May 2, 2013

What Israel's latest border fence looks like

Thanks to Patrick Cleburne in VDARE
Israel used to rely upon the Mubarak government to keep sub-Saharan Africans from crossing the Sinai border, but since the Arab Spring, that hasn't been happening. So, in a couple of years, Israel has fenced off the border to keep out economic migrants (or, as it calls them, "illegal infiltrators"). As I've said before, there is much Americans can learn from Israelis about how a serious, intelligent, self-governing nation deals with its problems.

By Steve Sailer on 5/02/2013

33 comments:

art.the.nerd said...

Oh no! Those awful Israelis keeping the peace-loving, praying Muslims from their land!

I think you should post a picture of the fence between the US and Mexico as well.

5/2/13, 3:29 PM
Anononymous said...

All you need to cross a 16-foot fence is a 17-foot ladder.

FTA:
"two infiltrators managed to enter"

See, it doesn't work.

5/2/13, 3:31 PM
Shouting Thomas said...

We cannot learn anything.

It is prohibited.

5/2/13, 3:38 PM
Anonymous said...

"self-governing" - I love the unstated contrast here. lol.

5/2/13, 3:44 PM
Anonymous said...

As I've said before, there is much Americans can learn from Israelis about how a serious, intelligent, self-governing nation deals with its problems.

The average American understands that fences work, Steve. That's not the problem.

5/2/13, 3:50 PM
Anonymous said...

But we have a desert on our southern border!

5/2/13, 3:53 PM
Anonymous said...

But Israel is the Jewish state. Why don't you just move to the WASP state?

5/2/13, 4:03 PM
Anonymous said...

Did anyone ever read MAD magazine's snappy answers to stupid question? I loved those books as a kid.

That is what this thread is going to read as.

5/2/13, 4:04 PM
Anonymous said...

So what's your point? That it's hypocritical to be for demographic control in Israel and against it in the US? It's only hypocritical if you abide by anti-semitic standards of formal logic.

5/2/13, 4:09 PM
IHTG said...

Cleburne's article is a silly conspiracy theory. Nobody who writes for Israel Hayom gives a fig about American politics. That kind of thing is way too high brow for that paper. IH complains about those four infiltrators because it's a right wing paper that thinks even four are too many.

5/2/13, 4:10 PM
Svigor said...

All you need to cross a 16-foot fence is a 17-foot ladder.

I don't think a ladder's really enough, judging from that picture.

A fence is nice, but I'd prefer making a bankruptcy lotto out of employing criminal infiltrators. Both would be even better, of course. But a bankruptcy lotto is the single best measure. Let the media make fools of themselves publishing stories about all the poor, downtrodden fat cats bankrupted by punitive fines and asset seizure.

But back to the fence, the purpose is not to stop the criminal infiltrators, so much as to serve as a clear, bright line for legal purposes, and more importantly, to deter all but the most determined and physically fit criminal infiltrators, and to slow them down. A proper fence slows them down long enough for authorities to track them with cameras and eventually apprehend them. Also, the Israelis lay down tracking material on their side of the fence; I think it's radioactive dust, but I can't recall what it is exactly. It sticks to the infiltrators and serves to identify them to authorities.

5/2/13, 4:16 PM
Pat Boyle said...

The sergeant was lecturing us about how to crawl underneath the barbed wire in the obstacle course.

I raised my hand and asked if we were really going to confront single stranded wire in combat or would there be triple concertina wire that you couldn't crawl under.

Once again I had demonstrated why I was not a very good soldier.

This Israeli fence looks plausible. I wouldn't want to try to scale it wearing shorts and sandals. But of course unless it is guarded day and night a teen age boy with a pair of wire cutters from the hardware store bargain bin could open it up to traffic in twenty minutes.

Concrete fences are more robust but they block the defenders view. Probably there should be two lines of such fences with a no man's land in between. There should be guard towers every so often too.

I'm designing this fence in my mind's eye from memories of spy novels about the Berlin Wall.

The problem with these barriers is that they take a lot of manpower. But of course we have a lot of manpower. All we need to do is require welfare and food stamp recipients to pull a shift on the wall every now and then. We would need then I suppose to only use attached machine guns lest the guards take their arms back to the hood.

