Last week an opinion article was published regarding the West Bank wall Israel put up several years ago in attempt to decrease suicide bombings by Palestinians. Apparently, the author Jeff Pillar believes that an attempt to prevent innocent civilians from dying is a brilliant example of Israeli brutality. As an Israeli who lived there for sixteen years of my life I am offended and disgusted by the ignorance and harshness in the article. For fear that my anger will get the best of me I will try to address the disturbing issues in the article one by one in an organized fashion.
So first of all, Pillar wrote that "Israel receives more foreign aid from the United States than any other country." However, he failed to mention that Israel is also the United States' greates ally, if not in the world, then certainly in the Middle East. It makes perfect sense for the United States support Israel financially as in many ways Israel is the United States' anchor in that part of the world and is helpful to US interests in the Middle East. Israel has been struggling to maintain its existence in a region which makes it nearly impossible to do so. The funds that the United States sends to Israel are intended to aid the country in its continual struggle. This includes strengthening the Israeli army which is constantly at war, and is not a "bastardization of well- intended U.S. aid" as Pillar claims.
Pillar also stated that the West Bank wall reduced the amount of land Palestinians now have to themselves, but omitted the fact that the Palestinian people brought it upon themselves with their violent behavior. In fact, when Israel was first declared a state by the rest of the world, the land was divided equally between Israelis and Palestinians. That night Palestinians attacked Israelis, who then fought back, and in accordance with historical Israeli militarty strength and efficiency ended up pushing back the Israeli-Palestinian border. Since the beginning it has been the Palestinians themselves who end up reducing their area by using guerilla warfare to attack and exhaust the organized Israeli Defense Forces.
Palestinians want to have their own state. But they depend on Israel for the most part to get work. Israel and the Palestinians have an economic relationship in which Israelis get cheap Palestinian labor, and Palestinians get work and money that they otherwise would not have. Israel put up the wall, and do indeed have checkpoints as Pillar mentioned. Since Pillar did not bother making this next point I will. The checkpoints serve as a means for Israel to allow Palestinians in to the country to work, but not before checking that they are not on their way to commit a suicide bombing. In reality, putting up the wall was an attempt by Israel to decrease the violence on both sides. If Israel could prevent Palestinians from killing Israelis, it would also be able to prevent the Israeli military retaliation that might follow it.
Pillar also refered to the wall as an "apartheid wall" so I would like to note that Palestinians are not being racially segregated by Israel. Although there are Palestinian-Israelis who are Israeli citizens and have rights like
