Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley\nregion and designates the valley a \u2018defensive wall\u2019 that, along with related\nterritory, will ensure Israel\u2019s safety with the permanent presence of the IDF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we visited the lower part of the Jordan Valley,\nGeneral Dayan explained the strategic importance of the area. \u201cFrom the\ntopographical point of view, it\u2019s the ideal region to defend ourselves. The\ndistance to the Mediterranean is just 40 miles, and from north to south, the\nvalley forms a natural border with Jordan, beyond which lies Iran and Iraq. The\nnotion of Israel having defensible borders is based on the Jordan Valley being\npart of the state of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of 22 communities\nsecuring a Jewish presence in the valley is Moshav Na\u2019ama, an agricultural\nvillage of 50 families founded in 1982. Today, their main crops are organic\nherbs, grapes and Medjool dates, all organic. I bought a box of delicious\ndates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like most all the Israeli\ncommunities in the Jordan Valley, almost all the workers in the fields and\ngreenhouses at Na\u2019ama are Arabs from surrounding towns and villages. According\nto Inon Rosenblum, owner of the Na\u2019ama herb farm, \u201cThey prefer to work here.\nThey earn twice as much as they could working in Jericho.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Jordan Valley is a long and narrow valley along the Jordan River. It forms a natural eastern border between Israel and Jordan. Israel considers it to be an important strategic region to protect the country\u2019s eastern region. Last Wednesday, I (Bella) joined about 300 women from the Likud Party on a trip to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[82,17,7],"tags":[89,88,87,84],"class_list":["post-652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-bottom-3-stories","category-israel","category-politics-in-israel","tag-borders","tag-israeli-security","tag-jordan-valley","tag-judea-and-samaria","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":678,"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions\/678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yeshuatami.com\/newsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}