This letter is a comment on the column by Omar Tesdell on Friday. The column tries to equate the building of a security fence in the Middle East with apartheid system of South Africa. This is a very misleading view, for the following reasons.

The barrier, often little more than a fence in many areas, is not being put into place for the purpose of colonization.

The purpose is to prevent Palestinian homicide bombers from killing innocent people. A similar barrier is in place around the Gaza Strip, and it has done well in this purpose.

Secondly, the nation of Israel is not forcing people to build it. These people are being paid to do said work, and are again not forced into it.

Thirdly, the Palestinians are a dangerous people. Africans in South Africa did not murder white people in the numbers that the Palestinians do in the name of statehood. Such a fence is necessary to separate the two sides, since the Palestinians cannot be trusted not to murder innocent civilians.

Fourthly, trying to equate the racial struggles of the Civil War and South Africa with the current war in the Middle East is wrong. Palestine might have had claim to the land, but they have forfeited it. Israel is not a warlike country, and it must take steps to defend itself from the surrounding nations who wish to destroy it in the name of anti-Semitism.

We should not condemn Israel, but support it in its attempts to find a solution that does not involve the destruction and removal of the Palestinians. The security fence is such a measure.

Victor Amoroso

Senior

History