I received a ton of e mails expressing how my friends and fellow memo readers were saddened about my "cancer treatment" which was not actually the case. I also assure you, I did not post the unsigned " Rant" to find out who actually reads my missives. Not guilty, just Fake News.
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Border fence in Israel cut illegal immigration by 99 percent, GOP senator says
By Miriam Valverde
Barriers do work along with other methods. I was taken to see, by a friend who was a Major in the IDF in charge of a unit monitoring one of the barrier outposts:
A Border Patrol agent at the fence along the border between the United States and Mexico on the outskirts of Nogales, Ariz., on Sept. 22, 2016. (Tomas Munita/New York Times)
Need an example of a border wall that works? Look to Israel, President Donald Trump has repeatedly said.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., echoed the idea during a Feb. 3 CNN interview, claiming that a border fence in Israel has drastically cut illegal immigration along its southern border.
“Israel … had a real problem with illegal immigrants coming in from the southern border, about 16,000 in one year. In two years, they constructed 143-mile fence, about $2.9 million per mile, and it cut that illegal immigration rate from about 16,000 to I think 18. Cut it by 99 percent,” Johnson said.
The United States needs to pay attention to Israel and how it has handled security issues, Johnson said.
“They are under a constant state of threat. Threat of terrorism. They've dealt with it pretty effectively. We need to learn those lessons,” Johnson added.
Since Trump has signed an executive order to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, we were curious about references to Israel’s border efforts and their success, as described by Johnson.
Here’s what we found.
Israel-Egypt border fence
Israel has built multiple barriers along its borders with Egypt, Lebanon, Gaza Strip and West Bank, all as safeguards against terrorism and illegal immigration.
In 2015, we looked into a claim from another Wisconsin official, Gov. Scott Walker, when he said that a 500-mile fence between Israel and the West Bank was to thank for a 90 percent reduction in terrorist attacks in Israel. Experts then told us that even though there had been a drop in terrorism, the data used for Walker’s analysis was outdated and the fence was only one reason for the decline.
Johnson was specifically talking about a fence along the Israeli-Egyptian border.
Johnson’s team referred us to a January 2013 article in the Jerusalem Post about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu touring a completed 143-mile fence along the Sinai border. The article noted that an additional 8 miles of fencing was still to be completed along mountainous terrain near Eilat. When fully completed, the fence would run from Kerem Shalom (where Sinai and Israel meet the Gaza Strip) to Taba on the Red Sea, according to the article.
Fence construction started in November 2010 and came with a price tag of 1.6 billion Israeli shekels, the Jerusalem Post reported. The senator's office said an Israeli official told Johnson that the fence cost $415 million during a tour while Johnson was in Israel. (The Wall Street Journal in January 2013 pegged the fence’s cost at $416 million.)
To determine a $2.9 million cost per mile, Johnson divided $415 million into the 143 completed miles cited in the 2013 article. (The cost per mile goes down to about $2.7 million when factoring in the total project of about 150 miles.)
So Johnson appears largely correct about the cost of the wall. How about its success in keeping people trying to cross the border illegally out?
That number checks out, too.
This month, Johnson, who chairs the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, released a report titled “Securing Israel: Lessons learned from a nation under constant threat of attack.” The report came after a trip Johnson made to Israel where he met the Israeli prime minister and other security officials.
The report notes that the number of people illegally crossing the Israel-Egypt border was more than 16,000 in 2011 and less than 20 in 2016, a 99 percent decrease.
Netanyahu recently touted his country’s southern barrier and gave a nod to Trump, tweeting on Jan. 28, “President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel's southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.”
Experts we reached out to agree that illegal immigration along Egypt’s southern border has indeed significantly dropped in the years after the fence was built and that Johnson's assessment of its costs and timeframe are sound.
However, they warn against generalizing that the fence is the sole reason for the drop and raise objections in comparing Israel’s border issues to those in the United States.
The success of barriers such as a wall or fence depend on their scale and how heavily guarded they are, said Reece Jones, a political geography professor at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa and who has written about money spent on border security projects and their consequences.
On a small scale and with many guards, walls can effectively stop movement, Jones said.
But Israel and the United States’ southern borders are significantly different.
The Israel-Egypt border fence is about 150 miles.
The U.S.-Mexico border is nearly 2,000 miles.