None of this will be done but it's not because it can't be done. I'm reading yet another book about WWII. Every soldier and every university professor was bursting with ideas about how to defeat the Nazis. Those people only a few generations ago seem like aliens - heroic and energetic aliens. Today any problem solving proposal to deal with our 'invasion' situation is talked to death.

Are we lost?

Albertosaurus



5/2/13, 4:18 PM
Jehu said...

All you really need is a sniper every half mile or thereabouts. They'll probably be really bored most of the time, because once you demonstrate that you'll defend your border with force everywhere but at your points of entry, you don't have to repeat the demonstration. In a sane society, border control is a military issue moreso than a criminal one. Once you step across the line as an illegal infiltrator your only appeal is to the laws of physics.

5/2/13, 4:32 PM
Steve Sailer said...

Israel usually uses double fences. This might just be a quick and dirty temporary measure.

5/2/13, 4:34 PM
Svigor said...

The problem with these barriers is that they take a lot of manpower. But of course we have a lot of manpower. All we need to do is require welfare and food stamp recipients to pull a shift on the wall every now and then. We would need then I suppose to only use attached machine guns lest the guards take their arms back to the hood.

If we used a double wall, with at least the outer wall made of concrete like the Israeli barriers, we could mine the area in between them. Not much manpower needed to police that kind of wall. Just a few guys replacing mines every so often.

Or, as Jehu suggests, snipers. Or drones.

5/2/13, 4:42 PM
kaganovitch said...

Yes but Israel never adopted the Emma Lazarus poem as its Constitution unlike the USA where its the law of the land.

5/2/13, 5:02 PM
Anonymous said...

You should check out the border fences of Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish outposts in North Africa.

Naturally, Moroccans who've made their way through have higher fertility rates than the Spaniards and Moroccans on the other side of the fence. I saw a comment here some time ago saying they were both Moroccan majority already, which would help explain why they're the worst performing regions in Spain's PISA results.

5/2/13, 5:09 PM
Anonymous said...

Israel usually uses double fences

Yes. Few hundred meters apart with patrols shuttling regularly in between.

5/2/13, 5:09 PM
Anonymous said...

How do they prevent the tunnelers? Seismic sensors? Perhaps a much wider area, a no-man's land, like the Korean DMZ, to make it impossible to place buildings in that area, and hence requiring a tunnel? Even the Korean DMZ has tunneling problems:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Demilitarized_Zone#Incursion_tunnels

Not that I think the fence is a bad idea, I think the mining idea is an excellent one.

What is needed is defence in depth. Bankrupt those who hire illegal infiltrators, make the crossing very difficult, prompt deportation policy, etc.

5/2/13, 5:25 PM
Dave Pinsen said...

"Israel usually uses double fences. This might just be a quick and dirty temporary measure."

Right. They also usually include a ditch too, to keep vehicles from driving through: Israel Security Fence.

5/2/13, 5:35 PM
Anononymous said...

You could build a electric miniature monorail 1,000 miles along the border to cheaply shuttle guards from their elevated posts back to their barracks. Guard posts at regular intervals, but only a fraction are manned at any one time. Monorail traffic keeps shuttling guards from posts to so you never know which one is occupied. Sort of like a dinky Maginot line.

5/2/13, 6:15 PM
Svigor said...

How do they prevent the tunnelers? Seismic sensors? Perhaps a much wider area, a no-man's land, like the Korean DMZ, to make it impossible to place buildings in that area, and hence requiring a tunnel? Even the Korean DMZ has tunneling problems:

Subterranean mines?

Ground-penetrating radar can easily detect tunnels.

North Korea's a whole other kettle of fish than Mexico, obviously. It makes sense to pole-vault out of that place or die trying.

Bankrupt those who hire illegal infiltrators

Yeah, this one is the must-do. How many businessmen smuggle heroin? Is it really much of a temptation for many legitimate employers? No, because it's too risky, because the gov't takes the problem seriously and makes a smuggling heroin a bankruptcy lotto.

It should be much more tempting for employers to smuggle heroin than to hire criminal infiltrators, because it's much easier to catch them with criminal infiltrators than it is to catch them with heroin - heroin's much easier to hide.

Shhh, borders are racist. Immigration is a human right.

