27-Apr-18: On Jerusalem's southern edge, an overnight intercept appears to have thwarted an armed terror attack

The intercepted vehicle at the security checkpoint in southern
Jerusalem [Image Source: Israel Police]

We have little patience for critics of Israel who object to security checkpoints that inconvenience those going about their peaceful business. The problem with the objection, naturally enough, is that not everyone going about their business is peaceful.

This is especially - and importantly - true of the entrances to Israel's populated areas. Places like Jerusalem, the capital.

On Jerusalem's southern edge, in the general area of suburban Gilo and Malcha and the nearby Israeli community of Har Gilo, close to Jerusalem's famous Biblical Zoo and more or less on the outer edges of Bethlehem, there's a security checkpoint we know as Ein Yael, with a gorgeous public nature reserve and ancient historical site, the Ein Haniya natural spring and a hands-on museum for children. (Haaretz wrote about developments there in the past few weeks.)

B'Tselem, a far-left Israeli group, that deals in human rights violations, publishes an on-listing ["Checkpoints in the West Bank and Gaza"] which catalogues what you would expect from the name. Here's how it describes the checkpoint:

al-Walajah / Malha / ‘Ein Yalu
Permanently staffed Last checkpoint before Israel
Located on the Green Line. Staffed around the clock by the military, Border Police, and private security companies. Closed to Palestinians, with the exception of East Jerusalem residents.

In the very early hours of this morning (Friday), a little after 1:00 am according to this Hebrew social media report, members of the Israeli Border Guard (Mishmar Hagvul - the border security branch of the national police) did exactly what security personnel are supposed to do when everything works right: they spotted what they called a "suspicious" vehicle en route to Jerusalem right at the crossing. This one had yellow Israeli license plates, and on closer inspection was found to be driven by a pair of Palestinian Arabs who we now know are residents of Hebron and nearby Beit Jala.

Times of Israel says

Security forces arrested two West Bank Palestinians who tried to enter Israel with a pipe bomb Thursday night, police said. A statement from police said the “suspicious” vehicle carrying the Palestinians was stopped at the Ein Yael checkpoint in southern Jerusalem. A search of the vehicle yielded the homemade explosive device, a knife, and tens of thousands of shekels in cash and checks, it said. An army sapper was called to the scene to defuse the pipe bomb. The suspects were detained for questioning.

Israel National News, quoting  an Israel Police statement said

"Border Police soldiers and police officers are deployed around the clock in the Jerusalem area to locate and inspect vehicles and suspects in order to protect the lives of Israeli citizens."

The suspects have now been taken for interrogation. Neither they nor their weapons of war would have been intercepted if the checkpoint were not there (and they knew it was so they took an unsuccessful calculated risk) and the security personnel were less alert.

09-Mar-16: A security barrier, reconsidered

Standing outside the International Court of Justice in The Hague in February
2004, Arnold Roth, holding a photo of his murdered child,
is interviewed by BBC News

In the midst of violent drama being visited upon us by our neighbors, the government of Israel seems to be on the verge of acting on a matter that we have wanted to see happen for many years.

For background, see "11-Oct-07: Reacting to 7 more frustrated mass-murders". And "5-Oct-08: Learning the lessons of the checkpoints". And "28-Apr-12: Security barrier proves yet again to be a life-saver". And this interview from 2004 in which Arnold Roth explained to CNN how security fences can look to people who have personal experience of life without security:

She [our murdered daughter Malki] wasn't caught in any crossfire. She wasn't a bystander. She was the target. People outside of this country have to understand that, that whatever we do to protect our lives has got to be seen as being our prerogative and perfectly legitimate. We want out government to do whatever is necessary to keep our lives safe and our children safe... ["Crisis in the Middle East - The Israeli Barrier", CNN, February 22, 2004]

Now today's news:

Israel will complete construction of the separation barrier in the Jerusalem area and the southern West Bank following Tuesday's terror attacks, the Prime Minister's Office announced.
During security consultations held by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister's Office said it was immediately decided to close gaps in the separation barrier in the Jerusalem area, and to complete construction of the barrier in the Tarkumiya area in the South Hebron Hills.
Gaps in the separation barrier are used by Palestinians to enter Israel illegally without the proper permits. The assailant behind the Jaffa attack entered Israel illegally, from a West Bank village near Qalqilya. In recent months, opposition chair MK Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) called on Netanyahu to close the gaps and complete construction of the barrier... [Haaretz, today]

Most Israelis know to ignore the inevitable shrill criticism accusing us of apartheid and land-grabbing, particularly when it emanates from people who can't quite figure out how to condemn the people doing the stabbing, the shooting and the vehicle-ramming.

But at the end of the day, if fewer innocent people are going to be hurt on both sides by the completion of a half-built physical fence, then let it be.

