| Submit your comments on this article |
| Middle East |
| Israel to start building fence |
| 2002-06-16 |
| Israel was to start work Sunday on a fence designed to keep Paleostinian attackers from crossing into Israel from the West Bank. Right-wing Israeli politicians fear that what is being billed as a temporary "security fence" will evolve into a permanent border with a future Palestinian state, leaving most of the 200,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank on the far side. I'd venture to say they're right... Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, an ardent support of Israeli settlement expansion for decades, long opposed the barrier but reluctantly gave his approval this month. Of the nearly 70 suicide bombings in Israel over the past 20 months, all have been launched from the West Bank, which has no barrier separating it from Israel. Militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have carried out many of the bombings, are stronger in the Gaza Strip than in the West Bank. But no suicide bombers have come from Gaza, which is fenced in. I'd call that empirical evidence that it's needed, then... Palestinians object to the barrier because they believe it is part of a secret Israeli plan to carve up the West Bank. Damn those Secret Israeli Plans™! The fence will largely follow the so-called Green Line, which was the effective Israeli border before Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. But parts of the fence will veer into the West Bank to bring some settlements close to the border onto the Israeli side. Since they're eventually going to go back to the 1967 borders, with minor modifications, all parties bitching about it are correct: it'll become an international border between Israel and Palestine. It's also necessary, so just shut up and do it. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |