Israel Matzav

Israel's 'security fence' won't be completed?

The Washington Post reports that it's unlikely that Israel's 'security fence' in Judea and Samaria will ever be completed due to cost overruns, Supreme Court rulings and a decline in terrorism.

The last substantial work on the barrier, a network of fences and concrete walls flanked by a military patrol road, was finished in 2007. The construction underway now largely involves moving parts of it off Palestinian land in response to a series of Israeli Supreme Court rulings that found that the barrier had in some cases isolated families and sealed off villages from farmland to a degree that security concerns did not warrant.

A portion of the barrier in the sparsely populated southern West Bank remains unfinished, and the Israeli Defense Ministry said in a recent memo that "for budgetary and other considerations" it did not plan to complete the barrier around Maale Adumim, a major Jewish settlement east of Jerusalem.

That will leave as much as 40 percent of the barrier's 420-mile planned route unfinished. Even with the substantial gaps, Israeli military officials and politicians credit the barrier -- one of Israel's more controversial undertakings -- with a decline in suicide and other bombings originating from the West Bank.

...

Since 2007 the political dynamics around the barrier have shifted. That year, an Israeli government commission reviewing the military budget criticized the handling of the barrier's construction and its $2.5 billion cost. Much of the unfinished work involves "fingers" of the barrier around Jewish settlements deep in the West Bank, potentially controversial in a climate in which the Obama administration is trying to curb Israeli activity in the West Bank as a prelude to restarting peace talks.

I won't cry too much if the 'barrier' isn't finished. I don't believe it's what's bringing Israelis security. What's bringing Israelis security is a lot of help from God and the presence of the IDF in or around all of the major 'Palestinian' population centers. Even with the presence of the 'Dayton forces' in some of the 'Palestinian' cities and the existence of the 'security fence,' it's the IDF presence that has made the real difference.

Besides, the 'security fence,' which was conceived by current Defense Minister Ehud Barak in the late '90's, has another agenda, which is why it is so popular with Israel's Left.

Retired Israeli Col. Shaul Arieli, who has written a book on the barrier, said its existence may contribute to the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.

"Israelis have internalized the idea of separation and the division of two states," he said. "Everything outside the barrier won't be part of Israel."

Although one government after another has always insisted that the 'security fence' was not setting borders for a future 'Palestinian state,' that was always the intention of those who conceived the 'fence' in the first place. Leaving a bunch of places where 'adjustments' will have to be made in the 'fence' will open the door for more 'adjustments' to be made in Israel's favor.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:48 PM