FAIR Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East

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Israel’s Security Barrier

Security barriers (both fences and walls) are utilized all over the world, often in disputed territories, for the purpose of preventing terrorism, smuggling, and/or illegal immigration. These barriers frequently cause significant difficulties for civilians living nearby. But while security barriers are common throughout the world, it is only Israel’s barrier, built to help protect its citizens from a rash of suicide bombings, which has been met with protests by the international community and a hearing at the International Court of Justice (the UN court). No other security barrier has ever been met with such resistance.

All sovereign nations exercise some form of control over the flow of human traffic across their borders. Israel’s need for this sort of control is far greater than that of most other countries.

• Since its birth, the modern State of Israel has been the target of significant threats to its existence, including terrorism. Starting in 1994, after the signing of the Oslo Accords, and intensifying after the Second Intifada began in September 2000, the citizens of Israel had to live with the reality of suicide bombing. Terrorists blew themselves up in restaurants, shopping malls, public buses, with an intensity and frequency unprecedented elsewhere in the world.

The security barrier was a response to terrorism.

• Israel began to construct the security barrier in the spring of 2003, more than three years after the Second Intifada began as a way of trying to stop the suicide attacks.

• Since construction of the security barrier, the suicide bombing coming from the West Bank has been virtually eliminated.

The barrier is a fence for approximately 95% of its length.

• Although frequently depicted in the media as a wall, the barrier which Israel is constructing is, for approximately 95% of its length, a fence. The security fence forms a strip approximately the width of a four-lane highway. At its center is the chain-link fence that supports an intrusion detection system. This technologically advanced system is designed to warn against infiltrations, as are the dirt “tracking” path and other observation tools.

• Only a small fraction of the barrier (about 6% ) is actually a 30 foot high concrete wall, built in specific locations where it was necessary to prevent sniper fire into Israeli neighborhoods and on major highways and roads or where the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the fence took up too much width and caused unacceptable incursion into Palestinian territory.

• The religious and mass media tends to show only those segments of the barrier which is a wall. Showing pictures of that small section of the barrier which is a “looming cement” wall, with no reference to the much less imposing fence, is prejudicial, manipulative and fundamentally dishonest.

The security barrier creates extreme inconvenience for the Palestinians living on the West Bank, but it saves lives.

• Israel’s security barrier and the checkpoint system cause severe hardship and inconvenience for many Palestinians on the West Bank. 120,000 Palestinian workers that used to cross into Israel for their jobs have been cut off from employment. In some cases it may limit access to worship. Palestinians can’t get to Israeli hospitals, the barrier breaks up some families who are split between the West Bank and East Jerusalem, houses were demolished to build the barrier on both sides (Israeli and Palestinian). And while the barrier has 124 gates, so people can, for example, get through to their orchards and farms, Palestinians frequently have to wait hours for an Israeli soldier to come and let them through. The barrier is choking the Palestinian economy.

• But hundreds of people were killed in the suicide bombings of the Second Intifada and thousands terribly maimed. Yet, the outcry in many of our churches is only against the security barrier -- not the terrorism. This raises the question, why do people tell other people, in the name of peace and justice, not to try to preserve their own lives?

There is an inherent right recognized in International Law to self-defense. Why would we deny Israel this most fundamental of rights?

• Security barriers have been built around the world, often in disputed territories, with the purpose of disrupting the movement of terrorists, smugglers, and illegal immigrants. These barriers frequently cause difficulties for civilians living along the border zones, just like Israel’s does.

• Why was it only Israel’s decision in 2003 to build a security barrier to protect itself from suicide bombing which was met with protests by our churches? No other security barrier has ever been met with such resistance.

• Human life is more precious than freedom of movement or even economic considerations. When the terror and the threat of terror stops, the barrier can come down