Quotes of the Day

For me, the first sign for the fracture in the wall was when my father said: "I was all for the separation fence, until I read that feature in Yedioth Acharonot". (Yedioth, I should mention here, is the biggest Israeli mainstream daily newspaper.)

My father is a left-winger. Not an extremist or a radical left-winger; he is what we call here a 'security-minded leftist:' he heartily supports every peace initiative, however daring, as long as it does not threaten Israeli security.

So, like most Israelis. he had supported the idea of the "separation fence" — a wall, running along the 1967 border, which is meant to be an obstacle in the path of suicide bombers (or any other sort of terrorist) on their way to the heart of Israel.

The idea of this barrier originated with the Labour party in the heyday of the Intifada. 'The fence,' as it was known, was meant to be a constructive feature in the separation process between Israelis and Palestinians. A fence that one day in the distant future might become a border, but until then, would at least reduce the bloodshed.

I can't blame my dad for supporting it in the first place. In times of horrible terror attacks, the fence seemed like the fastest, if not the only, possible solution to the never-ending explosions in buses, restaurants, cafés.

My dad — in fact both of my parents — know very well what a fence would mean. They have been living near the Lebanese border for almost 40 years, in a small, isolated kibbutz in the Galilee. So my dad can respect a stable border when he sees one.

But that feature in Yedioth Acharonot distressed him. It revealed that the fence is becoming a prison wall rather than a border. Instead of separating the two people, it will imprison the Palestinians in small enclaves, and the only separation would be between Palestinian villagers and their lands, which they would not be able to cultivate. Its route has nothing to do with the 67' borders. The maps published in the newspaper bore an astonishing resemblance to Sharon's plans for the Palestinian state, to the maps he's been showing to his supporters for years.

It did not look like a security-minded separation fence. And it's extremely expensive: According to B'tselem, the Israeli centre for human rights in the occupied territories, it is costing more than $2.5 million per kilometer to build. And we're talking about some 1,000 km in all.

That seminal article was published more than two months ago and it opened a debate on the fence in Israel. In June, in Aqaba, the American President heard the same facts from the Palestinian delegation, and saw the same maps. U.S. pressure on Israel to stop building the fence, along with with the distress starting to permeate through the Israeli public, has slowed down (but not stopped) the building program.

But as much as the Israeli public's feelings towards that separation fence are mixed, recent events shows that even the most proper boundary would not separate the region from its conflicts. Two attempts to abduct Israeli soldiers in the north of Israel (the first ended with the soldier's murder, in the second instance the soldier managed to escape) caused a bitter feeling of insecurity amongst both civilians and soldiers. A missing teenage girl in the same geographical area, raises the fears of wave of kidnappings. Last week, the Israelis found out that in a summer camp in an Israeli Arab village in the Galilee, the main educational course is clear, crude, incitement. Apparently, the children at the camp are being taught songs that praise suicide attacks. They read materials about famous (or infamous, if you're not a great fan of terror) suicide bombers and attack planners, and call for building a Palestinian state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. My father called me right away, as soon as he heard about it. "What do you think of it"? he asked, "how can we deal with something like this?" And as if only to show how complicated things are here, the Knesset has just approved a bill that would deny Israeli citizenship to Palestinians who marry Israelis.

A fence would not solve any of these problems. As a prison wall, it would only aggravate existing evils and produce new ones. As a separation fence, it would be another obstacle in the way of terror, hopefully an efficient one — but without a deeper process of understanding each side's needs and fears, no wall would separate us from our existential questions. Long and painful processes — political, social, psychological — are the only way to turn that fence into a viable border.

• MICHAL LEVERTOV
• Israel's "security fence" is no solution to its problems