17-Jun-15: In Australia, heightened security concerns for Melbourne's Jews

A suspicious vehicle triggered a security scramble near one of
Melbourne's Jewish schools in August 2014 [Image Source]

In Melbourne [for background, see our post from yesterday "16-Jun-15: Australians, troubled by Islamist terror in their midst, are more worried than they have been for years"], the arm of the Jewish community that stays watchful for signs of radical extremism (alternatively insert your preferred euphemism) has issued an alert today:

The Community Security Group (CSG) announced today that there is new and current intelligence which indicated that a radicalised person may attack the Melbourne Jewish community. “No particular facility or organisation has been identified and no particular timeframe has been specified,” CSG said in a letter to key communal organisations today. The letter said that CSG enacted its internal escalation plan last week and that the information has been conveyed to Victoria Police and other Australian security agencies. CSG “is working in collaboration with those organisations to verify its authenticity and respond accordingly.” CSG is calling on the community to take their own safety measures and to report any form of suspicious activity to the 24/7 CSG hotline – 1300 000 274. [Australian Jewish News, today]

(There's additional background at the excellent Jwire news site.)

Melbourne is generally reckoned to be home to about 60,000 Jews, making it the largest of Australia's Jewish communities. The CSG is manned by trained volunteers.

Amid what the Melbourne Age called "heightened terror concerns" and the need to "bolster security at schools, offices and religious buildings", Melbourne's Beth Weizmann Community Centre received a substantial government grant in May 2015 to enable security improvements, including a purpose-built security wall "to make the building bomb-resistant."

Sign of the times.

29-May-14: Keeping people safe within reason often leads to uncomfortable questions...

Image Source: Calgary Herald

More on the Papal security strategy here. And on Israel's here.

30-Dec-13: Pretend walls, twisted messages: praising evil, condemning the innocents

In central London, a wall that conceals and vilifies: St James's Church Piccadilly [Image Source]

From a distance, events in our part of the world can appear to be oh-so-simple, particularly to those for whom the most complex of narratives reduce down to strong and bad versus weak and good. 

Irresponsible dumbing-down of that kind lies behind the embrace by Europeans and Americans of vile and racist terrorism, jihadism and religion-driven violence. And it's behind the infuriatingly dishonest stunt just executed by the management of a prominent London church in honour of this holiday season.

In the courtyard of St James's Church in Piccadilly, London, as part of what they have disingenuously labelled “Bethlehem Unwrapped”, the church celebrated their holidays this year via the pricey construction of a wall. It's an 8 meters tall replica of the security barrier erected by Israel in the past decade as an entirely non-lethal response to the relentless, utterly lethal attacks by Islamist terrorists on ordinary Israelis: an expression of hatred and war. 

Kristine Luken, Kay Wilson's friend,
was murdered by Palestinian Arab
men in a hideous and especially
sadistic act of terror, near
Jerusalem three years ago. 

The St James's leadership have pretty much adopted the same jihadist strategy, using their wall as a focus for a campaign of vilification and hatred against Israelis and projecting anti-Israel propaganda onto it. 

But there is a different and much more positive sort of message that the St James's wall has evoked, without meaning to. An article entitled "Why Israel’s security barrier matters: a harrowing story often forgotten", by Raheem Kassam of TrendingCentral.com points out what the stunted and distorted theological pretensions of that Piccadilly church seek to hide.

On December 18th 2010, Kay Wilson and her Christian, American friend Kristine Luken were hiking through a forest outside Beit Shemesh in Israel, around 15 miles away from Bethlehem, and 20 miles away from Jerusalem. 

Wilson, a British-born Israeli tour guide, would never have thought that on that very day, she would witness her friend being murdered in front of her own eyes, and come terrifyingly close to death herself. But that is precisely what happened, after the pair were set upon by two Palestinian terrorists, Ayad Fasafa and Kifah Ghanimat [they are in the photo below]. 

The pair, who had crossed into Israel illegally, using an area in which Israel’s security barrier was incomplete, plunged a butcher’s knife into Wilson’s chest 13 times before leaving her for dead. Wilson witnessed the last cries of her friend, Luken, as she was killed just metres away. 

Whilst Luken did not survive the attack, Wilson managed to make it to nearby picnickers, who sought help for her. Incredibly, she survived, and should perhaps be one of the most significant voices on why Israel’s security barrier is no “apartheid wall”, but instead, a necessary feature of a country and a people that are threatened daily with terrorist atrocities that make no attempt to differentiate between military and civilian targets. In her attackers’ eyes, Wilson was as legitimate a casualty of their war as an enemy combatant. 

But Wilson’s tale is not told, nor heard, often enough. 

