Charles Krauthammer: State Department audacity
Fri, 8 Aug 2003

Charles Krauthammer makes the point again in today's Washington Post, and it's hard to refute: nearly a hundred suicide bombers have snuck into Israel over the Green Line (which separates Israel proper from the West Bank). None have come from the Gaza Strip, because there's a fence. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak estimates that 500 of the 800 killed in terrorist attacks would have been saved had the fence been built earlier (not to mention most of the 5500 injured Israelis). One of the biggest reasons the fence wasn't built earlier was because of pressure from settlers and right-wingers who don't want any separation between Israel and biblical lands. Now, after three years of unending terrorism -- the kind nary a society has ever faced -- the fence commands broad popular support in Israel -- 80 percent in fact -- from across the political spectrum. Israel should, at the same, take pains to ensure the fence doesn't encroach upon Palestinian territory, or disrupt Palestinian lives.

Fueling the need for the wall is this way in which a temporary ceasefire has replaced the dismantlement of terrorists groups, as explicitly required in the first phase of the Road Map:

"Palestinians declare an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism and undertake visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt, and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks on Israelis anywhere."

Bush seems content with the ceasefire, and Mahmoud Abbas has even said he doesn't have to dismantle terrorist groups (see this interview between Abbas and Newsweek/Washington Post's Lally Weymouth). If the groups aren't dismantled, it means violence could break out at any time, and some Israeli journalists are already predicting shooting will begin anew by the end of the summer.

One final note: when Krauthammer says "Palestinian propaganda," he's not using the term carelessly. When Abbas came to the White House on July 25, his retinue was busy distributing PowerPoint presentations about the security fence on the Hill and to administration officials, including Condoleeza Rice. Palestinians have done a fantastic job of manipulating the road map's agenda: instead of dismantling the terrorist groups, they've redirected the focus onto the security fence and prisoner releases (neither of which are mentioned in the road map).

Read Charles Krauthammers' "The State Department and the Fence," from The Washington Post, August 8, 2003.