Who wouldn't yearn to put a fence around a country like this?

November 17, 11:27 AMSpiritual Life ExaminerRabbi Ben Kamin

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These soldiers would rather be home.

Israel has a complicated agenda—remaining the only bona fide democracy in the Middle East for 60 years now, supplying the US with comprehensive antiterrorism intelligence, maintaining its capital and federal bureaucracy in Jerusalem while guaranteeing freedom of access to and security for all religious holy sites—all while protecting its citizens from rocket attacks, suicide bombings, and the declared threat of an Iranian nuclear genocide.

Israel has to be normal, while being the Holy Land.

So the Israelis, who pioneered cellular technology, laser surgery, and water desalination, decided to build a wall to keep the homicide bombers out. It’s been effective, even as the US, dealing with a porous border, is building a complex fence system along the Mexican frontier.

A couple of years ago, the International Court of Justice at The Hague took up part of its day by ruling that a major portion of the barrier Israel is building between itself and the Palestinians is illegal.  Palestinian extremist leaders considered it a victory; Israel considered it another day to work on the fence.  Most of us Jews thought of it as another day in the European theater of anti-Semitism.

What other nation in the world – particularly an exemplary egalitarian state like Israel – would ever be asked not to build something that might stop somebody from killing a child at school or a grandmother walking home from the market? The people of Israel, who have borne the specter of this unimaginable predicament while still building their country, should be exalted for their forbearance and creativity that have continued while too many in the Arab world have wallowed in unseemly goals and dreadful accomplishments—like 9/11 and 7/7 and the suicide killings of American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Who wouldn't want to put up a fence around such a nation? And what young soldier, male or female, wouldn’t want to protect the schoolchildren and elders of this old-new land?

The fence is not ideal, and it has caused hardship to some innocent Palestinians. Israelis concede this, while clutching their children. Moreover, the majority of Israeli citizens overwhelmingly favor major concessions to the Palestinians just to attain the peace; the prime minister of the state has committed himself to a secure agreement with the Palestinian people that finally ends what he at last concedes has been an "occupation" and that he realizes is not in the true Jewish spirit.

Who wouldn't yearn to put a fence around such a noble and brave little holy land—unless somebody didn't understand the meaning of love?