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Doron Kescher , originally from Emek Hefer, is currently based in the Asia-Pacific region, working for a corporate advisory firm. A fluent English and French speaker, he has spent much of his time since September 2000 explaining the current conflict to non-Jewish work colleagues.
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By Doron Kescher
December 25, 2003
While debate continues over whether to label Israel's defensive barrier as the 'Security Wall' or 'Security Fence' (or perhaps even the 'Arafat Wall'), the Israeli government is engaged in a public relations battle to justify its construction.
The argument - lost on most Europeans and leftists, and a waste of oxygen in the Arab world - is that the barrier is the only option left open to Israel in fighting terrorism. Military operations are labeled "disproportionate" and "aggressive," checkpoints and curfews are judged "humiliating", and preventive targeted-killings are labeled "extra-judicial" and "war-crimes."
The only option open to Israel seems to be the construction of a physical barrier between Palestinian Arab population centers and Israeli cities. With the construction of the barrier, Israel has found a non-violent way of dealing with the relentless terrorism which has claimed almost 1,000 Israeli lives since September 2000. The adoption of the physical barrier policy even has empirical evidence on its side: Israel is able to largely quarantine terrorism from Gaza due to the fact that a barrier already exists around the entire strip.
While the efficacy of the barrier with regard to terrorism remains to be seen (initial results in areas where the barrier has already been completed are encouraging), the effect of the barrier on Israeli politics and the Israeli ability to perceive threats could be extremely damaging.
Consider the following remarks by Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman: "[the fence] will help create a terror-free environment in which a peace can be agreed through negotiations." [Address to the UN General Assembly Tenth Emergency Special Session, December 8, 2003]
Huh?
Did I read that correctly? Are we to understand that if we can just prevent the Palestinians from living out (excuse the pun) their depraved and murderous fantasies for a certain period of time, they will be transformed into friendly little Canadians, willing to live in peace? Is that what the barrier is about?
As I understand it, the barrier is temporary solution to the problem currently facing Israel, namely that our Palestinian Arab neighbors want to kill us all. The barrier will be in place until such time as Arab society reforms itself, and is able to accept a non-Muslim liberal Western democracy in the heart of the Middle East. That could take months, years, decades or generations. Until that time though, a physical barrier will protect Israeli civilians in their cafes, nightclubs, buses, roads, pizzerias, synagogues and schools.
It's not an ideal plan, but it is certainly one of the best out there at the moment.
Gillerman's address identifies one of the hidden dangers of the security barrier: while Palestinian attempts and desires to slaughter Jews may continue for some time, unabated by any inroad of morality or liberalism, their barrier-induced lack of 'success' may lull Israelis into a false sense of peace. In short, as the memory of 30 Israelis a month being murdered on buses and in pizzerias recedes, Israelis may incorrectly attribute this to a non-existent Palestinian desire to live in peace with their Jewish neighbors.
This phenomenon can be readily observed each time a 'lull' in deaths due to terrorism has occurred since September 2000. During each 'lull', elements of Israeli society - joined by the European Union and the U.S. Department of State - have variously enthusiastically applauded 'Palestinian restrain' and 'recent progress'. There have been 'efforts to capitalize on the current lull in the cycle of violence.'
The true indicators of 'peace' are Palestinian intentions, rather than Palestinian outcomes. It is no coincidence that the illusory 'lulls' have occurred simultaneously to intensified Israeli security operations. There has been no 'lull' in the number of intended attacks - or more accurately - the number of intended victims.
The relative falls in the number of Israeli casualties do not correlate with a fall in the Palestinian desire - simply put - to murder Jews.
One of the few dangers of the barrier is that the 'lull' in terrorism provided by the security barrier will engender in Israelis a false sense of confidence in the intentions of the Palestinians. One can almost hear the frenzied voices of the Israeli left and their foreign puppet-masters: "There have been no massive suicide bombings in x months, ergo, the Palestinians must (finally) want peace!"
In order to gauge the Palestinian mood, we must keep our ears open to what is actually being said. Sadly, the message has not changed since 1964: "Filistin min al-bahr ila a-nahr" ("Palestine, from the (Jordan) river to the (Mediterranean) sea").
In this sense, the defensive barrier will shield Israelis not only from the barrage of murder, but from the awful truth: that the average Palestinian Arab in the street wants us dead (or in Poland).
By limiting the Palestinians' ability to murder us or drive us away, we are merely averting our eyes from the danger, not removing it; we are parrying the punches, not knocking down our attacker.
In this sense, the security barrier could become a security blindfold.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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