Terrain conditions and number of agents needed to monitor the border are not comparable either, Jones said.
“Most of the Israeli fence goes through open, arid terrain. Easy to access, easy to build, easy to monitor with agents,” Jones said.
The U.S.-Mexico border, on the other hand, includes very remote, mountainous terrain and spans the length of four states with cities closely intertwined with Mexico. Trump has said that border has 1 million legal border crossings daily, which experts have told us include people traveling back and forth for school, work and shopping.
Investment in high-tech features such as drones, robots and sensors is also crucial for border security, not just fences, added Elisabeth Vallet, who leads a research team on border walls and is Raoul-Dandurand Chair at the University of Quebec at Montreal.
Without those features, people may still go undetected or go around through another border. If illegal entries surge at another border point, then the effectiveness of the fence at one border comes into question, Vallet said.
“While the numbers show a dramatic decrease in the number of entries, the amount of credit attributed to the fence is an issue of serious debate in Israel,” said Yonatan Jakubowicz, director of research and public relations at the Israeli Immigration Policy Center, an NGO in Israel.
Some were skeptical about the fence’s effectiveness when the idea was introduced in 2009, but the barrier received wider support after a terrorist attack on the border road in August 2011, Jakubowicz said.
He also said that aside from the fence, additional policies have reduced illegal immigration.
The number of illegal border crossings decreased drastically “in an extremely short time” after the implementation of an “Anti-Infiltration Law” in mid 2012, Jakubowicz said.
Under the law, individuals caught illegally entering Israel could be detained for up to three years, Jakubowicz said. The number of people illegally crossing Israel’s southern border decreased after the law came into effect, even though the fence was not fully completed, he said.
“The fact that people continued to arrive even after the total completion of the fence, with fluctuations, proves that a barrier makes illegal migration more difficult, but not impossible,” Jakubowicz said. “Personal interviews and close inspection of migrant diaspora news outlets show that the combination of the fence and the immigration policies are to be attributed to these numbers, and not the fence alone.”
Our ruling
Johnson said Israel cut its illegal immigration rate by “99 percent” by constructing a 143-mile fence along its southern border.
Israeli government data support Johnson’s statement. However, experts say the fence alone is not responsible for the dramatic decrease in illegal immigration, policies have also deterred illegal border crossings. Border security experts also caution about comparing Israel and the United States’ southern borders — the U.S.-Mexico border is much longer than the Israel-Egypt border, terrain conditions are different and more agents would be needed to monitor the U.S. border.
Johnson’s statement is accurate, but needs additional information. We rate it Mostly True.
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Remaking UNRWA. (See 1 and 1a below.)+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The number two man at The FBI, Andrew McCabe, was removed yesterday for inappropriate behaviour regarding his wife receiving campaign funds from a close Clinton supporter while he was "investigating" Hillary and her shenanigans.
"Shifty" Schiff, who believes Americans are not smart enough to understand the 4 page Memo, Intelligence Committee Republicans voted to release, is outraged. Schiff maintains, Republicans are trying to undercut the Mueller investigation and besmirch both The FBI as well as Obama's Justice Department. What I suspect we will learn are three things:
a) Did the Judge, who issued the FISA warrants, have the full facts on which to base his decision or were facts purposely withheld so Obama's FBI could track Trump officials etc.
b) When agency bureaucrats have power their ability to do harm, regarding the rule of law, hangs by a thin thread and if they allow politics to dictate their judgement and actions we all suffer, as do their agencies.
It appears, the Clinton's paid for information sourced by a former British "spook" to craft fake information which was then given to The FBI which was used, without verifying the source, to gain FISA Warrants allowing them to pursue Trump Associates, Also, the Clinton's apparently had a lawyer pay for this "Dossier" which may have violated Campaign Laws.
c) I would not be surprised if Obama's hand was also involved and/or he knew what was going on because he politicized the FBI and Justice Depatment
When the memo is finally released, Americans will be able to make their own minds up but they will also have to cut through the political back and forth of conflicting claims by Representatives Schiff and Nunnes.
The Swamp is very thick and deep.
Illegal immigrants must really have it bad if they want to come to a country that is run by idiots, presided over by a president who did not give a fig about our Constitution and whose foreign policy failures allowed a dictator to kill millions of his citizens, many by gas, and then looked the other way and lied about shipping billions of cash, in the dark of night, to a nation that wants to destroy us.. Perhaps Trump was actually talking about America when he referred to other s------- nations in a vulgar manner.
