premise of article skewed
Reader comment on item: Guest Column: The Importance of the Jordan Valley Corridor

Submitted by JW, Jan 28, 2014 10:15

With all due respect to Dr. Berko and his credentials, he writes in generalities regarding Israel's eastern border and the politics of the region, vice substantial, factual, relevant and current terrorism threats. He makes sweeping statements about Israel's borders being difficult to defend and uncertain in the future of what lies to the east of Israel. The article insinuates that Jordan is a future threat by using events from more than 40 years ago. In my recent years of experience living, researching terrorism and working in Jordan, this is simply not true. The Jordan Valley corridor is currently secure by both Israeili/Jordanain cooperation and all indications politically are that the relation remains strong and viable for the future. On a side note, the Jordan valley corridor is critical to water in the region and thus holds sway to the one who controls it. The majority of the eastern border with Jordan is jointly protected - Israel and Jordan have a strong working relationship regarding security and a viable peace agreement since 1994 - the agreement has not been threatened by any of the uprisings in other Arab nations and Palestine was not affected either. Jordan was not involved in the Arab Spring - as seen from the perspective of someone who lives here, there has been normal "demonstrations", gatherings of people who want their voice heard like in all free & open countries. In the big scheme of things, these demonstrations have never threatened the leadership of the Hashemite Kingdom nor is the government worried that its citizens are on the verge of an uprising. Jordan's security forces along the borders with Palestine (West Bank), Syria and Iraq are very good. These forces continue to receive training and assistance from many other nations, in particular the US. This being said, there is no truth in comments about Iraqi terrorists reaching Israel by going across Jordan or that Shi'a governments are closing with Israel -- there is no new Shi'a players in this region, simply the Alawite sect of Syria (current government) and Hezballah in Lebanon are the biggest influencers. Jordan security works diligently to prevent entry or transit of weapons or fighters from Iraq or Syria in the current environment to travel to Israel. Jordan continues to work for improvements to regional security. As far as the West Bank is concerned being a threat, The US currently supports the National Security Forces of Palestine in cooperation with Israel to grow their security forces to eventually be self-sufficient, as Israel is in control of this territory and continues to coordinate with these same security forces. There are potentially small groups who may cause minor problems within, however the majority of Israel's terrorism concern should focus to the North with Hezballah in southern Lebanon, remnants of the PLO and other radical off-shoot groups who operate in Lebanon and Syria, and to the south with Hamas in the Gaza Strip; where all recent security problems have emulated. This section of Palestine should not be made out to be a cooperative piece of the Palestinian Authority - they are in effect two separate entities in reality, one run by Hamas and the other by the Palestinian Authority who appears amicable to continued negotiations and establishment of a two-state solution. Painting Israel's security threats as coming from the east, simply because the West Bank is located there or that Jordan is an Arab nation located to the east or due to the obvious, it is Israel's longest border and water flows in this area (aquifers included), is unfair to the people in the region at large. In my final analysis, the article is truly one-sided and for obvious reasons panders to those who might not be as familiar with the regional politics. It leads those who are less familiar with the Levant region to believe that all is true and that all surrounding countries willingly harbor terrorists who fight Israel. I hope that in the future, the Investigative Project on Terrorism will publish more balanced articles regarding this region of the world or at least include editors comments regarding the one-sided perspective. - the Levant is "ground zero" for what the world today understands as terrorism. These groups are not all focused on Israel nor do they have some integrated plan for the future to engulf the Jewish state. I served 29 years in the US Marine Corps, received my Master's in Diplomacy with a concentration in terrorism from Norwich University. My entire course of study focused on terrorism in the Levant. I continue to research, write and publish on the subject.

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