Soccer Dad

Four on the Fence

Four recent articles have focused on Israel's security fence. (Actually only 3 address the fence itself, the other addresses the peace process in general and is only minimally about the fence.) I think, that despite the different perspectives, they are essentially saying the same thing.
It is Saul Singer's conclusion in the fourth article that is important:

What matters now, and what the Zionist Left owes this country, is not an explanation but support. The Left owes the shoulder that it is in a unique position to provide in building a new consensus that could achieve a grudging respect in the world and spare ourselves much fruitless posturing. That consensus is that Israel has a right to build a fence, including one that will create a territorial presumption in Israel's favor in a very limited part of the West Bank. And that strengthening the Jewish presence in places like Gush Etzion and Ma'aleh Adumim is not an illegitimate land grab, but a necessary reflection of Israel's rights and interests and the result of the Palestinian refusal to negotiate peace.

Singer argues that the Left in Israel has won more of the debate about the future of Israel than has the Right. (The Left's support for two states and the Right's insistence that Arafat is not a partner are what have survived Oslo.) Now it's time for the Left to join in unity supporting a fence that does cut a little into Palestinian territory. (Singer should be arguing for Ariel too.) If Israel shows unity, the world will be more supportive of the fence.
Israel Harel, though, views the fence as defeatist; something that doesn't much help Israel.

The fence, by definition, was intended to "lower the level of terror." Making do with little - a good trait for a person or a society from an economic perspective - is forbidden where security is concerned. In this sphere, the goal, and mainly the result, has to be maximal. This means that the very decision to build the fence includes an acquiescence - dangerous from the point of view of consciousness and the results - to the endless terror.

Harel is not so interested in concensus. He is interested in winning. But with PM Sharon pushing the fence and no significant objections to it within the government, there is nothing he can do. Still his fear that the fence opens the possibility that the PA will escalate with severe rocket attacks rings true.
Avi Dicter's fear that the PA will develop rockets to bypass the fence was realized, in part today when Arutz-7 reported that "Heavy Rocket Damage To Home In Jewish Gaza." Harel's objections to the fence are chilling.
Peter Berkowitz views the fence only in a positive light:

The cause of the consensus is terror. In the old days, before September 2000, it was a mark of the country's national security challenge that almost every adult Israeli had served in the military, and every Israeli had friends and loved ones in the army. These days, the distinguishing mark of the country's national security challenge is something grimmer: Almost every Israeli knows somebody who has been wounded, maimed, or blown to bits by a suicide bomber. For Israelis, the front line is now at home, and it is this transformation of their struggle with the Palestinians that has produced an overwhelming majority--perhaps two thirds of the citizenry--in favor of the security fence.

It's discouraging terror and it has united Israel. I guess he doesn't feel the division as much Saul Singer does. Another theme that goes through Berkowitz's article is that Arafat is greatly discredited among his own constituents. They blame him for allowing the situation to spiral out of control until Israel was forced to build the hated fence.
Finally there's George Kerevan who is more focused on how the fence is viewed than what it does. In his article "Suicide bombers are real barrier to peace" he points to the real problem that much of world doesn't seem to have gotten:

The impetus to build the fence came in March 2002 after 37 attempted Palestinian suicide bombings were launched in 31 days. I found wandering around Belfast in the 1970s was nerve-wracking enough, but at least you knew the Provos would try to give a warning before a bomb went off. In Israel, as we saw again on Saturday, the aim of Palestinian extremists is deliberately to murder civilians. In particular, they have a penchant for blowing up school buses - I’m sorry, but I find no cause in the world justifies such "condensed callousness".

The Israelis found themselves in a bind. Something had to be done to stop the suicide bombings. Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority showed no capacity or inclination to curb the extremists on its own side. Arafat is no Nelson Mandela, which is Palestine’s tragedy. Rather than use his standing in the Arab world to lead from the front, he has maintained his position by playing off the various Palestinian factions against each other. Thus, on Saturday, his Palestinian Authority was condemning - in words - the suicide bomb in Jerusalem. But responsibility for the attack was claimed by a section of his very own Fatah movement, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

With no other option other than massive repression on the West Bank, the Israelis have opted to keep out the suicide bombers by starting to build the security fence. Just for the record, I know that, in places, it is a cement wall rather than a wire fence: this tends to be in areas where there has been sniping from the Arab side. There is a similar wall in Belfast, built to stop the communal violence. To date, no-one has referred the Belfast wall to the International Court of Justice.

Not to mention the world's hypocrisy.
Is the fence a good idea?
Right now it does. But what if Israel hands over the Gaza crossing to Egypt, that has shown inclination to stop the smuggling on its side of the border? What if Israel maintains no military positions on the other side of the fence? Then Harel's warning seems a lot scarier.
I'd like to point you to one last comment:

Krauthammer is on the mark about the need for decisive action, but the suggestion that a wall between the West Bank and Israel is an answer ignores the considerable amount of time it would take to construct such a wall - nor the considerable technical and practical difficulties associated with the construction of such a wall - NOR Israel's security situation if it pulled back so that it is left with a few kilometers of land between the sea and a wall . Unfortunately, Peres, Beilin and the rest of the Oslo experimenters have created a mess that can't simply be subjected to a temporary cleaning and then put behind a fence and ignored. Krauthammer suggests that Israel could then sit back a wait to see what develops on the other side of the fence. But without Israeli involvement, Israel may find itself facing a new Arafat etc. on the other side of the wall with one difference: the Palestinians would have the benefit of renewing the conflict form new lines with more territory under their belt thanks to the unilateral Israeli withdrawals Unfortunately, our neighborhood is one in which third and fourth best solutions (for example, limited autonomy) are the closest to being the workable ones.

It looks for now that Aaron Lerner's prediction from 2 1/2 years ago looks very accurate. Unfortunately.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Posted by SoccerDad at February 27, 2004 1:38 PM