And:
As for The Mueller Investigation, I have no doubt he will be thorough but, because of his own personnel selections (two of whom he has fired), he has tainted himself. Second, even if he finds Trump had business relations, borrowed money from unsavory Russians, it seems to me Mueller is in search of a crime which borders on a witch hunt because the Clinton's were obviously seeking to smear Trump. There is nothing new about the Clinton's being involved in low life tactics, lying, and you name it. Everything they touch, including all of Bill's women, paid a price. Even Hillary's former law partner, who paid the ultimate price, died while still holding the gun he , allegedly, shot himself with or so it has been claimed.
Finally:
These are reprints from Watchdog about how the mass media and Hollywooder types etc.idolized and sickly protected Sen. Ted Kennedy, his brother and always those they idolize:
"[One wonders what] Mary Jo Kopechne would have had to say about Ted's death, and what she'd have thought of the life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded. Who knows -maybe she'd feel it [her death] was worth it." Melissa Lafsky, Huffington Post, 8/27/'09
"It's policy. Teddy Kennedy.
Remember Chappquiddick? ... A girl drowns and he abandons her and, and women still voted for Teddy Kennedy. Why? because he voted for women's rights. That's why. That's the bottom line of it in my opinion." Joy Behar, ABC's The View, 1/5/'16.
No wonder down to earth Americans are sickened by the mass media and no longer trust the "fourth estate."
Trump's diatribes against the press may not be PC for those who hate him but he has every right to speak out against their contrivances and efforts to paint him as a racist etc. Mark Streeter, a cartoonist for our local paper, is at the front of the hate Trump line. He recently appeared, I am told, at a meeting of The Abigails and unloaded on him and the audience ate it up.
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Dick
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1)Rather than helping to resolve the Palestinian refugee issue peacefully, the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) actually works to prolong it and promote violence. On January 16, President Trump announced that the US would donate only $60 million out of an expected $125 million to UNRWA, and has been threatening to end support for it. While reducing funding to UNRWA, these cutbacks do not go far enough in reforming the organization that has done so much to prolong the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
UNRWA History and Problems
First a little background. Approximately 700,000 Arabs fled from their homes in what became the state of Israel during its war of independence. In 1949, the UN established UNRWA to provide assistance to Palestinian refugees. It currently has over 30,000 employees, most of whom are Palestinian.
Subsequently, in 1950 the UN established the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This organization is responsible for – well, all refugees in the world except Palestinian refugees. According to its own figures, UNHCR has a staff of 10,966 working in 130 countries assisting 17.2 million people.
Strangely, over time the number of Palestinian refugees has increased rather than decreased. As of 2017, UNRWA recognized over 5.3 million Palestinian refugees, a sevenfold increase since 1949.
The reason is that Palestinian refugees are defined differently from all other refugees on the planet. Adopting the definition of the 1951 Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, UNHCR defines refugees as “people fleeing conflict or persecution.” But UNRWA’s also serves “descendants of Palestine refugee males, including adopted children.” So over time, even as the number of Palestinians who actually fled from the Palestine Mandate has decreased, the number of people labeled as Palestinian refugees has ballooned.
Another difference between the two organizations: UNHCR’s mandate is to resolve refugee crises, as by assisting to integrate refugees into their host country or to resettle them in another country. That is not one of UNRWA’s objectives; on the contrary, it has resisted resettlement efforts.
Notably, the Palestinian Authority has likewise worked to prolong the refugee “crisis.” Since Oslo, it has obstructed efforts to eliminate refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank.
At present, UNRWA educates 515,260 schoolchildren, who are the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of people who actually left their homes. 311,071 of these are in Gaza and the West Bank. UNRWA spent $760 million, or roughly two-thirds of its budget, on education in 2017. It also provides social services to 294,152 people and health care to 3.1 million.
In providing these services, UNRWA has become a partisan against Israel, promoting and aiding terrorism. Its educational texts demonize Jews, ignore or belittle Israel’s side of the conflict, and endorse violence. It has employed terrorists to fill high-level positions. And, its educational and medical facilities have been used to store Hamas arms caches and a booby-trapped tunnel entrance.
