Labor chief: Jordan Valley settlements ensure security

Visiting the Jordan Valley today, Labor party leader Avi Gabbay lauds the settlements of the eastern frontier of the West Bank.

“The settlement [project] was and remains the beautiful and devoted face of Zionism,” he says in quotes carried by Army Radio.

“Over the years, regardless of the party in power, the settlement project demonstrated commitment, determination and love of country. You, the settlers, are the pioneers of our generations, people who act despite adversity, who cause the wilderness to bloom, who realize the impossible.

“For us, the Jordan Valley was and will remain Israel’s eastern security buffer. And security requires settlement.

“But the security of the Jewish people in its land requires not only tanks and fences, but also national unity. And this is our duty as public servants, to be moderate and remember in every statement we make that without unity there is no nation, and no state.”

Labor governments in the late 1960s and early 1970s first established Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley, and recent policy papers by Labor leaders have emphasized the need to hold on to the Jordan Valley in any future peace deal with the Palestinians.