[layevymed]

Originally posted by BeBro
I think it's pretty shitty. Yes, there are security concerns, but with that argument you could justify anything. I'd accept it as temporary thing in case of an acute and concrete threat, but not as permanent solution because of the general situation. This is the real crux of the matter. There are security concerns; obviously Israel must take steps to protect its citizens. The problem is that those security concerns are used to justify any policy, and any criticism of that policy is interpreted by the pro-Israeli crowd as a rejection of the security concerns.

It's most clear in the case of the wall. Has the wall stopped instances of terrorism? Probably. Does it exist for a legitimate security reason? There is a valid argument to be made that it does. The problem is that it exists for other reasons, too. If security had been the only issue, it could easily have been built on the Green Line and accomplished that. The wall, however, snakes and meanders improbably through Palestinian land, dividing people from their farms, villages from each other, and generally snipping away valuable areas of land in the Palestinian territories. When this is criticized, its defenders counter that the critics must obviously be pro-suicide bombing.

It's really no different here: security concerns used as carte blanche to advance certain obvious aims -

“Think of the road itself as a settlement,” he said, “part of the conscious effort to change the character of the area, giving it an Israeli stamp. The point was to make it impossible for Israel ever to return certain parts of the land.