Proposal
Given UNRWA’s background and the dysfunctional role it currently plays, reducing or even eliminating it would be a salutary objective. What follows is a proposal to leverage the UNRWA budget cuts into a constructive framework.
President Trump should announce that the U.S. will not make any further donations or offer support of any kind to UNRWA, but will consider giving the balance of the money to UNHCR, under the following conditions:
1) That UNRWA hand over all of its responsibilities to UNHCR and close up shop, completely and permanently.
1a) Beyond the Money: A Modest Proposal to Remake UNRWA
By Johanna Markind
That UNHCR bring in its own personnel at least at the managerial level, and commit to ending all cooperation with terrorists. (e.g. by employing Hamas personnel and allowing Hamas to store weapons and tunnel entrances in its facilities.)
3) That UNHCR identify who/how many of the people registered as eligible for UNRWA services actually meet UNHCR’s definition of refugees. Only the latter would be eligible for services/aid from UNHCR.
4) That UNHCR review all educational materials and revise/remove anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda from them.
5) That UNHCR prepare a written plan to integrate Palestinian refugees into their host countries and/or resettle them in another country outside of the conflict zone.
UNHCR must assume responsibility from UNRWA and take serious steps showing it has at least begun to fulfill each of the other conditions before any funding is restored (or, rather, given to UNHCR in the first instance.)
This proposal would eliminate a player obstructing resolution of the refugee issue. It would promote fairness among refugees by applying the same definitional rules and apportioning the same financial resources to Palestinian refugees that apply to every other refugee on the planet, including those from Syria, Iraq, and Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.
By taking the initiative and demanding positive action from UNHCR to define and treat Palestinian refugees exactly like all other refugees, no more and no less, the U.S. will seize the moral high ground. Objections by the United Nations and European nations, which predictably opposed Trump’s UNRWA cuts, will ring ever more hollow. It will also provide a face-saving means for other Arab countries to offer little more than token opposition. Not only do they want Israel’s support against Iranian expansionism, and not only are they tired of Palestinian rejectionism, but they also have many other Arab refugees to deal with and a region in desperate need of the stabilization that only a permanent resolution can provide.
It would also focus attention on the reality that there are very few Palestinian refugees today, and push the narrative toward a resolution within the same framework governing other refugee problems – generally, integration and resettlement. There are 5.5 million Syrian refugees; the UN, European Union, Arab League, and media who lobby so persistently to “return” Palestinian “refugees” to Israel are not clamoring to return Syrian refugees to Syria. After World War II, Germany resettled 12 million ethnic Germans expelled from Eastern Europe. Israel resettled most of the 850,000 Jews expelled from Arab lands and Iran after Israel was established. There is no reason why actual Palestinian refugees and their descendants could not be resettled in the Palestinian territories, or integrated into Lebanon, Jordan, and other places in which they reside.
Perhaps most importantly, these changes would pressure the Palestinian Authority to act like a true government, instead of a perennial troublemaker. Under the above proposal, the UN would (properly) stop providing services like education, social services, and health care to non-refugees, who will look to the PA to fill this role. The PA has focused on prolonging its conflict with Israel rather than building effective governing institutions. It can do this, because others (including UNRWA) provided services the PA should have but did not. The PA will likely try to continue dodging responsibility and point the finger of blame at Israel, the U.S., and the UN, but that does not mean it will succeed in doing so. As recent Iranian protests demonstrate, even oppressed and ideologically propagandized populations eventually tire of being exploited to finance their governments’ self-serving ambitions.
The PA has refused to negotiate in good faith, while maintaining maximalist positions demanding a “right of return” for “refugees,” and refusing to agree to a permanent border that accepts Israel in Jerusalem or anywhere else. Meanwhile, it has kept 5 million plus refugees and their descendants in limbo.
Trump recently pushed back against the Palestinian refusal to compromise by recognizing the reality that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital – a recognition that did not actually prejudice Palestinian claims to part of the city, only Palestinian claims to all of it. By pressuring the UN to work toward ending the refugee issue under the same standards it applies to other refugee conflicts, Trump would apply a counterweight against Palestinian rejectionism and promote resolution of the conflict.
Johanna Markind is an attorney who writes about anti-Semitism, radical Islam, and criminal law. She previously worked for the U.S. Department of Justice and the Middle East Forum
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