23-Oct-12: Yet again, the security checkpoint system proves its worth

Qalandiya crossing [Image Source]: Many armed terrorists continue to be identified
and stopped by the soldiers who man it

From Times of Israel this afternoon:

Border Police forces arrested a 20-year-old Palestinian carrying eight explosive devices at the Qalandiya checkpoint near Ramallah, on Tuesday. The man reportedly traveled to the checkpoint by taxi. A routine inspection of his bags revealed the bombs, which were assembled and ready for use. The man was taken into custody. The border crossing was closed and sappers disassembled the devices on the scene.

From other sources, we know the seizing of this terrorist happened around 12:15 this afternoon.

There are people who will read the news item above and see within it further confirmation that Israel maintains a cruel and strict regime of oppression over the Palestinian Arabs. They might include the film critic of the Observer/Guardian who this week cluelessly compared it to the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Soviet Berlin wall. The Arab media frequently refer to it as an apartheid wall, showing a fatal lack of comprehension of what it was that made Apartheid-era South Africa a racist and unjust regime. 

We prefer to look at it this way. The young man arrested today knew he was going to have to pass through the security checkpoint. He may have done it before in the past. It was not suddenly thrown into his path - it's been there, in the same place, for years. He may have thought his luck would hold and he would get through. He had alternatives: the security barrier has never been completed and is not continuous; people regularly find ways to cross over without passing through the checkpoints.

In other words, given a reasonable degree of effort on his part, and not an extreme degree, the system identified him for what he is - an armed terrorist - and apprehended him. For a society under constant attack by religiously-inspired terrorists, how can you justify ignoring such a threat and (we presume) hope that no one with death and injury on his mind is going to try?

The Qalandiya security crossing is ten minutes' drive from our home. The human bomb who exploded in the Sbarro restaurant eleven years ago and killed our daughter and fourteen other innocent people passed through the same security crossing and was not caught. He was assisted by the woman - the planner of the massacre at Sbarro - whose unjust release in October 2011 caused us (causes us) so much consternation; she passed through the checkpoint in Israeli-looking clothing and was neither hindered nor searched by the IDF soldiers on duty.

Thankfully today's result was much better.