Why a Good Fence’ Won’t Make Good Mideast Neighbors

(Washington, D.C.): In recent weeks, there has been a growing chorus involving, among others, normally sagacious observers of the international scene who are friendly to Jewish State and who have espoused the idea of trying to end (or, at least, to alleviate) the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by separating the parties and creating a sizeable wall in between. Such is the nature of the mounting danger to Israel that her friends, and leaders, can be forgiven for desperately seeking a quick fix to the present, intensifying crisis.

Fortunately, in an op.ed. article published in Tuesday’s Washington Times, Dr. Daniel Pipes — one of the world’s most thoughtful and widely respected analysts of Mideast affairs – – offered a number of reasons why such a scheme is unlikely to be a “fix” worthy of the name, let alone a one that would quickly produce desirable results.

Particularly noteworthy among Dr. Pipes’ concerns is an intractable problem whose implications have not to date received the widespread attention in security policy circles that they deserve: the danger of a Fifth Column that would — all other things being equal — exist and operate on the Israeli side of any such wall. As the Jerusalem Post reported this morning, “Several leading experts in the field have warned that the justified gripes of Israeli Arabs over decades of deprivation and neglect resulting from discriminatory policies of successive governments have produced a fertile breeding ground for radicalization and Palestinian nationalism, particularly among the young.” In such a case, it is far from clear that, as Robert Frost once put it, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Should Israel build a fence and separate from the Palestinians? This has become the subject of a lively international debate, one where nearly everyone, including the U.S. government and Palestinians (“It is better to keep us from the Jews, for we hate them”), feel entitled to add their two cents.

Here are mine: Although building a fence between the two populations might decrease the volume of Palestinian violence against Israelis, it serves only as a tactic of mixed utility, not as a grand strategy (“separation”) for defining Israel’s borders and preserving its Jewish nature. Its limitations include:

* Ineffectiveness against terrorism. Just this past Saturday, two Palestinians cut through the electronic fencing surrounding Gush Katif, a Jewish town in Gaza; this shows again how fences can be broken through. Terrorists can also go over a fence in gliders, around it in boats, or under it in tunnels. They can ignore it by firing mortars or rockets. They can pass through checkpoints using false identification papers. They can recruit Israeli Arabs or Western sympathizers.

* Uselessness against armies and missiles. Should Egypt’s Third Army start rolling or Iraqi Scuds come flying, a 12-foot fence will have no value.

* Losing control over the neighborhood. Once a wall goes up, Israel will effectively give up its influence over what happens in the Palestinian Authority, including the importation of weapons and foreign troops.

* Irrelevance to the problem of Israeli Arabs. One-sixth of Israel’s population is Muslim; its allegiance to the state is diminishing as rapidly as its size is increasing. A fence obviously does not address the profound challenge this population presents to the Zionist enterprise.

* Sending the wrong signal. Hunkering down behind a fence that runs roughly along the 1967 borders reinforces the prevailing Arab view that Israel is on the run and will spur further violence.

In sum: A fence as a practical tool maybe; as the basis for a policy of separation no.

That separation has suddenly become popular in Israel points to a larger problem a too-eager search for the quick fix.

This eagerness first appeared with the Oslo process in 1993 when Israel in effect told the Arabs, “Take territories and other benefits but then leave us alone.” This initiative failed because its unilateralism reflected Israeli not Arab wishes to end the conflict. Separation is very different in its specifics but similar in spirit (“Here are your borders now leave us alone”). It too will fail, for Palestinians will certainly reject their assigned borders.

Nor is this the only quick-fix idea being bruited about. Others include:

* Wait out Yasser Arafat and deal with his successors who, as Israel’s defense minister hopes, will “conduct better negotiations with Israel with pragmatism and more moderate Palestinian demands.”

* Bring in outside forces to monitor the Palestinian implementation of agreements for, as former Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami puts it, “the people who really need international protection are the Israelis.”

* Invite NATO to “occupy the West Bank and Gaza and set up a NATO-run Palestinian state, a la Kosovo and Bosnia,” opines Thomas Friedman of the New York Times.

These clever ideas are in reality disguised efforts to avoid reality. Ending the Arab-Israeli conflict requires a willingness by Arabic-speakers to live in comity with a Jewish state. This will be achieved not via a quick fix but by Arabs concluding that they can never destroy Israel. That in turn will happen only if Israel reverts to the deterrence policy that it famously deployed before 1993. Granted, that policy was slow, tedious, painful, passive, and frustrating, but the decades proved that it worked quite well. In contrast, ideas like unilateral concessions, a fence, waiting out Mr. Arafat, or looking to international troops seductively offer solutions “without any real tribulation,” as Steven Plaut puts it. Sounds good, but the last eight years established how they harm Israelis and Arabs alike.

Fortunately, it’s not too late to adopt the right strategy. By re-establishing its reputation for toughness, Israel can simultaneously improve its security position and release the Arabs from the demons of their obsessive anti-Zionism thereby permitting both parties to disengage from the other and tend to their own gardens.

The implication for Western states is clear: Urge Israelis away from quick-fix solutions and implore them to return to the hard work of deterrence. This will tamp down Arab aggressiveness, thereby benefitting all parties.