Instead, in the West at least, we are conditioned into believing that Israel’s security barrier is some form of religious, ethnic, or cultural separation wall, designed to keep ordinary Palestinians from the more productive livelihoods that their Israeli counterparts enjoy. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Incidents such as Wilson and Luken’s, as well as statistics that prove that the wall/fence/barrier, call it what you will, actually succeeds in stopping these heinous attacks, should serve as critical reminders of why such a measure is even necessary. But for many, neither the human implications, nor the statistical data, are enough to alter what is fundamentally a political narrative aimed at demonising the State of Israel. 

And this is what we have seen this week with St. James’s Church in London erecting a fantasy wall in “solidarity” with the Palestinians who have to live on the other side. 

As early as 2006 it was reported that since the fence’s erection, there was an approximate 90 percent decrease in the number of successful terror attacks registered. A drop of approximately 70 percent was also recorded in the number of casualties resulting from terror attacks. 

But it is much easier to stand around a fake wall in London than convey the ultimate truths and realities of the situation on the ground in Israel and the West Bank. In fact, if “Bethlehem Unwrapped” campaign were being honest about the security fence, it would have erected just a metre or two of concrete, and a simple wire fence for the rest of their demonstration, because these are the real proportions of the make-up of the real security fence. Just 10 percent of Israel’s “apartheid wall” is actually a wall, while the rest is a simple wire fence: a fact that you would not find out at the St. James’s Church demonstration. 

And of course, the fence isn’t even complete yet – a fact that Ha’aretz reported was a deciding factor in the murder of Luken, and several months earlier, of Neta Sorek, a feminist activist and English teacher.

Both of these murders, as well as the other crimes to which the suspects have been linked, raise anew the question of infiltrations from the West Bank. The area between Jerusalem and the Gush Etzion settlement bloc is well known as the “illegal migrant path”, where thousands of Palestinian job-seekers – as well as criminals and occasionally, terrorists – migrate on a weekly basis. Nine years after then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government decided to erect the security barrier, only about two-thirds of the fence is actually standing.

Kristine Luken was a practicing Christian, someone the church should be standing up for and commemorating the life of. Instead, the St. James’s Church display makes a tawdry political mockery of Luken’s life, of Wilson’s harrowing experiences, and of Sorek’s grissly death. 

Until “pro-Palestinian” do-gooders can acknowledge the facts as laid out above, and propose some way of dealing with the horrific challenges the people of Israel face, then I’m afraid we should feel nothing but complete and utter regret towards them, and complete and utter disdain for their high-definition, YouTube-activist pantomime shows.

Kay Wilson's brutal attackers and Kristine Luken's killers: Being consistent,
no seasonal  message of goodwill and cheer from St James's Church,
Piccadilly, would be complete without them

The inimitable Melanie Phillips wrote an open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury about this very shabby wall and the even shabbier clerical thinking behind it: "A church of hate".

And Kay Wilson, who is mentioned in Raheem Kassem's short essay above, and whose harrowing background is described here, published the following open letter yesterday on the Algemeiner website.

I believe that I of all people could be forgiven for hating Palestinians. I believe too that I could be forgiven for thinking all Palestinians are terrorists. But I do not. On the contrary, I have maintained relationships with my Palestinian friends, so that my ignorance will not give me reason to hate. I hate hatred. It is the hatred of St. James’ Church in London, in the form of a Christmas stunt, that has compelled me to write. 

I would like to think that as Christians, the church would never condone Kristine Luken’s heinous murder or the attack on myself. I suspect, however, that you may rationalise this savagery as an inevitable result of the “Israeli occupation.” 

You would probably suggest that the Palestinians who murdered my friend were themselves victims who grew up in depravity. I would concur, but would point out that if poverty was the cause, the aristocrats who flew into the twin towers had no reason to commit their crimes. 

The Palestinian terrorists were indeed victims, victims of a radical and primitive Islamist regime that force feeds them a morally malnourished diet of hatred of Jews and hatred of any life – including their own. They were also deprived: deprived of an education that cherishes culture, history, literature, art, and the dignity of difference. Their impoverished morality coupled with ignorant generalizations is what enabled two men to butcher defenseless women without so much as blinking an eye. 

The “wall” that has been erected outside St. James’ Church is hopefully just a result of your own ignorance and generalisations concerning the complex situation here in the Middle East. Nevertheless, like all walls, it serves as a facade and a barrier. 

If the wall was scrutinized, one would see that underneath the whitewashed surface that concerns itself with Israeli policies, there are blocks of anti-Semitism. These bricks stand high. They raise expectations from an entire people group. This wall precedes to separate the nation of Israel as non-desirable. 

The wall is cemented together by a superior theology that tells its people that G-d gave up on the Jews. This is the same theology that lies behind radical Islam. G-d tried the Jews, then the Christians, but ultimately it was the Muslims who He ultimately chose. 

