Militarism and Israeli Society

7 Shadow Lands: The Use of Land Resources for Security Needs in Israel

168 seven Shadow Lands: The Use of Land Resources for Security Needs in Israel Amiram Oren From time to time in recent years, the media in Israel have reported on security infrastructures. These reports refer to such topics as “IDF Deployment and Readiness along the Lebanese Border,” “The Separation Fence,” “Evacuation of Camps in Urban Centers,” “Civilian Activity on Training Grounds,” “Environmental Damage Caused by Military Camps and Installations,” and “IDF Deployment along a New Defense Line Opposite the Gaza Strip after the Disengagement.” All these news articles comprise but a small fraction of the broader topic that has yet to be related to properly—the use of the state’s and the public’s land resources for security needs. The security sector,1 especially through the IDF, holds on to more than one-third of the territory of the State of Israel within the Green Line, and it influences, to various degrees and ways, more than half of the territory of the state, as well as dictating to a large extent the uses of air space and extensive portions of sea space. Up to now, this fact and its implications have gained very little attention. Academic-research discussion or planning and professional clarification or public debate have hardly raised any issues dealing with the relationship between security, on the one hand, and the resources of real estate and state territories, geographical space, environmental quality, and the image of the landscape , on the other. The purpose of this chapter is to clarify why discussion and research on the extensive use of land resources for security reasons have been placed on the back burner and to offer a new agenda for this topic. shadow lands · 169 Discussion Framework and Background Security uses of land are part of military power. The exploitation of the best real estate, state lands, and land and sea space is intended to ensure the utmost utilization of the military and other security forces’ operational ability. They are part of the response to the security challenge facing the state. In other words, they derive from a concept of security that responds to threat—the possible political and military ways of acting, the use of force and military strength, the favorable military doctrine, and the principles of building and organizing a force. Military doctrine includes an operational concept for activating a force, which constitutes the basis for determining the abilities required of the military. It generally distinguishes between two situations in which the army finds itself: first, an army that operates during a time of tranquility and whose task is to deter an enemy, warn of its intentions, undertake ongoing security activity, prepare for battle, and be on daily alert; second, an army that operates during wartime and whose tasks are defense, offense, subduing the other side, and protecting the home front. The elements of the demand for land derived from these abilities will enable the army to function and to fulfill its objectives. The roots of the demand also pass through the building of a military force for action on the battlefield. In all these, additional components of resource demands for land are present, among them the arrangement of the forces—its size, structure, and the functional and spatial organization of the command over its fighting and professional arms.2 The areas that serve security purposes appear in two forms: a direct form, in which the bodies of the security sector are consumers of land in the broad sense of the term—real estate, territory, and space, which also includes air and sea space; and an indirect form, of civilian land that serves security needs in one or another form and to different degrees . Therefore, land uses for security purposes are lands and territory owned by the security sector and civilian land that the security sector purchases, leases, or grabs, depending on the particular event, and holds on to and uses for ad hoc purposes, as well as land and civilian infrastructure , whose objectives it directs; it even participates in the costs of setting up this infrastructure so that it will serve it in the future. Security 170 · amiram oren land uses are not an end in itself, but one input in the gamut of security strength components, such as personnel, capital, and technology.3 The theoretical framework and background for discussion of the subject of this chapter are derived from the research field called “the...