Mar. 21, 2004 22:48 The security-fence paradox By FRANK SHAPIRO
Advertisement
(Continued from page 1)
Throughout its short history, Israel's sheer need to survive has continuously dictated the call for erecting defensive barriers. This has not always been an easy decision; the first reactions to any barrier have always evoked the distress call: let's not incarcerate the entire country into a ghetto. Bearing this in mind, Israel refrained from actual concrete walls and preferred army patrols, strongholds and electronic fences.
In this spirit, and despite the incessant Palestinian violence, Israel until recently has refrained from the one logical solution to terrorists and potential suicide bombers, namely a defensive wall. Israel postponed setting up such a barrier, because erecting a wall or fence in the occupied territories creates a boomerang effect by enclosing Israel within the wall too.
Thus the construction of the wall introduces a certain paradox. On the one hand, the Zionist dream of infinite landscapes was shattered when the pioneers reached Israel.
It soon transpired that the tiny sliver of land along the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea was encased on every border by hostile states intent on its utter destruction. At its very birth, its borders had to be fenced, barricaded, patrolled and guarded. At its very inception Israel had become a ghetto-state.
On the other hand, Zionism deplored any mention of ghetto traits. Yet the ghetto gene carried by the pioneers reaching Palestine, ironically proved to be the indispensable force in ensuring Zionism's success. The ghetto gene enabled its bearers to adapt to an abnormal entrenched existence by falling back on a reservoir of survival talents and experiences. And even on the battlefield, when Israel reaped victory after victory in its numerous wars, it owed its success to a gene variant known as "the back to the wall" condition.
As a result, Israel not only vanquished its enemies and survived, but it also evolved into an outstanding success story.
So strangely, there was never any real flight from the ghetto. The ghetto was always lurking there, a dormant gene. Consequently, now that Israel has finally taken the only preventive step still untried in its struggle against radical terrorism, namely, erecting the fence, it is unconsciously reverting to its basic historical roots.
Once again it evokes the ghetto survival gene. And if the ghetto gene has proven its worth in the past, only future events will indicate whether it can still be of value.
