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PrintJuly 23, 2009
'Good fences make good neighbors'
Echoing Robert Frost who wrote "good fences make good neighbors", Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu explained why he isn't removing the security fence preventing Arab terrorists from committing terrorist acts against their Israeli neighbors despite the reduction in serious incidents.
Quoted in the JTA , Netanyahu, speaking in the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) stated
"I hear they are saying today that because it's quiet, it's possible to take down the fence. My friends, the opposite is true... It's quiet because a fence exists."
Very true. At heart, Frost didn't seem to care for fences as his poem Mending Wall, from which the famous line about fences is quoted, seems to demonstrate.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
But the Israelis, who have endured over 60 years of slaughter from their Arab neighbors, know well that with the fence they're somewhat walling it out while walling in a greater degree of safety for their citizens. And maybe, when the Arabs are reconciled to the historical Jewish state in their midst, they will stop giving terrorist offense so Israel can remove that wall.
And maybe eventually the US can remove its fence separating them from Mexico to discourage illegal immigrants and Saudi Arabia can remove its fence separating them well...from the surrounding Arab/Muslim world.
Til then, the good fence remains.
