The event was festive. Prison Guard First Class Aviv Kochavi delivered a speech. Defense Minister Gantz thanked barrier visionary Netanyahu. Brig. Gen. Eran Ofir, head of the Bars and Barriers Command, provided moving statistics about the length of the barbed wire and thickness of the concrete. Mazel tov.
And now it’s official: This is a ghetto. Not a prison. A ghetto. What’s the difference between a prison and a ghetto? In a prison they incarcerate people for their crimes. In a ghetto they incarcerate people for their genes. Over 2 million human beings are crowded into this ghetto, 99 percent of them innocent of any crime. But that doesn’t bother the ghettos and their builders. After all, ghettos have always been designated for the innocent. Who knows that as well as we do?
Anyone who looks at this barbed wire monster, the guard towers, the strip of death, the user-friendly lethal toys, the sensors, the spotlights, the cameras, the sirens, and isn’t horrified and isn’t reminded and doesn’t whisper “ghetto!” to himself, that’s a sign that his soul has become calloused and his heart has hardened. And if he is Jewish and in spite of that he doesn’t find it hair-raising, that’s a sign that his entire history has been wasted on him. He hasn’t learned a thing from it.
But beyond the abomination there is also the folly. There are 3.5 billion shekels, over a billion dollars, buried in this project. Its main source of pride is the “underground wall” against tunnels. Bravo. Since December 2004, when the first tunnel was activated, to this very day – 17 years – there have been six infiltrations into Israel by means of tunnels. The last time was on July 28, 2014. Since then – nothing. Kitchen knives have claimed more victims.
Even above-ground infiltrations are not a common sight. But in the face of the most routine threat bursting forth from the Strip, the rockets and the explosive balloons, all these billions are powerless and meaningless. Because rockets, alas, don’t fly beneath the ground, and balloons tend to float very far away, above the barrier, to the guard towers, the strip of death and the radar. Together they will view the underground wall and the above-ground wall from above, and continue on their way to their destination. In short, the residents of the “Gaza envelope” will gain nothing from all the billions buried around the Strip.
So why was this black elephant built anyway? Because Bibi was involved, and because those were the years 2018 to 2021, the years of Netanyahu’s trial and numerous election campaigns, it’s hard to avoid thinking that this is another Bibi-ist election stunt.
Are Israelis and the residents of the “envelope” afraid of infiltrations and tunnels? Are they angry about the helplessness? Are they insulted by every crack that a missile carves into their macho ego? Let’s build them something grandiose and electronic that will make them happy. We’ll collect their gratitude at the polling booth. That seems to be the only way to discover any method in this madness.
Unfortunately, within a short time the missiles and balloons will be flying again. That’s not so terrible. Maybe just the opposite. In advance of the next election, in which, as usual, Bibi will also run (because the government of change has once again forgotten to pass the law that would stop him), it will be possible to excite the nation with another brilliant project: building a steel roof above the entire Strip. No more missiles and balloons.
The roof will of course be installed on rails, so that it can be moved aside, for the convenience of the Israel Air Force bombers and drones. And on Sukkot it will also be possible to put thatch up there, so the Haredi Zionist soldiers, who will invade the Strip in Operation Divorcing the Ghetto, won’t have to eat, God forbid, without a kosher sukkah.
The nation will surely rejoice once again, its hunched over stature will become erect once again, and I am also apparently going crazy. It’s no wonder.