Shiloh, Israel mayor says walls work

David Rubin, the former mayor of Shiloh, Israel (a city in the region of Samaria, which together with Judea, is recognized by many nations as the West Bank) has a message for American politicians arguing over President Trump’s demands for a border wall: That walls do, in fact, work.

Rubin, the author of Trump and the Jews and founder of the Shiloh Israel Children’s Fund, speaks from experience. A wall made of steel, concrete, and barbed wire, and equipped with high-tech sensors, stands between the West Bank area and Israel to keep terrorists away from Israeli cities.

Much like the proposed American border wall, this wall has been hotly contested between Israelis and Palestinians (with Palestinians claiming that it is a wall of segregation), but Rubin said that the facts do not lie — the wall has saved lives.

“That wall cut down on the terrorism in Israel’s major population centers by about 95 percent,” he said. “So it’s been extremely effective.”

Another steel wall runs along Israel’s southern border, separating Egypt from Israel. This wall, however, was less about terrorism and more about keeping out what Rubin calls “economic migrants.”

“That wall was built after two years (2010 – 2012) of very intense illegal immigration from the Sudan and from Eritrea,” Rubin explained.

He said that this two-year period brought about 55,000 illegal immigrants — quite substantial for a country the size of New Jersey. Rubin noted that crime rates increased after they began entering the country.

However, “within a year after it was built, only 11 illegal immigrants came in,” he said. In 2017, he said, no illegal immigrants entered the southern border.

“It’s been incredibly successful,” he said. “We’re talking about two walls that work.”

When it comes to America’s wall debate, Rubin wants members of Congress to “look at the objective reality” and the facts, rather than making the conversation about political mudslinging.

“I would suggest that the members of Congress on both sides of the aisle take a deep breath and sit down,” he said. “And if they really want to solve the problem — I hope that the Democrats are also willing to sit down and stop playing politics, stop the name-calling.”

The non-biased facts about the success of border walls need to be presented to the American people, Rubin said, so that they are not just hearing insults and accusations of racism.

“If it’s clear to the public what the facts are, and it’s clear to the public that all it is is just that they’re playing politics, then it’s going to hurt them in the polls,” he said.

Those opposed to the border wall decry it as a racist symbol that is meant to keep America white. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) famously compared migrants from Central America to Jewish families escaping the Nazis.

Rubin, however, called the metaphor with Holocaust survivors “absolutely obscene,” and suggested she “read a little bit of history.”

“Everyone knows that the Jews that were escaping the Holocaust were asylum seekers, and were genuine asylum seekers, and deserved to be asylum seekers, and deserved to be let in,” he said. “But you’re talking about the migrants on the southern border who are coming strictly for economic reasons or drug-dealing reasons.”