When Robert Frost wrote in 1915 that "Good fences make good neighbors" he was not referring to any lofty ideals of privacy and individuality " he had, in fact, rejected all symbolic interpretations of his piece. In his classic poem, "Mending Wall," Frost tries to convince his neighbor that a wall between their properties is unnecessary. Neither has anything to "wall in or wall out " since their fruits are vastly different. But the neighbor was adamant: "Good fences make good neighbors." My favorite interpretation of the poem was taught to me by my high school English teacher, Donald Sutherland. Sutherland suggested that neighbors can become friends while building the very wall that was intended to separate them.
And it is in this light that we Israelis and Palestinians should approach the wall being built.
The Israelis are justified in building the wall. They wish to prevent crazy suicidal Palestinians from entering their territory and killing innocent civilians. Suicide bombing is a form of terrorism that cannot be justified with any arguments. Neither Islamic nor international law allows terrorism, and it is not condoned in Arab traditions. Any means that can prevent the killing of innocent civilians are justified, whether it be mass imprisonment or security walls. The wall is about saving lives.
Unfortunately, it is not clear if the wall will entirely prevent Hamas members from entering Israeli territory. It will make it much harder for Palestinian suicide bombers to enter Israeli territory, and it may provide some form of deterrent that is currently lacking. Yet it is unrealistic to expect the Israeli Defense Forces to provide an effective barrier against Hamas bombers, who do not necessarily stand out from average Palestinians.
Israeli army raids on Palestinian territory have not proven a successful means of preventing terrorism. Given the proliferation of terrorist organizations in the Palestinian territories, such as Hamas, Al-Fatah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Palestine Liberation Front, and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, this new strategy provides new hope for defeating terrorism.
Physical barriers separate nations around the world, including India and Pakistan, the United States and Mexico and Burma and Thailand. A physical barrier would also keep itinerant Israeli settler-occupiers from building more illegal settlements on Arab land. The wall would also make Israel less reliant on raids on Palestinian territories, which have resulted in thousands of innocent Palestinian deaths. The wall will provide a degree of security and independence and thus ought be favored by those it will separate.
The Israeli government needs to take into consideration the needs of Palestinians living along the wall. It should not cut across towns, fields, water sources and other such important Palestinian resources. The wall should not aim to encompass every single Israeli settlement, legal or illegal, that lies within Palestinians territory " many Israeli settlements need to be dismantled for a "just" wall, as the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has pledged. The security barrier should avoid dividing Palestinian areas to as great an extent possible. Ideally, the wall should be constructed along the internationally-recognized pre-1967 borders. For this to come about, however, Sharon will have to live up to his promise that the path of the barrier can be altered in the future.
Palestinians and Israelis opposed to the wall fall back on international law to justify their resistance to it. But what is international law? It is not a globally recognized set of penal laws, but rather a set of principles that states are recommended to follow. International laws are generalizations made on certain principles, such as human rights and democracy and are not applicable to all situations. Moreover, international laws hardly ever take national interests and security concerns into consideration.
A serious dialogue needs to take place between the Israeli government and Palestinian authority regarding the route of the wall. The question of its, existence, however, should be put to rest.
