Israeli Security

The Palestinians are but the latest lightning rod unleashed against the Jews, their supposed victimization reaffirming the millenarian demonization of the Jews in general, and the medieval blood libel - that Jews delight in the blood of others.

In March 2002, at the height of a terror campaign in which 1,804 Israelis were killed in Palestinian suicide bombings, the government of Israel decided to take a defensive measure to block terrorists from reaching Israeli population centers by establishing a physical obstacle. Even Israel's worst enemies confessed that the security fence saved Israeli lives. In building the fence, great efforts were invested and solutions were provided to meet the unique needs of the Christian churches.

Today there is unprecedented military and intelligence cooperation between Hizbullah, Syria, and Iran. There is no "smuggling" of weapons from Iran through Syria to Lebanon, because it is not done in secret. Weapons of all kinds are being pushed toward Hizbullah, including tens of thousands of rockets.

Israel is one of the leading countries in the world in developing technologies to produce electricity through renewable energy, mostly in the solar field. The National Infrastructures Ministry envisions a plan up to the year 2020 that will guarantee energy in the coming decades based on 40 percent natural gas, 40 percent coal, and up to 20 percent renewable energy.

Human rights groups have criticized the Israeli government for denying access to Gazans seeking to receive permits for care in hospitals in Israel, the PA and Jordan. Yet the data shows that the number of patients receiving permits for referrals to hospitals in Israel – or the PA or Jordan – increased by 45 percent from 4,932 in 2006 to 7,176 in 2007, and continued to increase in the first six months of 2008, despite increasing rocket attacks on Israel’s civilian population.

From Oslo to Annapolis, we have engaged in a top-down strategy. We aimed to reach a political horizon or a final settlement agreement with the Palestinian leadership, hoping that political reform among Palestinians would follow. I propose we replace this approach with a bottom-up strategy in which the PA first proves its willingness and ability to govern.

According to an informal estimate by Israeli security bodies, about 50 percent of the terrorists freed for any reason whatsoever returned to the path of terror, either as a perpetrator, a planner, or as an accomplice. In the terror acts committed by these freed terrorists, hundreds of Israelis were murdered, and thousands were wounded.

In the past sixty years as a nation, Israel has survived many existential threats by means of its intense motivation to restore national sovereignty and through the adoption of various strategies and tactics. Threats of ballistic missiles, nonconventional warheads and mass terror attacks have increased in the recent past, with the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran posing a problem for the future.

When Israel announced on May 21, 2008, that it had officially resumed negotiations with Syria in Turkey, not surprisingly, the Assad regime merely pocketed this diplomatic gain, providing no sign that it had any intention to meet Israeli requirements. It does not make sense for Israel to be pushing ahead with negotiations now.

Israeli negotiators will quickly discover three core areas in their discussions with the Syrians that they will not resolve easily: delineation of an agreed boundary, security arrangements, and the Syrian-Iranian alliance. The U.S. has given Israel repeated diplomatic assurances in the past that Israel will not have to come down from the Golan Heights.