Trump Says Walls Work: Just Ask «Israel»

Local Editor

When US President Donald Trump vowed to build a "big, beautiful wall" on the US border with Mexico, he apparently didn't have the Berlin Wall or the Great Wall of China in mind.

"Do walls work?" Trump said Wednesday. "Just ask ‘Israel' about walls. ... Just ask ‘Israel'."

With noticeable frequency, Trump appeared to be borrowing from the apartheid "Israeli" entity's security manual - including its construction of what the entity calls a "security barrier" along more than 400 miles of its border with the occupied West Bank.

Palestinians call it an apartheid wall that in many cases divides Palestinian villages.

Furthermore, the "Israeli" entity had also built walls and fences along its southern border with the Egyptian Sinai desert, a virtual no man's land of violence and criminal activity.

Trump suggested other controversial tactics that the entity had embraced in its effort to curtail what it calls "terrorism".

During the presidential campaign, Trump spoke of "going after" the families of the Palestinians and demolishing their homes.

The "Israeli" entity had routinely destroyed the homes of Palestinians who performed the operations, and often jailed their relatives.

Trump had made a point of declaring war on extremism, mincing no words in using the religious label. Ditto for "Israel".

But the most concrete policy alignment is his proposed wall along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico.

"The wall is getting designed right now," Trump told a conference of police chiefs Wednesday in Washington. "And it will be a real wall."

"A lot of people say, ‘Oh, oh, Trump was only kidding with the wall.' I wasn't kidding. I don't kid. I don't kid," he added.

On Tuesday, the new secretary of "Homeland Security", John F. Kelly, told Congress that construction of the wall could take two years and cost billions of dollars.
It will not be possible, Kelly said, to "build a wall everywhere all at once."

Fences and walls already line about 600 miles of the border. Whether more walls will make a difference is unclear; illegal immigration had been declining for years primarily for economic reasons.

Trump insisted that Mexico would pay for the wall, and Mexico repeatedly said it won't. That tiff led Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to cancel a planned visit to Washington last month to meet with Trump.

On Wednesday, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray called on Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Kelly in hopes of improving relations. Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, attended the State Department meeting.

Videgaray told reporters that Peña Nieto had not rescheduled his trip to Washington. But the Mexican diplomat said he and Tillerson would launch a series of working meetings and that Tillerson will visit Mexico City in coming weeks.

Trump's invocation of the "Israeli" entity's counter-terrorist policies had sparked growing concern by security experts and human rights groups.

Moreover, the wall had inflamed tensions and resentment among Palestinians. The barrier, and a series of crowded checkpoints, had added hours to the daily commutes for thousands of Palestinians who live in the besieged West Bank and travel to work on the "Israeli" side.

"Israeli" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had welcomed Trump's election and recently announced the construction of more than 5,000 units in settlements in the occupied West Bank, arrives in Washington next week. He will meet with Trump on Wednesday.

This week, the "Israeli" entity's Knesset passed a law that would allow "Israeli" settlers to retroactively legalize units they built on private Palestinian land.

The law was condemned by the UN and Europe. The Trump administration had not spoken on the issue, although it previously said that expanding current settlements may be an obstacle to a resolution to the "Israeli"-Palestinian conflict.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team