Areas Israel Plans To Keep

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32393, 4 September 1970, Page 13

Areas Israel Plans To Keep

(N.Z. Preu association—Copyright) JERUSALEM, September 3. The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Yigal Alton) said yesterday .that regardless of any peace settlement, Israel would retain control of parts of the Jordan Valley, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip and Sharm el Sheikh.

During a tour of Nahal along the Jordan River on the west bank, Mr Alton said: “Whatever may be the political solution for the area of Judea and Samaria (the west bank), the Jordan River, the Jordan Valley and the high range of mountains along that valley—from Mount Gilboa in the north to the arid region in the south, including the Judean Desert, up to the approaches in Hebron in the east—must remain in Israel’s hands and form a security zone from which any attack from the east can be repulsed." He also said that Israel’s security needs would be met by holding on to the Syrian Golan Heights, the Zion settlements south-west of Jerusalem on the west bank, the approach to the western-most town of the Gaza Strip, Rafah, and Shann el Sheikh, at the southern tip of the Sinai. Mr Alton said that Nahal settlements, manned by young men and women who do their military service as “farmer-warriors, will safeguard a sovereign Jewish presence” along the strategic region of the west bank of the Jordan and the Dead Sea. “They play an important

role in our political struggle for a topographically and strategically defensible border, which atone can be considered a safe border,” he said.