Israeli strategic affairs expert, Brigadier General (Ret.) Shlomo Brom, is a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, Israel's leading national security think tank. He is also one of the leaders of the Council on Peace and Security, an organization that brings together hundreds of high-ranking members from Israel's security and diplomacy establishments to support a viable and sustainable peaceful resolution to the conflict in the Middle East as a necessary step towards ensuring Israel's security and social resilience and maintaining its democratic foundation in the long-term.

In 2011, Brom authored a short report for the Council on future defensible borders between Israel and the state of Palestine in the context of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. The report concludes that the 1967 lines, with reasonable land swaps, would be defensible borders between Israel and the West Bank portion of the future state of Palestine. We asked Brig. Gen. Brom, the former top strategic planner of the IDF, to explain why.

by Hamze Awawdeh, APN Summer Intern

On the eve of the holy month of Ramadan this year, excitement, spirituality and happiness are conflicting with fear, sadness and desperation over last week’s incidents in the West Bank: the kidnapping of the three Israeli teenagers and the killing of five young Palestinians.

For me, however, this year’s Ramadan experience is very special. I am spending this month in Washington DC, far from my family in the West Bank town of Doura, near Hebron, and far from the quick escalation on the ground. Moreover, I am working for Americans for Peace Now, the Jewish pro-Israel, pro-peace organization that is lobbying for a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on a two-state solution. 

• Don't miss APN's Podcast with Brigadier General (Ret.) Shlomo Brom on future defensible borders between Israel and the state of Palestine in the context of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
• Listen to Israeli strategic affairs expert Yossi Alpher, author of "Hard Questions Tough Answers," APN's weekly news analysis, on the current Israeli-Palestinian security crisis and its repercussions.
• Download and use Facts on the Ground: APN’s Map App. Use this map to explore the data we have collected about borders and check it regularly to see updates.
• Read and share the"Does more land mean more security?" chapter from APN’s landmark publication, “They Say, We Say”.
• Watch APN’s "Mandy Patinkin Speaking at Peace Now Conference."
• Read and Share Articles from APN:

  Borders & Security:

  • Dov Weisglass in Yedioth Achronoth: Bar-Lev Line in the Jordan Valley (December 30, 2014)
  • Yariv Oppenheimer in Haaretz: Security for Settlers, Not the State of Israel ( January 1, 2014)
  • Ori Nir for APN: Kerry: The US Submitted Security Ideas to Advance Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations (December 6, 2013)
  • Akiva Eldar in Haaretz: Before the 1967 lines retire, too (November 13, 2012)
  • APN Board member Mandy Patikin speaking at the Peace Now Conference  - http://youtu.be/XdjEALPzbwM  (May 11, 2012)
  • Ronen Bergman and Binyamin Tobias in Yedioth Achronoth: Bibi, It is Possible to Defend Israel from the 1967 Border Lines -Translation by Israel News Today (June 13, 2011)
  • Yossi Alpher for APN: Hard Questions and Tough Answers with Yossi Alpher, Yossi Alpher answers questions about the defensibility of Israel's borders, and the security necessity of a long-term Israeli military presence along the Jordan River. (May 31, 2011)
  • Lara Friedman for APN: The New Zeitgeist: Israeli-Palestinian Status Quo Is Untenable (April 21, 2011)

  
  Borders/Unilateralism:

  • Shaul Arieli in Walla: The Illusion of the Unilateral Solution Translation via Israel News Today, (May 27, 2014)
  • Aviel Magnezi in YNet:  Lapid: Unilateral annexations will lead coalition to collapse (May 27, 2014)
  • Yossi Alpher for APN: Hard Questions and Tough Answers with Yossi Alpher “Are we about to witness a new Israeli unilateral initiative?” (May 27, 2014)
  • Jerusalem Post editorial: One state, two states (May 18, 2014)
  • Lara Friedman in Open Zion: Paved with Good Intentions, Lined with Settlements (March 14, 2013)
  • Lara Friedman in The Huffington Post:  The Two-State Solution Through the Suspension of Disbelief (March 7, 2013)
  • Lara Friedman in The Daily Beast: The Siren Call of Israeli Unilateralism (June 18, 2012)

Return to the Main "Borders/Security" Page

On the second week of APN's Reclaiming Israel's Future campaign, Jerusalem expert Danny Seidemann was our guest on a briefing call. He discusses the latest developments on the ground in East Jerusalem, examines the situation on the ground 47 years after the Six Day War,  and addresses the future of Jerusalem.

Our new campaign re-focuses energy and attention on the challenges to Israel's future as a democracy and a Jewish state. We cover each core issue in this conflict: settlements, Jerusalem, borders and security, hatred and incitement, the conflicting narratives of Israelis and Palestinians, and how to support a two-state solution.

Following the decision by the Presbyterian Church (USA) to divest from three U.S. companies whose products, they argue, are used to support Israeli occupation, Americans for Peace Now today issued the following statement:

“Last Friday’s decision of the Presbyterian Church of the United States to divest from three major U.S. companies should serve as a resounding warning for the Israeli government. Increasingly large segments of American society - including ones that care deeply about Israel’s future and invest in it – are losing patience with the nearly five decades-long occupation and with the Israeli government’s refusal to act seriously to bring it to an end. Pressure for decisions like the one taken by PC (USA) is growing, supported by Americans who are neither anti-Israel nor anti-Semitic. It is gaining traction as a direct consequence of Israeli policies that are deepening the occupation to the point of potential irreversibility in the near term, in tandem with the apparent inability or unwillingness of governments around the world to in any meaningful way challenge these policies.