The forgotten front: The War of Attrition in Israel’s northeastern valleys and the emergence of a security periphery, 1967–1970

This article examines the War of Attrition between Israel and the Palestinian militant organizations, led by Fatah (1967–1970), by shifting attention from the Suez Canal front to Israel’s northeastern border valleys. It argues that the conflict along the Jordan Valley and the Galilee Panhandle constituted a distinct and significant theater of war in which the boundaries between military front and civilian home front largely collapsed. Under persistent military pressure, local residents became integral to Israel’s security system, giving rise to patterns of state-society relations that would later characterize the country’s “security periphery”. The article further contends that the marginalization of this front in Israeli collective memory and historiography reflects the construction of a hierarchy of war narratives that privileged the Egyptian front. By restoring the Valleys Front to the historical record, the study offers a new interpretation of the War of Attrition and identifies the northeastern border region as an early laboratory for the emergence of Israel’s security periphery.