Articles: New Fence Gives Israelis Piece of Mind

It is 1:30 in the afternoon. You and your friends have just sat down in Leo’s. You head downstairs to grab a table while your friends get food. Not thinking twice about a pile of newspapers on the floor near your table, you wait for your friends.

Suddenly, there is a massive explosion, and glass shatters while smoke fills the cafeteria. Horrific screams and shrieks of pain are the only things you can hear. In a state of shock, it takes a few moments for you to realize you are bleeding and badly wounded because the bomb was packed with ball bearings and rusted nails. Quickly, the cafeteria fills with emergency personnel, and as you are being evacuated on a stretcher, you look around and all you see is grief, pain and suffering. People you know and people you’ve never met are dead, wounded, in shock, crying, screaming and calling their friends to make sure they’re still alive.

This nightmare scenario is an all too frequent tragic reality in Israel. On July 31, 2002, nine students (five of whom were foreign nationals) were murdered and 85 injured in a bombing in the cafeteria of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.

What would you do if you knew you might get blown up taking a GUTS bus to Dupont? If you might be crippled for life while lunching at Booey’s with friends? If you might be shot by terrorists conduct a shooting rampage on M Street? If every time you heard an ambulance you waited in fear and prayed that you would not hear another, and that if you did hear a second you could be sure you’d hear a third and a fourth and a fifth rushing to save and help the victims of yet another brutal terrorist attack against innocent civilians going about their daily lives?

I would demand that my government do everything in its power to protect me. Israel’s government has done just that. In constructing a security fence, the government is working in the interests of its citizens by responding to calls of over 80 percent of the Israeli population to build such a fence. One exists around the Gaza Strip, and despite the dozens of suicide bombers that have penetrated Israel from the West Bank, no Palestinian suicide bomber has successfully penetrated Israel from the Gaza Strip, illustrating the fence’s effectiveness.

Ironically and disturbingly, Israel’s own actions are blamed for these attacks on its citizens. The fact is Palestinian terrorism has been conducted against Jews since the turn of the century. In 1929, for instance, the entire Jewish community of Hebron, where Jews had resided for centuries, was massacred or expelled. After the establishment of Israel in 1948, Palestinian terrorism continued to inflict itself on Israeli society. Indeed, even during the years of the Oslo Peace process, suicide bombers from Hamas blew themselves up even as Israel was withdrawing from the West Bank and moving toward the creation of an independent Palestinian state. And today, while Israel’s presence in the West Bank is blamed for much of the violence, one cannot turn away from the fact that Israeli forces did not enter the West Bank’s major cities until March of 2002, 18 months after terrorist attacks had begun en masse against Israelis.

There is no moral equivalency when violence against civilians is taken as a strategic decision. There is, however, the potential to stop much of the destruction and terror that all Israelis face. That solution is Israel’s security fence.

Never wanting a fence, Israel waited 36 years until many hundreds of its citizens had become the victims of terrorism to build this defensive measure. Keeping in mind that the fence is for security purposes only and that negotiations will determine a final boundary between a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, the fence must be viewed in terms of the benefits it provides. First and foremost, it prevents terrorists from infiltrating into Israel thereby preventing death and destruction, something so valuable that it is priceless. Second, the fence’s presence ultimately reduces the need for Israeli soldiers to operate in anti-terror operations in the West Bank. This means fewer soldiers, fewer checkpoints and thus fewer restrictions on the majority of the Palestinian population. Third, terrorist attacks have the ability to and are often conducted in order to disrupt or destroy negotiations. A single suicide bomber can literally blow up weeks or months of progress in a single, devastating act. Thus, a measure such as this that can help ensure quiet while saving lives is invaluable to a future peace process

The security fence saves lives in a nonviolent manner. That is the unequivocal bottom line. Any country facing a barrage of terrorism would act to protect its citizens. Israel has done the same thing, and when the day comes for a peace agreement (which I hope will be soon), the security fence will be a proven success. As Israel’s peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan show, when there are willing partners, Israel is always ready to make peace. Indeed, as Israel’s agreement with Egypt highlights, the decision to evacuate settlements, oilfields, tourist spots and significant investments in the Sinai Peninsula proved no obstacle in Israel’s decision to make peace with Egypt. One should expect no difference if the day comes that a real peace, free of terrorism and pain, is possible with the Palestinian leadership and their people.

Jonathan Aires is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service and the president of the Georgetown Israel Alliance.