The Israeli border security measures have been effective

Raphael Benaroya:

Americans are locked in a fierce debate: to build or not to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. And what’s in a wall? Israel’s experience with the barriers separating it from its many contentious neighbors offers some answers.

Look first at Israel’s 290-mile border with the West Bank, where the main goals are stopping terrorism and deterring entry of illegal labor. The barrier includes razor wire, electronic intrusion-detection fences, anti-vehicle ditches, footprint detection technology, aerial surveillance, and more. In urban areas, there are true walls more than 25 feet high, with cameras, listening devices, and other sensors. Control rooms monitor activity 24/7, and rapid-response teams deploy against every incursion. All this is similar to the purposes and plans for the U.S. wall.

How effective has the West Bank barrier been? Attacks and resulting casualties fell 80 percent almost instantly after the wall went up, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry. Illegal labor entry dropped comparably, even as legal movement of people and goods through checkpoints remained robust.

Meanwhile, Israel’s northern border with Lebanon and Syria fronts on active war zones, with Hezbollah, ISIS, Syrian rebels, and Iranian militias operating on the other side. In this sector advanced intrusion-detection technologies enhance military-style physical structures and procedures that go well beyond U.S. plans.

But even here, where a vastly bigger threat has led to vastly bigger measures, the barriers have proven an effective deterrent. Hezbollah has attempted to infiltrate many times, but succeeded only once.

The Gaza Strip presents different challenges, thanks to uniquely sophisticated methods of Hamas terrorist infiltration and weapons smuggling. So Israel adds tunnel-sensing technology to its protective mix. No concrete walls run along the surface; however, construction of a 40-mile-long reinforced concrete wall below ground is underway.

Also, the Gaza barrier extends more than a mile into the Mediterranean, to counter Hamas naval commandos. And subsurface seismic sensors have been added to detect tunneling. As elsewhere, round-the-clock command-and-control centers direct rapid-response teams when trouble arises.

Results? Israel has disrupted dozens of tunneling attempts and, according to the Jewish Virtual Library, “not a single suicide bomber has managed to cross Israel’s border with Gaza.”

Israel’s southern border with Egypt is more like America’s with Mexico. Concerns are less with terrorism and more with illegal immigration, human trafficking, and drug smuggling. There, Israel has erected a 150-mile-long smart fence with observation towers, cameras, radar, motion detectors, barbed wire and 24/7 monitoring with rapid-response teams.

The Sinai barrier’s impact has been significant. According to Israel’s Ministry of the Interior, 17,000 African immigrants entered Israel illegally in 2011, immediately before the fence was built. After completion of construction in 2013, only 43 crossed. In 2016, just 11 did. In 2017, zero crossed.
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At the same time, Israel has enacted several laws to discourage illegal migrants. These laws include barring such individuals from sending money out of the country and requiring employers to withhold 20 percent of guest workers’ pay until they are going home, to ensure they do not overstay their work visas. Employers are also punished if they employ illegal laborers.
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Those who claim that fences do not work are either ignorant or lying.  Of course, they work, and that is the real reason Democrats oppose them.  They want those illegals in the country so they will be counted in the 2020 Census and allow Democrats to steal more seats in the House.  Places like California are especially desperate for them because the state is losing population and fears losing House seats after the census.  Democrats are also hoping to someday have another amnesty which would give them several million more voters.

Democrats are acting irresponsibly in protecting the US borders and they are doing it on purpose.