The only reason it is there is to stop the suicide bombers getting into places like buses, malls, nightclubs, restaurants and Passover celebrations. I know from experience it is not a great feeling to get on a bus wondering how your journey will end. You get on a bus two weeks after your friend was in a bus bomb and sitting opposite you is a lady in full Burqa and it goes through your mind what is she hiding? When you get on a bus and a lady looks at you and says, “You know our buses blow up,” it really encourages you to stay on the bus! And, when a police car and ambulance drive slowly past the Central Bus Station and stop, the question goes through your mind, are they expecting trouble? So you decide to walk home rather than catch the bus. Or you are traveling on the roads and you have to stop because there is another bomb scare and you have to wait while the young men and women risk their lives to ensure it is safe to continue.
Since the building of the barrier very little has happened except the cries from the world for Israel to take it down, which is a way of telling them to let the bombers in. But there are very few if any cries to remove the other separation barriers built around the world to prevent terrorist activity entering their countries over disputed territory:
Indian – Kashmir Barrier, India 50 Km. Anti-terrorism (disputed territory)
Russia/Chechnya – Under construction 700 Km. Anti-terrorism (disputed territory)
Uzbek-Kyrgyzstan Barrier – 870 Km. Conflict zone.
Western Sahara, Berm of Morocco – 2,700 Km. Conflict zone (disputed territory)
Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt 20 Km barrier. Anti-terrorism
United Nations Buffer Zone Cyprus 300 Km. Conflict zone
Why is Israel the only country not allowed to protect its citizens when you consider that the Israel/West Bank Barrier has reduced the terrorist attacks by 98%?
Nothing justifies the mass killing of men, women and children, it was not justified in Northern Ireland, it was not justified in Sri Lanka and it was not justified in Spain or New York or London and neither was it justified in Norway, so the question remains why is Israel not allowed to keep the barrier to prevent it happening there?
It is time to look at why the Barrier is there and not just declare it should come down. It is time to tell both sides to lay down their arms, not just Israel. But when one side states quite openly it will destroy the other given enough time, it is difficult for the other side to accept that they are serious about peace. In the words of a young Moslem University student who I was walking with in Bethlehem, “Israel must be destroyed before the great redeemer can come”. If this is the attitude of those who seem peaceful, then the words of Golda Meir, a former Israeli Prime Minister, are very true, “There will be no peace until they love their children more than they hate us”.
It is time to speak out against the rape of their children’s minds through being taught that to be suicide bombers and go straight to paradise is the best thing they can do with their lives. Until this changes sadly the wall will have to remain.
Let us continue to pray that all the people of Israel can live in peace and the Jewish people can live within the secure borders they desire, because to push for anything less is to go against the Word of God which tells us, “He will bring them back into the land and they will never be removed from the Land again”. Amos 9:14-15.
Dennis McLeod is Director of Christian Friends of Israel (NZ) Inc.