True, but criticism of Israel is "ANTISEMITISM!!!," and since Israel seals her borders, we have to bite the bullet and seal ours, too. Out of solidarity with Israel. Otherwise, we might see a rise in "ANTISEMITISM!!!"

5/2/13, 6:45 PM
Jeff W. said...

About the only thing self-governing around here is the Bilderberg conference.

Maybe a Bohemian Grove meeting.

5/2/13, 7:40 PM
Anonymous said...

I love the idea of the monorails right along the border linking the various guard posts. And a double fence with mines in the middle. I also think we don't need very many guards, just lots of drones, robots, blimps, radar and helicopters.

I also think we should have military bases and very large proving grounds right along the border. This should make the crossing too dangerous in some spots.

Since some infiltrators will still make it through, fine those who hire them into bankruptcy.

5/2/13, 7:56 PM
Anonymous said...

Its funny how Jews in America want open borders and Jews in Israel want closed and secure ones.

As always, its about what's good for the Jews...

5/2/13, 8:29 PM
Anonymous said...

Don't forget the sheer value of symbolism. Building a fence is making a statement. It says you take your border seriously. It tells illegals/infiltrators they are not welcome and their entry will be resisted.

5/2/13, 9:10 PM
Anonymous said...

As Shakespeare no doubt told you, Britain has the best 'natural' immigration fence in the world, and it costs nary a penny to upkeep.
And yet Britain has probably the highest per capita rate of 'illegal infiltrators', (as the Israelis quaintly put it), in the world.
As you say the words 'intelligent, well-run and self-governing' make all the difference, in much the same way that 'IQ' distinguishes China from Nigeria.

5/3/13, 12:13 AM
Anonymous said...

Svigor said: If we used a double wall, with at least the outer wall made of concrete like the Israeli barriers, we could mine the area in between them. Not much manpower needed to police that kind of wall. Just a few guys replacing mines every so often.

Or, as Jehu suggests, snipers. Or drones.

Why either/or Svigor? Resources permitting, redundant defenses are always the way to go.

-The Judean People's Front

5/3/13, 12:24 AM
Anonymous said...

In the era of mass air transit and legal cross border tourism, secure borders alone won't do. Even with a double wall manned by snipers or robotic equivalents, illegal immigration through temporary visas will need to be addressed with strict penalties for employers and landlords.

-The Judean People's Front

5/3/13, 12:30 AM
The Anti-Gnostic said...

The manpower problem is easily solved by redeploying troops currently guarding the borders of various European, Asian and central Asian countries.

5/3/13, 5:21 AM
Svigor said...

I also think we should have military bases and very large proving grounds right along the border. This should make the crossing too dangerous in some spots.

What a wonderful idea. Seriously, that one's gold. Hey, we gotta test our ordinance somewhere, right? Why not let it do double-duty?

Brilliant.

Don't forget the sheer value of symbolism. Building a fence is making a statement. It says you take your border seriously. It tells illegals/infiltrators they are not welcome and their entry will be resisted.

Precisely. And this is a good thing from a "liberal" perspective, too. After all, a shabby fence, or open desert, just sends the message that we don't mind if criminal infiltrators cross our border. It's practically an invitation. As you say, if we really wanted to put a stop to criminal infiltration, we'd send a clear message, with a formidable and well-maintained barrier.

Why either/or Svigor? Resources permitting, redundant defenses are always the way to go.

Yeah, the more the merrier. But given how monumentally stupid Americans are on this subject, I like to make it easy for them to say "yes." Cheaper is always an easier sell.

5/3/13, 9:32 AM
rob said...

Seeing what Israel does is waaahnti-Semitic.

What with a more-or-less effective barrier against undocumented future Israelis, Israel must be starving for aliens. The Chechen and Romani peoples have also felt the harsh boot of European homogeneity.

If Israel would take in more Gypsy and Chechen refugees it's economy would boom like crazy. It'd really show us xenophobic WASPs in the US, which is just a bonus.

5/3/13, 10:04 AM
Hunsdon said...

JPF communiqued: In the era of mass air transit and legal cross border tourism, secure borders alone won't do.

Hunsdon: I'm not sure what the Israeli solution is, but I'll bet it mostly works, and I'll bet I'd find it acceptable for America.

5/3/13, 5:12 PM

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