The wall, is just one brick in a global wall of an Islamist agenda, an agenda that will stop at nothing until the destruction of the Jewish State. To your own cultural detriment, it is a wall that obstructs truth and ultimately seeks not only to destroy Israel but every Judeo-Christian society.
The wall inflames an ancient conflict that for those like myself, who live in this region, long not for an exacerbation in hatred but for a quenching of hostilities. 

The wall is an affront to Kristine Luken and other victims of terror who may well have been alive today had there have been a wall erected on the other 90 percent of land that separates us from our Palestinian neighbours. 

The wall is an injustice to Christians living under Muslim despots. Ironically it is the State of Israel, that you deem pariah and unjust, that is unique in the Middle East because unlike all of our neighbours, our Christian population is flourishing and our Christians have full religious rights. Please write on your wall, under the cross, now obscured by the crescent… “RIP Kristine Luken.”

Sadly, we know from experience that people who are ready to spend large sums of cash and months of effort in creating a stunt like St James's (Lindsay Meader, Lucy Winkett, Hugh Valentine, reachable via the public email address rector@sjp.org.uk) neither listen nor noticeably understand. Trying to share the complexity of the situation with them is like talking to a wall.

So too is reminding them of the life of our daughter, Malki, terminated violently and brutally by the thuggish Hamas murderers with whom the worshippers of St James's have aligned themselves and articulately expressed solidarity.

UPDATE: Several readers who contacted us after reading the posting above requested to know how they can support the concrete good work that has been done daily and on an entirely non-political basis in memory of our murdered daughter, Malki, for the past decade. For them, and for the members of the St James's Church who will surely come to understand how deeply their understanding of how barriers and terrorists work have misled them and do teshuva, and also for readers who are as disturbed as we are by the shallowness and hypocrisy of the St James's Church leadership, here is an invitation to visit the Malki Foundation website. Giving support - perhaps just a tiny fraction of what the St James's clergy spent on their public relations bill - to the non-sectarian work of the Malki Foundation for the benefit of children from every religious persuasion in the holy land is, to our way of thinking, an excellent way to reaffirm our belief in the goodness of humanity and to acknowledge the beneficence of the divine. Click here to learn more about the Malki Foundation's work. Or view the very short video clip below.

3-Sep-13: Speeding truck ignores security, smashes through checkpoint and fence... and no one dies in the shooting. Which airport?

UK airport security: A shoot-first-ask-questions-later mission
[Image Source]

It takes very little imagination to contemplate how badly this morning's events at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv might have ended if the security personnel were less disciplined, trained less well, and less restrained.

The facts are still not entirely clear. But the main elements of what happened in the dark of early Tuesday morning are more or less evident. The account reported by Times of Israel is a good place to start: "Palestinians in speeding truck penetrate airport security | Vehicle stopped, two men arrested; perpetrators claim they are car thieves; airport resumes normal functioning".

In thinking about how much more bloodily this night have ended, there are some aspects of this we might ponder:

• Israel attracts terrorists on a world-class scale. Elaboration unnecessary.
• Those acts of terror continue right up until this week. For instance, this.
• Ben Gurion Airport knows what it means to experience terrorism on a horrifying scale
• Airports in general are prime targets for the terrorism-minded. Securing airports is a huge industry. 
• The security personnel who guard the entrances to Ben Gurion are very well-armed, and come with years of training in how to protect and, if necessary, how to permanently stop attackers.
• Notwithstanding, there is endless criticism of how 'heavy-handed' and 'intrusive' the security at Israel's major airport can be.

This morning's penetration of Israel's major airport happened two days before the Jewish New Year, a time when relatively huge numbers of travelers pass through it checkpoints and halls. It happened in the dark, a time when even the best trained security personnel can be subject to major misunderstandings. In the circumstances, if any of the guards had itchy trigger fingers, it's difficult to envisage them being criticized by their superiors. 

With all of that, what was the outcome today? The men in the truck, two Palestinian Arabs from Jenin and Qalqilya, walked away alive, under arrest. They say they are mere car thieves - a vibrant occupation in this part of the world, and a significant part of the PA economy, and therefore a plausible alibi. But imagine other transit centers, and think about how heavily armed men, equipped with powerful rapid-action weapons, pursuing the driver and passenger in a vehicle that has just tried to break through the fence of one of the most desirable terrorism targets in the world, might have reacted. The truck-thieving losers ought to be two of the happiest men on earth at this moment, given how close they came to the premature and irreversible ending of their careers today, though that's normally how men in their social and cultural circles think. (Their mothers might be saying a quiet prayer.)

May the New Year about to begin be one of peace and contentment.

