Israel, a Country with Security Walls or Partitioned Walls

This blog is a continuation of the recent entry on the Tour of Israel in late May to early June 2014 (Read here). 

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Recently, someone in the BibleLandWalkThrough webinar asked whether it's safe to visit Israel when the country is at war.

Israel, since the establishment of the nation in 1948 has been at wars, either with the neighboring countries or engaged in armed conflicts with Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Israel made the greatest gain in the Six-Day War in June 1967 when they captured big swathe of land - the Golan Height from Syria, Sinai Peninsular from Egypt, West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan. In exchange for peace with Egypt, Sinai Peninsular was returned to Egypt in 1982. In 1981, Golan Heights was annexed by Israel. In 1980, East Jerusalem was annexed and the whole Jerusalem was declared as the undivided eternal capital of Israel. The annexations however are not recognized by many nations.

During our visit to Israel in May/June 2014, we saw Israel Defense Forces patrolling in many parts of the country. Our tour bus was scanned thoroughly by security personnel before permitted to enter from Jordan to Israelite territory. The country appeared to be in the midst of a war. 

We saw many high concrete walls and barb-wired fence erected in many places of Israel, especially closed to Palestinians-populated areas. These walls were erected in response to the uprisings of Palestinians against Israelite rule, universally referred to as the Intifada. Since 2002, more than 700Km of these concrete walls have been built. To the Jews, these walls are security walls to protect them from unprovoked attacks from the Palestinians. To the Palestinians, these are separation walls that restrict their free movements, cut them off from social services, schools and farms.

The walls will always be controversial as long as they are in place!

Barb-wired fence seen on the way to the Dead Sea which is in Palestinian-governed West Bank.

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As a side note, many thought that concrete partitioned wall would be a thing of the past after the Berlin Wall was demolished in 1990. Berlin Wall built in 1961 used to separate Berlin into East Berlin and West Berlin. The Berlin Wall finally "fell" upon the reunification of East and West Germany on 3 October 1990.

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In 2014, we were part of  the 3.25 million visitors to Israel. In 2019, 4.9 million visitors visited Israel just before the global Covid pandemic struck in early 2020. 

War or no war, tourists arrivals to Israel will never cease! After all, this is the promised land of God!