Many Americans are safer because their police departments have benefitted from training in Israel. Unfortunately, BDSers (shorthand for anti-Israel fanatics who are more interested in defaming and delegitimizing Israel than in the welfare of the Palestinian Arabs and even the safety of the American people) have managed to convince some police departments to back away from gaining valuable, life-saving knowledge.
Recently, the police chief of Wayland, a town adjacent to the one in which I live when I'm in the United States, resisted pressure from these haters and was publicly criticized for it in a letter published in the MetroWest Daily News. The following letter was sent in response, with the suggested title "Wayland residents will benefit from Israel's expertise."
To the editor:
A few days ago, Israel destroyed a tunnel Hezbollah had dug into Israel from Lebanon, a tunnel intended to be used to send hoards of well-armed Hezbollah fighters into Israel to terrorize the people living in the Galilee. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has more than 10,000 military personnel in southern Lebanon, with the mandate to make sure the area is free of other non-government forces, but they were unable to discover that tunnel, or the others Hezbollah has built. Yet Israel, without even having the on-site presence, was able to use its expertise and ingenuity to discover that tunnel and destroy it. Nor has UNIFIL been able to prevent Hezbollah, with generous financial assistance from Iran, much of it thanks to the nuclear deal (JCPOA), from installing an estimated 150,000 rockets and missiles in southern Lebanon. Yet Israel not only knows those missiles are there, but also knows where most of them are sited.
A few weeks ago, Hamas and other terror groups based in Gaza fired 460 rockets and missiles into Israel in the course of a single day. Thanks to the advanced defensive measures Israel has created, such as bomb shelters in every home and the innovative Iron Dome missile defense system, whose development and deployment has been helped by generous American financial assistance, only one person - ironically, a Palestinian Arab who lives in Hebron but defied BDS to obtain gainful employment in Israel - was killed.
The terror doesn't just come from Gaza and Lebanon; it also comes from the Palestinian Authority-controlled Areas A and B of the territory Jordan renamed the "West Bank" after capturing it militarily in 1948. More than 500 terror attacks have been thwarted in the past year.
Israel's expertise in defending against terror attacks is unequaled. This expertise comes out of necessity. Not only has Israel had to constantly defend against terror attacks since its reestablishment seven decades ago, but the Jews in what was then called Palestine were subject to incessant terror attacks for decades before that. Virtually ever new terror tactic is first used against Israeli Jews.
On December 3, the MetroWest Daily News reported that the Wayland police chief, Patrick Swanick, was traveling to Israel to take advantage of the hard-earned expertise of Israelis. I'm proud that my Israeli brethren are willing to share their lifesaving knowledge. I'm grateful that my American compatriots will also be able to benefit from that knowledge.
I thus strongly disagree with the opinions Mark Golden expressed in his December 6 letter, parroting the lies and distortions of those dedicated to the destruction of the world's only Jewish state, preferring to risk the safety of the people of Wayland rather than taking advantage of the knowledge gained by the only democracy in the Middle East.
Sincerely,
Alan Stein
Netanya, Israel and Natick, Massachusetts
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