TEL AVIV, Israel, June 5 (UPI) -- On the day Vivien Hercky was giving birth, her husband David was preparing gas masks. David Hercky would travel to the hospital that very day -- gas masks in hand for he and his wife -- and one measured for his first born daughter. She was three hours old.
Saddam Hussein had begun showering Israel with scuds. David's upscale community in Ra'nana, where he and his family lived, where his wife was in the hospital, was also being attacked. Earlier in the week, another terrorist bomb had exploded somewhere in Israel -- killing the young, the old and the innocent.
That day, as often, David had prepared the special room in his home. It was sealed and ready to be secured against a biological -- and chemical -- weapons attack. In the room were two gas masks: one each for himself and his wife, and one anti-gas baby tent for his newborn daughter. He had prepared it so often of late that it seemed almost routine. He had checked the food and water supplies, and rushed to the hospital to greet his first child.
It could have been any Israeli family on that day. Millions of other Israelis -- Jewish, Christian, and Muslim -- were going through the same motions. All were preparing for the worst -- a biological and chemical weapons attack. Saddam had announced it. Others had already tried wiping Israel off the face of the earth; they had all failed. And, as always, with grace, pride, and conviction, but still nervous -- the Israeli people prepared themselves for yet another attack in their long and proud history -- in their short history as a nation.
Yet again -- after the millions lost in the Holocaust, and the thousands dead in 1948, 1967, and 1973; the constant threat of their neighbors; the threat of Iraqi nuclear weapons; and hundreds dead and thousands wounded due to terrorist bombings -- the Israelis prepared to lose loved ones. Again.
This friends, and nothing else, this is what you need to think of. This is the backdrop to Israel's security perimeter. The perimeter will not stop missiles, but it has already stopped hundreds of bombings. It has brought stability and peace of mind. It is not nice, but it is reality.
Most Jewish Israelis favor it. Many Arabic Israelis as well; but they won't publicly admit it. The Palestinians are almost unanimously against it.
It is 375 miles long, half the size of the planned security zone between the United States and Mexico. Ninety-five percent is fences and trenches. Five percent is concrete. One hundred and fifty miles, about 36 percent, has been completed. About 75 percent of the suicide bombers who attacked Israel came from the border where the first part of the parameter has been built. Terror attacks in Israel have gone down 90 percent.
It generally runs along the 1949 Jordanian-Israeli Armistice/Green Line. It diverges in many places to include highly populated areas of Jewish West Bank settlements. Some Palestinian towns are nearly encircled by it.
It is very controversial, with little common ground between supporters and opponents. I drove along many parts of it, all the way to its current end.
We arrived in the Arabic-Israeli town of Baqa el Garbiya. David Hercky had brought his three children along -- two in their teens -- so they could meet Arabic-Israeli kids and see the perimeter. Vivian, his wife -- originally from Mexico -- and his mom Effie were also along. We were met by Jamal Majadli, president of the Chamber of Commerce. He and his brothers are Effie's good friends -- something unusual in this part of the world where communities live together, but apart. She had employed them when they were youngsters twenty years earlier.
We traveled along land once owned by Jamal's family which had been transferred to Israel; he would say stolen. We turned past a kibbutz, backed down the road some kilometers to the middle of town -- and there it stood, unmistakably tall -- some 30 feet high. It was the fence, the wall, the perimeter.
The sight is aghast. One cannot but look in stunned silence. Especially for someone like me, a child of the Cold War, a product of a German family, a person who stood at the Berlin Wall both as a child and man, a military man. One cannot ignore all those emotions. Like me, David, a seasoned Israeli soldier -- an officer -- feels it too.
The perimeter is high -- high enough to keep terrorists from shooting at cars -- which they have done for the past three years. This part -- ugly and disturbing as it may be -- is only a fraction of the entire perimeter. Across the wall, separating families in an unfortunate way, some of the worst bombers and their supporters live. It is built for two reasons only -- to keep terrorists out, and protect Israelis citizens -- all of them: Arabs, Christians, Jews and Muslims.
We spent the day with Jamal, ate lunch with his family, his daughter and sister -- a religious woman -- and met others in the town, including Jamal's brother who sits in the Knesset for the Labor party. He, Raleb Majadla, chairs the Parliamentary Committee for Internal Affairs. He is absolutely no fan of the perimeter. We had intense discussion for hours. We parted as new-found friends.
During the many meetings I had in Israel -- from meetings with Ambassadors Michael Zantovsky and Michael Dubcek, son of the famous dissident, to former Air Force Commander and ambassador to the United States Maj. Gen. David Ivry, to Jacob Dayan, the foreign minister's chief of staff, the perimeter fence and security were a constant issue. When I met former Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom and Labor Leader and former minister Ephraim Sneh -- himself a former Brigadier General -- we talked about the pending U.S. elections, and finally got to issues of water, energy and health care. Many off-the-record issues were covered in these meetings. They were informative and intense.
At meetings with deputy directors general Mark Sofer (Central Europe) and Yoram Ben-Zeev, (North America) we focused on a possible time-line for a Global Panel/Prague Society strategy session. November seems to be a good time. And we hope to deal precisely with the above issues. Both men were remarkably open and helpful.
It was my good friend Ambassador Arthur Avnon who insisted I visit Israel. I had been there once, 32 years earlier, as a teenager. I had promised him I would come to see his world with my own two eyes. At the Friday Sabbath meal which I was honored to attend at his home with his wife Dinah, we talked until 2 a.m. about the state of international affairs, about Central Europe, the Czech and Slovak elections and the United States.
I will come back to this holy land, I promised.
There is so much work to be done.
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(Some reporting for this story was done in Jerusalem.)
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(UPI Columnist Marc S. Ellenbogen is chairman of the Global Panel Foundation and president of the Prague Society. A venture capitalist with seats in Berlin and Prague, he is a Senior Associate at Syracuse's Maxwell School. This is the first of a two part series on Israel. He may be reached at [email protected])
