28-Apr-12: Security barrier proves yet again to be a life-saver

Hawara [Image Source]

We have more than enough reason to write here about the plain dishonesty that seems to characterize much of the criticism of Israel's security checkpoints strategy. We wrote about this last Saturday night when armed terrorists were stopped at a security crossing en route to carrying out an attack on Israeli civilians - see "21-Apr-12: Stopped two more armed jihadists". 

That was only the latest in a terribly long line of occasions when the existence of the part-built barrier, plus the network of manned crossing points through which Palestinian Arabs are frequently required to pass, plus the alertness of service personnel, and especially Israel's Border Guard, all came together to prevent another terrorist outrage. 

Tonight (Saturday) there's another.

IDF troops intercepted a Palestinian Arab at the Hawara crossing a couple of hours ago. Hawara is just south of Nablus or Shechem as it has been known for several thousand years in Jewish literature. Ynet reports that the Arab was found to be carrying two explosive devices. These were later blown up by sappers in a controlled detonation and the suspected terrorist was taken in for interrogation by security authorities.

Security personnel standing guard at Hawara have been attacked with guns, knives, bombs, troubled children and acid. They have intercepted all of the above, along with numerous other kinds of weapons of destruction. [Have a look at our comments on a previous Hawara incident: "3-Oct-11: So do those security checkpoints serve their purpose or not?"] 

In 2004, they stopped a 14 year-old, somewhat learning-disabled Palestinian Arab boy called Hussam Muhammad Bilal Abdu. In an interview, the child said that after years of bullying by classmates, he wanted to reach the paradise he had learned about in Islamic teachings. So Hussam was induced by people in his community to place an 8 kilogram explosive belt on his body under his coat and to carry it through Hawara and onward into those parts of Israel where large numbers of Jewish women and children can be found. He was in a literal sense turned into a walking bomb, like so many who have been stopped since then by Israeli forces.

We wrote this at the time:

The great gift made to this child by the Palestinian Arab education system was, by his own admission, to impregnate his mind with a vision of sex with heavenly virgins. That, and a daily regimen of Fatah-inspired hate training, was what it took to turn a child into a bomb. (Fatah is headed by Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority. Fatah claimed responsibility for the Hussam Abdu outrage, and freely acknowledged equipping him and sending him.)

Tragically, it's all just as true today. If you have a free moment, please take a look at what we wrote some three and a half years ago about the same security checkpoint: 5-Oct-08: Learning the lessons of the checkpoints.

Israel's still-incomplete security barrier and its multiple checkpoints (as we wrote here a week ago) constitute one of this country's most effective counter-terrorism measures. The numbers put this beyond doubt. We live here and for us, this matters very much.