4-May-12: Fewer terror attacks? It's no accident

The community of Elon Moreh

A week ago, we wrote ("28-Apr-12: Security barrier proves yet again to be a life-saver") about the small victories of an alert security force confronted with terrorists in ordinary clothing carrying weapons of extreme hostility in their bags and on their bodies.

This morning there's more. 

Two Palestinian Arab men, reported to be in their 20s, were apprehended by Israeli Border Guard personnel yesterday (Thursday) near busy Tapuah Junction in the Shomron (Samaria). They were found to have explosive pipe-bomb devices and knives in their backpacks. The bombs were safely exploded by sappers and none of the harm which the terrorists intended to cause materialized. They are now in custody.

Then in the small hours of this morning (Friday), an alert security guard protecting the Elon Moreh community (population: 1,300), also in the Shomron,  alerted soldiers to the presence of a Palestinian Arab man approaching the security fence. He was promptly arrested by soldiers from the IDF's Kfir Brigade and found to be armed with a knife 14 centimeters (6 inches) long [sources: here, here and here]. A previous attack by a pair of would-be terrorists equipped with knives was foiled just eight weeks ago in the same place. At the time, we wrote:

A thriving Jewish village of some 1,200 people today, Elon Moreh is in the vicinity of Itamar, Har Bracha and Yitzhar... For at least two millenia, Jews have traditionally reckoned Elon Moreh to be the place where Abraham had been told by the Almghty: “To your descendants will I give this land” (Genesis 12:6) and where Abraham's grandson Jacob later purchased land (Genesis 33:19). Skeptics will question whether Jacob and Abraham heard this or even whether they existed. But it's far more difficult for them to deny that Jews have held this belief about their historical forebears as part of Judaism's written tradition stretching back far longer than most of today's cultures have had a written tradition... If only all terror attacks ended as neatly and successfully as today's.

We wish Elon Moreh's residents and ourselves a peaceful Sabbath. 

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.

3-Oct-11: So do those security checkpoints serve their purpose or not?

Hawara checkpoint, some years ago

There's a report this afternoon (Monday) from the Hawara security checkpoint near Nablus.

IDF forces arrested a Palestinian Arab carrying a 10 centimeter long knife and an improvised gun. He is now being questioned by security officials over the possibility (as Ynet puts it) that he was intending to carry out a terror attack.

Notwithstanding the constant criticism from anti-Israel sources, Israel's part-constructed security barrier and its multiple checkpoints constitute one of this country's most effective counter-terrorism measures.

The numbers put this beyond doubt. That critics can - and obsessively do - call it an "Apartheid Wall" reveals something about the shortage of intellectual honesty in such attacks. The fact that the barrier and the checkpoints have had a clearly positive effect on terror statistics, greatly reducing deaths and injury on both sides, ought to be central to any discussion about them, but is not.

There's useful background on the issues in a monograph written by Prof. Gerald Steinberg called "The UN, the ICJ and the Separation Barrier: War by Other Means" [online here].

11-Jun-07: Amnesty's anti-fence rhetoric shows indifference to loss of Israeli lives

One of this blog's authors publishes an opinion piece in today's edition of YNet...
Humanitarian or heartless?
Amnesty's anti-fence rhetoric shows indifference to loss of Israeli lives
Frimet Roth
Published: 06.11.07, 14:01

For a while it looked as though Amnesty International had lost its sting. The organization, long vocal about the plight of the Palestinians, has been nearly mum about those caught in the cross-fire between terrorists based in their camps and the Lebanese army.

At the start of that conflict, on 23rd May 2007, Amnesty issued a press release laying the responsibility for minimizing civilian Palestinian suffering squarely on the terrorists themselves, which must be a first for the organization. Then on 4th June it voiced "concern" for the "innocent Palestinians who have been killed, injured, displaced and subjected to cruel and inhumane conditions during this conflict."

No outrage, no censure, no condemnation

By contrast, Amnesty International's report last week about Israel's security fence is replete with censure and condemnation.

Few Israelis entertain the fantasy, famously stated in Robert Frost's "Mending Wall," that "good fences make good neighbors." But there is no escaping the cold, hard yet encouraging facts: This much maligned barrier has helped to nearly eradicate terror bombings. It has saved many Israeli lives. Against terrorist neighbors, this benign and highly effective tool works.

So last week's call by Amnesty International to tear down what it calls the "illegal" security fence is a bitter pill for Israelis. It is particularly infuriating for those whose loved ones died because of delays in construction of the fence.

My daughter Malki's murderer, a Hamas operative, slipped easily into Jerusalem's city center from his home in Nablus because, in August 2001, the number of terror-victims had not yet convinced the Israeli government that a security fence needed to be a top priority.

