The man in charge of planning for Israel's Security Fence, Col. (Res.) Danny Tirza, writes a short brief at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

The Strategic Logic of Israel's Security Barrier

• The main reason for the delay in building the security fence was because the line of the fence was a major issue of political debate inside Israel. The government didn't want to build it, out of concern that any line on the ground would have a political meaning in future negotiations. In all government decisions it was emphasized that the line the army was building was only a security line and it would not be the line for future negotiations.
• We had to consider Israel's security needs, and also the rights of the people who live in the area in order to minimize the disruption of their lives. Israel's Supreme Court said we had to give greater weight to the daily life of the Palestinians, so we changed the route in some places, and in other places we changed the procedures that enable people to cross from one side of the fence to the other.
• Ben-Gurion International Airport is only eleven kilometers from the "green line," and Israel has real concerns over the potential threat of missiles launched against aircraft. Al-Qaeda tried to shoot down an Israeli Arkia aircraft with a missile in Mombasa, Kenya, in 2002 and it was a miracle that nobody was killed at that time.
• Due to weather conditions, there are seventy days a year when aircraft flying in and out of Israel must fly above the West Bank. We wanted to build a double fence in the area near the airport in order to secure it from missiles, but there are 19,000 Palestinians living in this area and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Israel could not leave people to live in enclaves.
• Why wasn't the fence built on the "green line" - the 1949 ceasefire line? From a security perspective, mountains dominate valleys. To provide security, Israel must control the high ground in order to dominate the area and not have others dominate us. The "green line" leaves Israel in a fragile security situation.

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