Sitting on the fence

The latest in a series of Israeli "impediments" to peace, according to the Palestinians, is the construction of a 360-mile, 25-foot-high fence designed to keep Palestinian terrorists out of Israel.

Previous Israeli "impediments" to peace included Israel's insistence that the Palestinian side do something to fulfill, in some small way, its own obligations.

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For example, the roadmap called for an unconditional and permanent cessation of hostilities. What the Palestinians offered (and Israel was forced to accept) was a conditional cease-fire.

The Israelis expected Abu Mazen to immediately begin dismantling the terrorist networks inside the Palestinian Authority. What the Palestinians offered were negotiations with the various terror groups which resulted in a myriad of conditions placed upon the Israelis before the terrorists would even consider the conditional ceasefire. One of the terrorists' conditions for a ceasefire requires the Israelis to open its prisons and release some 7,700 terrorists and criminals back into the Arab population.

In the meantime, the terror attacks continue, with the most recent victims being a 39-year-old Israeli woman and her two daughters. The Arab apologists say this is the only way they can effectively fight back against the Israeli "occupiers" – by making war on women and children?

Now the Israelis are "impeding" peace by building a fence between themselves and those who are sworn to their destruction – a fence that, it should be observed, would also end the "occupation" – since the Israelis will be on the other side.

It would be difficult for the Israelis to "occupy" the alleged Palestinian lands from the other side of a 360 mile-long 25-foot fence equipped every few feet with sensing devices. It would also be difficult for the terrorists to attack Israeli women and children, which are the principle reasons the Palestinians oppose it.

Israel has completed some 70 miles of the project, and now the Bush administration is looking for ways to cut U.S. aid to the Jewish state before the project can be completed.

Opinion polls in Israel show that as many as 80 percent of Israelis favor the project. The United States is constructing similar fences along our shared border with Mexico. The only difference between the two projects is that Washington's fence is designed to save American jobs – Israel's fence is designed to save Israeli women and children from being blown to pieces in unprovoked attacks.

The Bush administration is calling the construction of the anti-terror fence an Israeli "impediment" to peace, whereas a total lack of Palestinian compliance with any of the provisions set forth by the roadmap it endorses is simply overlooked.

The Bush administration is demanding that Israel bare its jugular to its enemies, ignore its own security situation and trust its continued existence to the unkept promises of its enemies – all for the same reason previous administrations have demanded the same thing.

The Middle East security situation is the Holy Grail of Western politics. There isn't a legitimate political leader on earth who wouldn't like to be the One to bring peace to the Middle East.

Had Bill Clinton been successful at Camp David and negotiated a lasting peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, it would have covered the multitude of sins that instead have followed him out of office and into private life.

Toward the end of his administration, realizing his legacy was irreparably tarnished by his scandals, Clinton pulled out all the stops in the quest for Middle East peace. The media dubbed the effort his "search for a legacy" because they, too, recognized the almost supernatural power that would come from bringing genuine security to the Middle East.

The Europeans, especially the French and Germans, are actively trying to insinuate themselves into the peace effort, knowing that a German or French success would rehabilitate their international images.

Current E.U. president Silvio Berlusconi is behind a growing E.U. lobby seeking to offer Israel membership in the E.U. as a way of guaranteeing the security of Israel's borders.

The Russians have expressed an interest in a more direct involvement in negotiations. So have most of the Arab states, the United Nations, the various NGOs and regional alliances, from NATO to the Gulf States Cooperation Council.

So far, every country that has tried has found itself squarely in the gun-sights of the myriad terror groups dedicated to Israel's destruction.

Twenty-five hundred years ago – and millennia before there was any place on earth called "Israel" – the prophet Zechariah prophesied that in the last days: "... I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it." (Zechariah 12:2-3)