Other countries have recognized the merits of security barriers. In a recent essay, A World Divided, TIME magazine listed numerous countries throughout the world that have erected barriers, are in the process of constructing or are planning them. These include: Pakistan, India, Iran, Botswana, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and the United States.

Still, TIME's essayist Simon Robinson found it necessary to zero in on - you guessed it - only Israel. He concedes that "The slab surrounding the West Bank has dramatically reduced the number of suicide bombings inside Israel." But then Robinson seeks out an Israeli who is committed to the fence's dismantlement. Quoting the critic, Danny Seidmann, he writes: "Physical barriers are a legitimate, limited tactical response to terrorism but they're ultimately counterproductive". He warns that a wall reflects badly on its builder... (it) is a physical manifestation of failed policies." Seidmann and Robinson worry that a wall "says a lot more about the people who built it than those it's keeping out."
Abandoning impartiality

They are so right. Building a fence is the least invasive anti-terrorist tactic. There is no more considerate way to handle blood-thirsty neighbors like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and other Palestinian terror organizations. The fact that Israelis have opted for that tactic does indeed say a lot about them. In a saner world, this would be taken as an accurate sign that Israelis crave peace and want nothing more than to go about their daily routines without fear and without fighting.

Amnesty long ago provided ample evidence that it abandoned impartiality. Aside from its indifference to ruthless, genocidal regimes like Sudan's, Amnesty's latest statement about the anti-terror fence exhibits callous indifference to the loss of Israeli lives. It complains that "Israel's legitimate security concerns are no excuse" for building the fence. Those "legitimate security concerns" are, plainly, the desire to save innocent Israeli lives.

My bet is that if the lives at stake were the loved ones of Amnesty's management team, they would build a fence with their own bare hands. What I doubt is that they would deal with complaints against their fence with the thoroughness and transparency that Israel has exhibited.

In a recent article in FrontPageMag, Joseph Klein reports that some 140 Palestinian legal actions against the route have been reviewed by Israel's high Court, resulting in several orders of re-routing, and of compensation totaling nearly $1.5 million.

Israel must not allow Amnesty International's biased meddling to distract it from a long overdue task: completion of the remaining 130 miles of security fence. And while it is at it, the government could launch a public relations campaign to counter the lies that our enemies have actively disseminated about it. For example, it is not a wall or a "slab" but simply a fence for 95% of its length.

The fence may be benign, but Amnesty's activities are not.
...

Frimet Roth is a freelance writer based in Jerusalem who frequently contributes articles dealing with terrorism and with issues connected with special-needs children. She and her husband founded and run (as unpaid volunteers) the Malki Foundation in memory of their daughter who was murdered at the age of 15 in a terror attack on a Jerusalem restaurant in 2001. The foundation provides concrete support for Israeli families of all religions who care at home for a special-needs child. She can be reached at frimet.roth@gmail.com

10-Oct-06: No one at the UN reads this blog. Here's the proof

Ignore our posting from yesterday about the two Pal-Arab men intercepted yesterday with bombs strapped to their bodies at an Israeli security checkpoint.

Ignore our posting of the day before about another Pal-Arab man shot after trying to stab Israelis at another Israeli security checkpoint.

Ignore everything you've heard about Palestinian Arab gunmen, children with bombs strapped to their undersized chests, women with kitchen knives slipped into the folds of their robes, Red Crescent ambulances with explosives hidden behind false floors -- all intercepted at Israeli checkpoints, en route to their destiny with death. Sometimes their own death; always the death of Jews.

Ignore them just as the United Nations does. This report issued today puts that matter beyond doubt.

Number of Israeli roadblocks in West Bank up 40 percent in past year: U.N.

The Associated Press
Published: October 11, 2006
JERUSALEM The number of Israeli military roadblocks in the West Bank grew by nearly 40 percent in the past year, part of an increasingly sophisticated lockdown that disrupts all aspects of Palestinian life, a U.N. aid agency said Wednesday. The placement of these checkpoints and unmanned physical obstacles means the West Bank is increasingly being carved up into separate parts, with travel between them becoming more and more difficult, said David Shearer, head of the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Jerusalem. In all, there were 528 checkpoints and obstacles in the West Bank, up from 376 in August 2005, Shearer said, presenting new statistics. The West Bank's Jordan Valley is now entirely off limits to Palestinians who are not residents of that area, except for those with permits to work in the valley's Jewish settlements. The checkpoints are multiplying as Israel pushes ahead with the separation barrier it is building along — and at some points inside — the West Bank. Some 50,000 Palestinians find themselves on the wrong side of the barrier, meaning they are cut off from the rest of the West Bank, the report said. Israel has also deepened the separation between the northern, middle and southern parts of the West Bank, the report said. "We are seeing a continuing closing down, locking down of Palestinian areas," he said. Shearer said tight travel restrictions were also in place during the height of the Palestinian uprising, between 2000-2003, when dozens of suicide bombers carried out attacks in Israel. "Since then it's become much more systematic, much more sophisticated in terms of monitoring Palestinian movement and closing Palestinian movement," he said. "The West Bank, for example, is effectively being chopped up into three big areas ... and there are pockets within those areas where people also can't move." Capt. Adam Avidan, spokesman for the military's civil administration in the West Bank, said in a statement that Israel tries "as much as possible to preserve the Palestinians' way of life and to avoid hurting innocent civilians in its war against terrorism."

