Security Situation Improves....Slowly!

The security situation in Israel continues to improve, but at a slow, incremental pace. We now are experiencing fewer Palestinian terrorist attacks inside Israel, and more suicide bomber-free days. The Israeli army has virtually retaken the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), the part of the land of Israel--along with the Gaza Strip--designated as the future Palestinian State.

Day after day, Israeli army troops conduct house-to-house searches, finding wanted terrorists, as well as arms and small, improvised laboratories for the making of explosives. When surrounded, some terrorists resist and are killed. Others are captured and put in military prisons.

Like everyone else, I would like to believe that there is some magical solution to the terrorist problem, but, apparently, there isn't. A campaign against those who adopt terrorist tactics to accomplish their goals, whether justified or not, is necessarily a long, drawn-out affair. Those who would maim and kill civilians--old people, women and children--to achieve their aims are usually unwilling to give up their struggle, to compromise with their enemy in even the smallest way.

Unable to reach a settlement with Palestinian authorities, the Israeli government has decided to take unilateral steps to better its citizens' security. This week the government's security cabinet approved the route of the first 116.5-kilometer section of a proposed 360-kilometer security barrier separating Israel from the West Bank. The fence will cost billions of dollars to erect, but will make it more difficult for West Bank terrorists to infiltrate into Israel.