Discuss: Fencing Israel

It’s great that people in Israel want to save animals and the environment.  We here in America want to do the same thing.  We will start by voting pro-sprawl and pro-war people out of office.  You could start by doing the same.

The situation isn’t quite the same, but the Secure Fence Act (2006)will enable the United States to build a 700 mile double reinforced fence with vehicle fence along the border with Mexico. It will traverse cities & cut across deserts. The goal is to stop not suicide bombers, but drug dealers and illegal immigrants. But, it’s a big, tall, long fence--a wall. Setting aside the important questions about human rights, just as in the Judean Desert, biologists in the US and Mexico are concerned about the impact on regional, transborder wildlife. A species of concern there is the leopard. Here it’s another cat, the jaguar, which has been reported in the border area on both sides, after years of official and unofficial extermination programs. As Jon Piasecki observes in “The Nature of Walls” (Orion Jan-Feb.2008), part of the nature of walls is to eventually fail. Fail physically, fail in their stated purpose, & these two walls will be no different.

The enemy is not the pro-sprawl or the pro-war people.  The enemy is the terrorist and his silent compatriot who have no interest in compromise or peace.

I understand the author’s conflict over the safety the wall brings to Israelis on the other side, versus the damage it does to wildlife and the Palestinians. 

If safety were the only question, Israel’s border should be on the 1967 border line - not taking additional land and settlements from the small area left for Palestinians. 

Arafat and now Abbas have agreed to give up the rest of the former Palestine, provided the refugees from what is now Israel can be compensated in some way.  As the powerful party of the two (most guns, wealth, technology & strongest allies) Israel could make peace by keeping less land.  With a true ceasefire (not reserving the right to execute Palestinians extra-judicially at any time) and a border at the 1967 line, I believe Israel would find peace, and the desert on both sides of the line would be left in a more natural state.

Did anyone ever measure the land size that belongs to the Arabs versus the land size that belongs to Israel?  If the brethren of the Palestinians wanted to alleviate their suffering and invited them to share in their wealth, the desert and Israel would be free of unnatural and unlawful incursion.

I’m old enough to remember the jubilation when the Berlin Wall came down.  The building of walls along the southern border of the United States, and in Israel, seem so sad, futile, and ironic.  “When will we ever learn?”

Iris,
Do you really think it is fair to kick people out of their homes and tell them they can go live with people who share their ethnicity?  The word for that is ethnic cleansing and it is against international law. As long as Israelis don’t acknowledge this, and Americans back them up, there will be no peace in the Middle East.

While fences are never the best solution to any problem, please let me cite a good argument for a security fence along the southern line between Israel and the West Bank territories from Yidiyot Aharonot that appeared shortly after a recent terror killing.
“New security estimates indicate Monday’s suicide bombing may have originated in West Bank, not Gaza, despite earlier reports to the contrary. PA officials say terrorists’ identity hasn’t been ascertained yet”