The office responsible for putting out this appalling piece of one-eyed, one-sided pseudo-analysis is the United Nations Office for Co-ordinating Humanitarian Affairs.

Their Jerusalem operation costs the UN $3 million a year. Evidently an insufficient sum, since they are unable to find the time, the resources or the wit to analyze the daily small and large acts of terrorism directed at Jewish Israelis and the IDF security checkpoints that are strikingly effective at slowing down, stopping and intercepting jihadist terrorists.

How can self-respecting UN civil servants sign off on a report to their employers and not mention this effectiveness? Not a word.

Do they find the effectiveness of IDF security measures a threat to their outlook on life and political convictions? Do they not consider the saving of Israeli lives a matter worth including in a report of this scope? Are they oblivious to the blood-soaked consequences of such highly selective, prejudice-laden moral outrage?

Shame on them, shame on David Shearer and shame on the UN bureaucracy that plays along with this pretend-objectivity without protest.

19-Sep-06: High Alert Again in Jerusalem, Center

Basing themselves - as usual - on concrete intelligence reports, the authorities in Israel declared a high-level terrorism alert today.

The second of the two main-roads (called Route 443) that serve Jerusalem in the direction of Tel-Aviv has been shut down for some hours by police road-blocks during the middle of the day. Security check-points have been thrown up at the entrance to Jerusalem, in the Latrun area on Highway One (the main arterial route serving Israel's capital) and in the Modi'in area. No reports of arrests at this stage.

UPATE: Haaretz now (1.45 pm Tuesday) says that the police have called off the terror alert.

Meanwhile Yediot Aharonot is reporting the terror alert still in effect at 2:00 pm. They write:

"Police have also beefed up security in central Israel, and the alert level in the Sharon area has also been raised for fear of an infiltration by a terrorist. Security forces are in possession of 16 specific warnings on intentions to carry out attacks. The warnings mainly originate from the Samaria (north West Bank) area and Gaza, and refer to suicide bombings, kidnappings and shooting attacks. Vehicles are being checked and buildups in traffic have been noticed in the area, in addition to the existing jams following the ongoing roadwork in the capital. Police Chief Moshe Karadi announced ahead of the New Year that police will increase its activities throughout the country due to concerns of terror attacks. Working in a number of circles, thousands of police, Border Guard officers and volunteers from the Civil Guard, backed by IDF soldiers, will take part during the New Year in security measures at markets, synagogues and entertainment districts. The security operations will take place from the green line area and into the inner cities."

That the mainstream foreign media routinely don't report this does not change the fact that terror and dealing with the threats and attacks of Palestinian Arabs on our lives are part of the daily agenda for millions of Israelis.

6-Sep-06: Reduction in Force 17

Nearly six years ago, on 30th October 2000, a young part-time security guard employed to protect the National Insurance Institute offices in East Jerusalem was gunned down in cold blood at almost point-blank range by Palestinian Arab terrorists. The office he guarded is the conduit for vast sums in monthly pension payments made to East Jerusalem Arabs under Israel's unemployment, single-parent and other social welfare programs.

The young man, Esh-Kodesh Gilmore, was the father of an eighteen-month-old daughter and the son of gentle American-born parents whom we subsequently came to know - when we lost our own daughter to an act of terrorist murder - and whom we are proud to call our friends. Some background about Esh-Kodesh's short life is here.

Three Palestinian Arabs were subsequently caught, charged and convicted of the terrorist murder. They are Talal Ghassan, 37, a senior Force 17 member from Ramallah; Marzouk Abu Naim, 43; and Na'man Nofel. The Jerusalem Post reported that, when arrested, the three were planning to execute additional attacks on the Ramallah bypass road and in and near Jerusalem. Abu Naim was good enough to lead his interrogators to two bombs which the cell had prepared for use.

The three terrorists in turn fingered Mahmoud Damra as the leader of their Ramallah-based terror cell. That cell, according to reports based on Israeli intelligence, was made up of members from all parts of the Palestinian terror constellation including Fatah and Hamas. It murdered seven Israelis in addition to Esh-Kodesh Gilmore, and managed to wound 20 more.

