Reader's Letters on: the Security Fence

Security Fence or Apartheid Wall!!? It is not an apartheid wall but a security fence, since it is built to keep the murderers among the Palestinians out of Israel, and not to keep the Palestinians closed inside their village, as it was e.g. in Soweto or in Eastern Germany.

1.
Dear Editor,
Israel's Apartheid Wall, The Guardian, 23 Oct. 2003
When your writer puts bars on his door and windows, is it an apartheid bar or a protection bar against burglery? Very easy to answer correctly, isn't it?
All advanced countries, the US, the UK the EU and all individual countries on earth protect their borders, at sea, at land routes and at airports, by strict physical and legal means, from any illegal immigration or illegal workforce.
In Israel the fence is, unfortunately, against much graver Palestinian crimes. So your accusation are lacking commonsense, and intellectual honesty.
E.N.

2.
Sir,
Security Wall and International Law
What International Law says about the present borderlines is, that Judea and Shomron have never been legitimate Palestinian lands, and the only time it belonged to an Arab state was when they were held by Jordan until 1967 , without any international legal recognition. They were lost to Israel in a war caused by Arab aggression. As in such cases, Israel is legally entitled to keep these territories until a final peace arrangement and even then can demand corrections of that border as required by its security.
Israel does it in minimum territories, with utmost self-constraint
( Legal sources see on the Take-a Pen site, www.take-a-pen.org , 'The ABC of the ME conflict', at entries T - Territories , or D - Disputed Territories)
Yours sincerely,
A.M.
Utrecht
The Netherlands

3.
Sir,
The route of the Security Fence is guided by the Israeli government seeking acceptable security with maximum restraint, having only about 3% of the territory of Judea and Shomron within the fence, though a large part of Israelis and many people in the world see Israel as the lawful owner of all the territory West of the Jordan, while Palestinian Arabs received all territories East of the Jordan, 70% of the total, in the partition. This utmost self-constraint of the Israeli government puts tens of thousands of Israelis to even more danger than today

4. On Jewish settlements and the fence: The route of the fence has been determined to protect part of the Jewish settlements in Judea and Shomron adjacent to the green line, while a large part of the Israeli citizens living in farther settlements will find themselves without such protection. Now think of this:
The Palestinian outcry against any Israeli settlement among them is reminiscent to the Nazi goal living "Judenfrei" or "Jewfree". In the same time when 200000 Jews have found their living in Judea and Samaria, Israel accepted 100000 Arabs from outside to live in Israel, 're-uniting families', and an estimated 160000 illegal Arab immigrants joined them. Anybody in Israel talks about expelling these Arab settlers? Or, horribile dictu, about killing them!? You may or may not agree with Jews settling in J&S but the murderous hatred against them is not short of criminal racism.

5.
Sir,
Sub: Real Reasons Hide Behind The Fence
Why is the Palestinian Authority so unhappy about the security fence? Are what they say the real reasons, really? Or maybe losing free entrance for Palestinian terror to a vulnerable Israel is one painful point to them, and losing the Palestinians' main industry: stealing 34000 cars from Israel annually - a value of above 300 million dollars - is another one ?
Personally, I hate the security fence, but if it saves life, I have to accept it