Golly, I thought Rip Van Winkle wrote the Sunday letter, “Time for Israel to tear down wall.” Rip slept through the American Revolutionary War and awakened unaware of changed conditions in comparison to the time before he went to sleep.
Indisputably, Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and has been battling Arab terrorists from its 1948 founding to the present day, even through periods of uneasy truce. As an example, Hamas has fired over 4,000 rockets and shells into civilian areas of Israel. Arafat, after turning down generous peace terms brokered by then-President Clinton, started the Intifada, a period of terror killing and maiming thousands of Israelis. The so-called wall was built in response to the Intifada. In fact, most of the wall was a chain link fence with about 3 percent concrete in locations used by terrorists to enter Israel. It’s been quite effective in stopping terrorists from entering Israel.
Perhaps the writer of the Sunday letter, like Rip, will wake up and come to know reality. Reality is that the Israelis, like the United States, build border fences in attempts to keep unwanted characters out of their country.
Kal Leichtman
Everett
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