Israel’s Security Barrier

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.

• Israel has had to face repeated threats of annihilation from virtually all of its neighbors, defend itself in five wars of aggression and in repeated terrorist attacks by her neighbors where the stated goal was to wipe Israel off the face of the map.

• Starting in 1982, Israel was bombarded with over the border mortar and missile attacks by Syrian backed PLO and Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon. In spite of Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, Israel was attacked by Hezbollah in the summer of 2006.

• In 1987 the First Intifada began in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It lasted several years with hundreds of Israeli deaths.

• On September 2000, the Palestinians on the West Bank began a shocking wave of terror, referred to as the Second Intifada, which consisted largely of suicide bombers who enter Israel with the sole intent of killing and maiming as many people as possible. There have been as many as 47 suicide bombings in Israel in one month alone.

• Israel withdrew from Gaza unilaterally in Fall 2005. The Palestinians in Gaza responded almost immediately by digging infiltration tunnels into Israel and the daily firing of Qassam rockets into Israel, wounding, killing and terrorizing the civilian population in Sderot. Between May 15 and May 31 2007 alone, Palestinian terrorists launched over 270 rockets from Gaza into Sderot and the western Negev in Israel.

From September 29, 2000 to December 6, 2005

1,080 Israelis Were Killed in Terrorist Attacks

Thousands of Israelis Have Been Horribly Maimed and Wounded

Israel Has a Right To Protect Its Citizens From This Wanton Violence

• In the spring of 2003, more than three years after the Second Intifada began, Israel began to construct the security barrier. This is a non-violent, passive way of trying to stop the suicide attacks.

The Barrier Is A Fence Not a Wall For Approximately 95% of its Length

• The barrier which Israel is constructing is, for approximately 95% of its length, a fence, not a wall as it frequently depicted in the media. 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 is the dirt “tracking” path and other observation tools.

• Only a small fraction of the barrier (less than 5% ) is actually a 30 foot high concrete wall, built in specific locations where it was necessary to prevent sniper fire into Israel 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, clearly serves the purposes of those who want to inflame passions against Israel more than they want to tell the truth about the situation.

The Security Barrier Saves Lives

• The Security Barrier was a response to terrorism.

• Since construction of the security barrier began, the number of terrorist attacks in Israel has declined by more than 90%. The number of Israelis murdered and wounded has decreased by more than 70% and 85%, respectively, since erection of the barrier.

• Israel’s security barrier causes hardship and severe inconvenience for many Palestinians on the West Bank. It limits employment opportunities and access to worship. It has split some Palestinian farms and separated other farm land from the owner’s home. Land and water wells have been confiscated or destroyed and olive trees uprooted. But these are all problems brought about by terrorism. There is no human or moral equivalence between economic and social hardship and outright terror and murder.

HUMAN LIFE IS MORE PRECIOUS THAN FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT

WHEN THE TERROR STOPS THE BARRIER CAN COME DOWN