When Yasser Arafat was first holed up in his Ramallah headquarters in 2002 (see this report from The Guardian) during Operation Defensive Shield which was Israel's response to the string of massacres by Palestinians in Israel during Passover 2002, Damra was one of the fifty-plus terrorist fugitives who fled there to hide from the Israelis behind Arafat's skirts. This was an effective strategy, and enabled Damra to remain on the run. He has been on Israel's most-wanted list ever since.

On 31st May 2006, the "moderate" head of Fatah and the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, appointed Damra (known also by the nom-de-guerre Abu Awad) to the leadership of Force-17, the so-called presidential guard, a thuggish, well-equipped gang formed to provide the Palestinian Arab despot Arafat with personal protection, and now doing the same for Arafat's successor. Force 17 has also become a key element in the internecine wars between Fatah and Hamas. In the interests of full disclosure, UPI quoted Palestinian sources saying that Damra is no terrorist, that he's committed to "the peace process" and that suggesting he's involved with terror is all just a big misunderstanding.

Denials notwithstanding, it's good to be able to see reports tonight that Mahmoud Damra's life on the run went through a fundamental re-alignment today. He was arrested trying to get through an Israel Defense Forces roadblock outside Nablus. We've mentioned numerous times how media critics of Israeli roadblocks denigrate their importance to the war against terrorists... but time and again, that's where the big and ugly fish get intercepted and taken out of the game. Yediot Aharonot reports tonight that

"...a senior Palestinian official, who is a close associate of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, defined Damra's arrest as a "despicable act." The official said that "while Abu Mazen (Abbas) is exerting supreme efforts to solve the Gilad Shalit affair and advance the process, Olmert and Peretz are attempting to move things backwards."

We admit to being somewhat unsure about the process they refer to.

Our satisfaction with the arrest of this barbarian is tempered only by the knowledge that there appears to be a deal underway today for the release of hundreds of Palestinian terror practitioners. It remains to be seen whether the names of cold-blooded murders like Damra are on the list.

UPDATE: Not a happy ending - see "5-Jan-12: What the blood-soaked career of an "adviser on local government matters" reveals about the 'moderate' PA leader's thinking"

5-Jul-06: Preventive Measures... Work

There are many aspects of the news coverage of this war that infuriate us. One of them is the dishonest and cowardly way some reporters and photographers distort the way the Israeli authorities carry out preventive security. Among the favorite cliches of agenda-driven reporters and photographers (see image at right, courtesy of one of many Israel-bashing sources) is the Israeli security check. Nothing captures quite so well their perception of an asymmetrical war. You can count on words like "forced to stand in the heat", "treated rudely by Israeli troops", "seething anger", "humiliation" and "demeaning" sprouting from each sentence. But never the unbearable truth that this is the strategy of last resort and it saves lives on both sides.

A classic of the genre is Robert Fiske's memorable article with the unmemorable title "How Pointless Checkpoints Humiliate the Lions of Palestine, Sending Them on the Road to Vengeance". If you click the link to read it, please keep in mind it was written several weeks before the murder by Hamas terrorists of our fifteen year-old daughter. Ponder also on the fact that Malki's killer hid his explosives inside a guitar case on his back. Under current Israeli security procedures (but not at that time), he would have been stopped and our daughter would be twenty and alive. (The death toll that day was 15, plus 130 injured, plus a young mother left unconscious and still unconscious today.) The appalling Fiske, and perhaps also his editors at Britain's Independent newspaper, would find it hard to see what that has to do with him and his writing. But for us the connection is clear.

For those of us not infected by the Fiskean approach to this war, the role of active, preventive security is probably better appreciated. Events today emphasize their usefulness.

A news blackout was lifted an hour ago, as a result of which we can write that the security forces succeeded this morning in finding and stopping the intended-perpetrators of yet another large-scale terror attack, this one set to be carried out in an Israeli city somewhere in Israel's centre. One of the terrorists was arrested in the Barkan industrial zone following some successful intelligence work. He was wearing an explosive belt, the kind often called a suicide belt. (A pity to use the word suicide, which places all the emphasis on the would-be murderer. We wish the word were avoided in settings like this.) Haaretz says the taxi driver who transported the man to the area was also detained.

Prior to the arrests, forces were deployed throughout the Sharon region (the cities and towns north of Tel-Aviv) as well as in a number of Judea and Samaria communities this morning. Unannounced roadblocks were set up at strategic locations on highways and suspicious vehicles were stopped for inspection. Though most Israelis pay scant attention to general security alert announcements and the local media rarely report them, a high alert had been declared for the Sharon region and then canceled at about 10 this morning - for the best possible reason (i.e. the terrorists were found and stopped).

Other details are still currently banned from being published. But we can report with a reasonable degree of confidence that no one died of humiliation, and the injury toll from being forced to sit in a car being searched by security forces was zero.