Charles Krauthammer on the Security Fence in Israel:
The State Department is proposing that the United States play hardball with Israel — reducing badly needed loan guarantees — if it proceeds with the barrier it is erecting between Israeli and Palestinian populations. With this, the State Department joins the latest Palestinian propaganda ploy — inverting cause and effect, and making the fence the issue, rather than the terrorism that made the fence necessary.
The Israelis are not happy with the fence. They love the land as much as the Palestinians, and scarring it with any barrier is so painful to Israelis that for years they resisted the idea. The reason they finally decided to build it is that they could no longer in good conscience refrain from taking the one step that could prevent Palestinian suicide bombers from sneaking into Israel to blow up innocents.
This is not speculation. There have been nearly 100 Palestinian suicide bombings. All the terrorists came from the West Bank, where the barrier is being built. Not a single one has come from Gaza. Why? Because there already is a fence separating Gaza from Israel.
[ . . . ]
The State Department is ignoring, indeed excusing, Palestinian violation of their central obligation under Phase I of the road map. At the very same time, State is threatening Israel with sanctions over a fence that is nowhere mentioned in the road map.
He hits the nail on the head in this column. (Hat tip: Damian Penny).
I was advocating the idea of the fence over 10 years ago to anyone who would listen. I think it is the one thing that would bring peace and security to the region.
It is heartbreaking though to see that the fence is not following the green line. I don’t understand why all Israelis have to suffer because some settlers want to be on the “right” side of the wall. I don’t care who lives where, arabs can live in Israel, jews can live in the West Bank… but don’t make a wall to drag the settlers into Israel. Do we really want those fanatics anyway?
There was an editorial in the Globe and Mail taking a similar position which I thought quite good (http://tinyurl.com/jijw).
It’s hard to hear from behind the usual round of offensive (and predictable) “apartheid” refrains — anything is a good excuse to trot out the antisemitic canard of Jews as white Johnny-come-latelys to the Middle East, it seems — but there’s a very good point lurking. You can’t properly secure your border if it remains undefined.
Israel can’t very well unilaterally declare what the borders are, it’s true, but the idea of using the Green Line in the absence of anything better would have been far more agreeable.
I can see why they didn’t: a fence/wall(*) on the Green Line wouldn’t have done anything for the Israeli citizens living in Palestinian territory, and while it’s all well and good to say “screw ’em, they shouldn’t be there”, reality is a bit more complicated.
Seeing why they didn’t doesn’t mean agreeing with it, though. The fence/wall should have run along the Green Line. Whatever policing necessary to ensure that Israelis in the settlements don’t get shot in the head would have been maintained. A feeling of “we’re not in the State of Israel here” would have begun to permeate, which is not such a bad thing. And the whole process would have permitted full steam ahead with dismantling the settlements in the meantime until policing by Israeli military was no longer necessary.
(No longer necessary, either because Jews weren’t there anymore or — better but somehow unlikely — because they were Jewish citizens of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian government does what governments are supposed to do to protect minorities at risk from the majority around them. Few indications that either of those thigns will happen anytime soon; noone accused the peace process of being an overnight quickie, though.)
* on “fence/wall”: this seems to be a very contentious point; I don’t care much which it is, nor think it matters much. Technology is mighty. Walls can be as impermanent as fences.
On the fence/wall/eyesore issue: I am completely against the concept as is. My reasoning for this is that if the goal were entirely to protect Israelis from suicide attacks, then the fence would have been erected right down the green line (an idea which makes a decent amount of sense). Instead, the way it is now, 10-15% of the West Bank lies on the west side of the fence. This is particularly problematic, as the fence is physically isolating poor Palestinian farmers from their agricultural fields; fields which they depend on for their livelihoods (and watch these will be expropriated in no time flat for new settlement construction). Thus the fence is akin to the government covering the door to the office in cement, thus locking out all of the employees from their jobs (and, more importantly, paychecks). Thus, if anything, the fence will not help in the peace process, as it will only add fuel to the fire of hate and racism in the West Bank, where understanding, pluralism and tolerance is needed.
Another reason is that when the fence is erected, it will give ammo to those who advocate modifying the borders of the West Bank, so that the Israelis get a chunk of the West Bank (and more importantly, the water therein). Lastly, might I say that David H. touched on an interesting point: in my mind, the reason that the fence has been erected where it is is due to the fact that the Sharon government needs to panhandle to its voting constituency, many of whom are nutball religious whackjobs with 15 guns in the house in places like Hebron and Gilo. Let’s face it: the doves in Meretz and Labour don’t exactly win many votes East of the Green line-Likud and the religious parties in the government do!
Wow! Sounds like all agree.
(I suspect that the practice of actually-existing understanding, pluralism and tolerance frowns on calling people “nutball religious whackjobs”, mind you. That tends not to help in talking to them.
Assuming, that is, that it’s a good idea to talk with people one disagrees with. ;-))
The big question of course is… had the fence been placed directly on the green line, would the palestinian side have supported it? Or would they have continued with the silly name-calling (Apartheid Wall et al.)?
There are arguments on both sides, on one hand I don’t hear much bitching about the Gaza fence, which makes me think that both sides would indeed support the fence.
Then, on the other hand, many of the arguments against the fence have nothing to do with its deviation from the green line. That makes me wonder if the deviation is just a conveniant excuse to rail against the wall, especially for those opposed to the 2-state solution.
I guess there is a mix, some people recognize the need for the fence, but are dismayed by its placement, whereas other people blindly hate it and have seized upon the deviations as an excuse to advance their agenda.