ISRAEL'S CHECKPOINTS and the SECURITY FENCE

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

       Definitely longer than my supermarket check-out line, but about the same length as our recent COVID 19 LINE for our 1st vaccine.  

No natural barriers separate Israel and Judea-Samaria (West Bank).  After 1967, Palestinians and Israelis traveled freely between the 2 areas.

   However, when the terrorist campaign erupted in  2000, Israel had to prevent terrorists from easily entering Israeli communities.  Just as the U.S. and other countries worldwide increased airport security procedures after 9/11, Israel instituted strict counterterrorism measures after the intifada began.   From September 2000 to mid-2005, hundreds of Palestinian suicide bombings and terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians killed more nearly 1,000 innocent people and wounded thousands of others.                                       

 In response, Israel's government decided to construct a security fence that would run near the “Green Line” between Israel and the West Bank to prevent Palestinian terrorists from easily infiltrating into Israel proper. The project had the overwhelming support of the Israeli public and was deemed legal by Israel's Supreme Court.     

Israel did not want to build a fence, and resisted doing so for more than 35 years. If anyone is to blame for the construction, it is Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the other Palestinian terrorists. Now a large majority of Israelis support the construction of the security fence; in fact, both Jews and Arabs living along the Green Line favor the barrier to prevent penetration by thieves and vandals as well as terrorists. The fence has also caused a revolution in the daily life of some Israeli Arab towns because it has brought quiet, which has allowed a significant upsurge in economic activity.                                                  

    Checkpoint:  Remember, these wouldn't have happened had Palestinian terrorists not happened.  One calls for the other.  
                   

          Police and medics at the scene of terror attack outside Damascus Gate
Copyright: Magen David Adom

Though they inconvenience Israeli and Palestinians, the purpose of the checkpoints and the security fence is to save lives.                                                

                       Barrier Fence around Judea-Samaria

                                                  

    This massive fence is around the southern border with Jordan

$77 million barrier will run from the southern resort town of Eilat to new airport under construction in Timna Valley, said in 1973.  

SECURITY FENCE: Israel did not begin building the fence until 2003, when terrorism reached unprecedented levels.   

 1. The fence is similar to barriers that dozens of other democracies have built to keep out terrorists or illegal immigrants, such as the barriers between:

   a) U.S. and Mexico, added on by Trump after 2016

   b) India and Kashmir

   c) Spain and Morocco

   d) North and South Korea

   e) Even the walls within Belfast that separate Protestant and Catholic neighborhood

2. Since construction of the fence began in 2003, the number of completed terrorist attacks has dropped by more than 90%.

3. 97% of the barrier is only a chain-link fence;  about 3% (10 miles) is a concrete wall, built to prevent sniper shooting prevalent in certain areas as of 1973. 

4. Only 5% to 6% of the disputed Judea-Samaria land and less than 1% of Palestinians will end up on the Israeli side of the fence.

5. Palestinians can bring their specific grievances about the barrier to Israel's Supreme Court, which in several cases has ruled in favor of the Palestinian claimants, and the fence was rerouted. 

TERRORIST CAMPAIGN 2000 

Nov 2, 2000 - Ayelet Shahar Levy, 28, and Hanan Levy, 33, were killed in a car bomb explosion near the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem. 10 people were injured. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Nov 20, 2000 - A roadside bomb exploded at 7:30 in the morning alongside a bus carrying children from Kfar Darom to school in Gush Katif. Miriam Amitai, 35, and Gavriel Biton, 34, were killed and 9 others, including 5 children, were injured, 5 of them seriously.

Nov 22, 2000 - Shoshanna Reis, 21, of Hadera, and Meir Bahrame, 35, of Givat Olga, were killed, and 60 wounded when a powerful car bomb was denotated alongside a passing bus on Hadera's main street, when the area was packed with shoppers and people driving home from work.

Dec 22, 2000 - Three soldiers were injured in a suicide bomb attack at the Mehola Junction roadside cafe in the northern Jordan Valley. The terrorist, who detonated a belt of explosives strapped to him, was killed in the blast.

This continues:  see reference list below

Wave of terror 2015-2021

19 Sep 2021

The recent series of attacks against Israelis is the direct result of incitement by radical Islamist and terrorist elements, calling on Palestinian youth to murder Jews. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

 

71 months of terror – 13 September 2015 to the present.

Since September 2015, Israel has experienced a wave of terror perpetrated by individuals, many of them very young, inspired by vicious incitement in Palestinian social and traditional media and urged on by the Palestinian leadership. The Palestinian Authority goes so far as to pay convicted terrorists a monthly allowance – the more serious the offense, the more money they receive. The families of terrorists killed by Israeli security forces during a terror attack receive a monthly

"pension" as well.                             

On 30 March 2018, Hamas instigated a campaign that was billed as a peaceful civilian protest, but was actually an excuse for violent riots on the Gaza Strip-Israeli border. In addition, kites and helium balloons with incendiary material attached have been launched from the Gaza Strip to the Israeli side. The resulting fires (over 2,000) have destroyed thousands of acres of forests and agricultural land (8,747 acres as of July 2019), with a huge cost to farmers and to the entire ecosystem of the western Negev​. Experts estimate that it will take decades for the area to recover. During this same period, rocket launches from the Gaza Strip have also increased. An additional cost that cannot be estimated in money is the cost of the trauma suffered by the civilian population in southern Israel, especially the children.

In May 2019, Hamas and Israel entered into an agreement for a six-month ceasefire. Attacks have decreased but not ceased altogether.

                                                              

Israel's home is probably placed in the most dangerous neighborhood in the world. They are surrounded on all sides by terrorists from the Sinai, Lebanon, Syria Jordan, and Judea-Samaria, as well as the Mediterranean Sea.  The security fence is expected to run approximately 500 miles. The fence will snake just east of the pre-1967 border and incorporate the largest Jewish cities in the West Bank. As of July 2009, only about 300 miles (60%) of the barrier was completed and much of the rest was tied up by petitions to the Israeli Supreme Court and Justice Ministry deliberations. According to the Jerusalem Post, work is now being done on mostly constructed sections of the fence and areas that have to be rerouted in response to court rulings. The number of fully completed sections has not increased in 15 months and the barrier's overall length has increased by only about 25 miles in the last two years. The Defense Ministry previously projected the fence would be completed by 2010, but now it does not give an end date.                                         

Education Minister Naftali Bennett expressed disdain for Netanyahu's proposal, explaining “the prime minister spoke today about how fences are needed. We are wrapping ourselves in fences. In Australia and New Jersey there is no need for fences.” Of course, no other city, state or country is up against terrorism like Israel is. 

 

Now that Bennett Prime Minister, I wonder if he's learned about why Netanyahu's period provided fences and how things have improved for both Arabs and Jews. Of course, he knew it all the time.   It's a different situation from the USA.  The United States is building a fence along part of its border with Mexico and that is to prevent illegal immigrants from coming into the country, not terrorists who seek to murder American citizens. Ironically, the UN, which passed a resolution condemning Israel’s barrier, is building its own fence to improve security around its New York headquarters.

       

Resource:

Magazine: Israel 101, produced by StandWithUs, p. 39

https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/pubs/fs/5902.htm  World Terror

https://mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/terrorism/palestinian/pages/wave-of-terror-october-2015.aspx

https://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/terrorism/palestinian/pages/suicide%20and%20other%20bombing%20attacks%20in%20israel%20since.aspx