As the United States moves forward with a controversial plan to build a virtual fence along the border with Mexico, there’s some valuable lessons to be learned, perhaps, to be gained from Israel’s experience with physical separation. Yes, the situations are different, but there are some similarities, including in the technologies both fences will use. Writing over at Slate, Nathan Hodge and I visit Israel’s fence as part of our ongoing "terror tour." Here’s a brief excerpt:
From Qalqilyah or Tulkarem, the western edge of the West Bank, it’s only about 10 miles to the Mediterranean Sea. Yet standing within spitting distance of an Arab town—one that elected a Hamas mayor, no less—clearly makes some members of our tour group uncomfortable, sometimes to comedic effect. We suddenly notice that Yossi Maimon, our tour guide and history lecturer, had a Mini-Uzi draped behind his back. One of the U.S. security consultants knelt nonchalantly in the dust. ("Don’t want to be a sniper target," he explained to us later.) As we walked down the road, we half-expected someone to cry out, " Serpentine, Shel! Serpentine !"
We rode with Meir to Checkpoint Eliyahu, where donkey carts waited in line next to passenger cars. At the checkpoint, there is no solid concrete wall—the fence is more like a military frontier or demilitarized zone, with a layered series of barriers that includes a ditch to prevent vehicle crossings, tightly coiled stacks of concertina wire, and intrusion-detection fences with pre-tensioned wires that can detect the slightest movement. Israeli security forces monitor the buffer zone with an array of high-tech surveillance equipment: cameras, pressure sensors, and thermal-imaging devices. Bedouin trackers patrol the dirt roads adjoining the barrier, looking for errant footprints.
Undeniably, the fence has helped reduce the number of suicide bombings within Israel, but it has come at a high price for Palestinians. The fence has also prompted the other side has switched tactics: The fence doesn’t stop rockets from killing Israeli civilians.
