Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: The importance of fences separating Palestinians, Israelis

If fences make good neighbors, the suicide bombers in the Middle East should soon be model citizens.

I was daydreaming, I knew, but I couldn't help thinking about the absurdity of that comment as I listened to very knowledgeable people explain the reasoning behind the building of the fence that will soon divide Israel, on the one side, from her Palestinian neighbors, on the other.

For years I have heard business people use that line to explain why the pages and pages of contract documentation must be overly specific in describing every possible scenario that might or could happen if the inconceivable did or, perhaps, thought about occurring. When even the slightest hint of protest about the number of pages or sheer weight of the legal documents would emanate from my lips, I have been met with the now-legal precept that "good fences make good neighbors."

There is a big difference, obviously, between the paranoia of lawyers on either side of a business deal -- who are looking for more and more ways to erect legal fences between the parties to a transaction -- and the real terror that people who have to live in a land of suicidal fanatics must deal with on a daily basis. In the first case it is just a make-work project for lawyers; in the second, it is a matter of survival.

When you stand at the southern edge of the holy city of Jerusalem, it is just a few hundred yards to the next hill on which sits the holy city of Bethlehem. Once a predominantly Christian city, Bethlehem has become a mostly Arab, mostly dangerous place for pilgrimming Christians and other tourists who wish to visit the place where Jesus was born. What was once a place where peace and serenity ruled has become a hotbed for militant activity and a symbol of the inability of the Palestinian Authority to secure the safety of its people and their neighbors.

Did I mention that when we were standing at the edge of Jerusalem we were standing behind a concrete wall that had been built in recent years to protect Israeli children who were playing outside and eating inside their homes? Homes that were exposed to Bethlehem-based snipers who could shoot freely and wantonly into those homes and neighborhoods because no one would lift a finger to stop them. That's when Israeli Defense Forces entered the city and cleaned up the mess that the Arab authorities were either unable or unwilling to confront. And that is when the concrete barrier went up. Now there are no more sniper killings from the holy city of Bethlehem.

The lesson learned by Israelis is that concrete walls, while ugly and divisive, save lives. That lesson has manifest itself in another wall that can be seen snaking out of Jerusalem and winding its way along the only highway from Jerusalem to the cities of the Arab south. That wall, though, is the fence we have heard so much about. It is high -- so high nothing and no one can climb over without instant detection by humans or myriad electronic devices -- and it is ugly. Just imagine 30 feet or more of concrete as your temporarily permanent window to the world, a world through which you once viewed the majesty of the Eternal City and now view nothing at all. Except concrete.

Within a very short time that fence will be completed, and people on one side of it will enjoy the beauty of all that Israel offers, and the people on the other side, well beauty is not the first descriptive word that comes to mind. But it will work because it will keep the bad guys on one side and allow people who yearn to live in peace on the other side, somewhat freer to go about their daily lives.

And from what I could tell, it is an awful way to live. But it may be the only way Israelis can live until the Palestinian Authority can fulfill a promise to its Israeli neighbors that militant Arab groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad and their progeny will no longer be allowed to rain terror upon them.

It appears that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to do just that -- albeit it far slower than reasonable people would expect a leader to respond to murderers in his midst. The trick is for him to eradicate these fanatical killers -- they have now turned to murdering their own people because innocent Israeli children weren't enough -- before that fence separates the Palestinian people from any real chance to succeed as an independent state, the vision embraced by all the parties as part of the Road Map to peace.

It was evident to everyone who participated in the Saban Forum last week in Israel that many Israeli citizens have moved on. While they are eager for a real peace with the Palestinians, they are no longer chasing it as if their lives depended upon it. They have a fence now. Or will very soon. Rather than a document and a reality that says the two people will live side by side, work side by side, prosper together and grow old together, Israelis are fast becoming inured to the idea that they will just separate themselves from the source of the terror and make the best of their lives going forward. That fence will give them some of the peace they so desperately want, none of which they have without it.

And what will the Palestinians get? That fence allows Israelis to say, "who cares?"

That is the flip-side of a fence that saves lives. Israelis will prosper in much the same way as the vision of Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin first outlined over a decade ago. But that prosperity, that blossoming of the potential of the Middle East and northern Africa, that Edenization of the Holy Land, that dream of people building a future that could center the hopes of an entire world will be lost on the people on either side of the fence. Without people on both sides working together, all the beautiful dreams will not come true.

What will come true is prosperity and a peaceful lifestyle on one side of the fence and a failed Palestinian state of affairs on the other. Without the ability to conduct commerce and other economic activity, without the ability to build a future that requires investment from people outside, who will be reluctant to throw good money after bad promises, without the hope that tomorrow will bring a better day, the people on the other side of the wall will have nothing.

In the short term, that fence will work to keep Israelis alive and reasonably safe. That is why it must be completed. It will also work against the hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people, but their future will be entirely in their hands. If they continue to do nothing or not very much, that future will be bleak. If they do what their leadership has now committed itself to do -- oust the murderers of Hamas, Jihad and the rest of the fanatics -- that fence could become just a temporary barrier.

Fences go up and fences come down. That much we know. What we don't know is whether or not in the Middle East they will make good neighbors.

We will know that soon enough.

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