Name: How Israel's Security Failed
Uploaded: 2023-10-31T21:25:24.000Z
Duration: 19 min 21 s
Description: 【看影片學英語】數萬部 YouTube 影片，搭配英漢字典即點即查，輕鬆掌握單字發音與用法，長久累積看電影不必再看字幕。

The most consistent throughline across the Holy Land is war.

From the Maccabean Revolt and the Jewish-Roman Wars, through the Crusades, the Ottoman-Mamluk

War, and all the way to the Israel-Arab and Six-Day Wars, it's been attacked and invaded,

defended and died for, time and time and time again.

The clearest cause as to why, is this: Jerusalem. 

From the perspective of geography, this city shouldn't exist.

Propped upon hills and positioned 30 miles or 48 kilometers from the nearest major body

of water, twenty miles or 32 kilometers away from the nearest major river, and without

a single river of any sort running through it, this city is dry.

Without water, Jerusalem is without a prosperous trading harbor, it's without close proximity

to maritime shipping routes, it's without any real industrial base, it's even without

Within the walls of the old city are populations that represent four separate cultures and

And within these walls are also some of the very holiest sites to the three religions—Christianity,

Islam, and Judaism: the world's two largest, and the oldest monotheistic religion, respectively.

Because of what's said to have happened here, who's said to have passed through

here, and what's been built in their honor here, Jerusalem, sitting high and dry in the

Judean Mountains, has served as the center of the world for three massive, powerful groups

And thus, it's been fought over, often under the guise of religion, but importantly, rarely

solely because of religion—a case where the simplest explanation is not always the

Whether wars of empire building in the past, or state building in the present, religion's

Today, as it has been for nearly a century, it's not three religions, but rather two

nations fighting over the common territory that one group asserts as Palestine and the

After decades of attacks on one another, failed negotiations and peace talks, terrorism, and

outright war, the outlines of the conflict between two nations promised the territory

nearly a century ago looks like this: Israel, a rich, western power controlling all the

land between Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon; and Palestine as just these swaths of land often

mired by shading or striping on maps to designate its status as a mere partially recognized

Despite their shared landscapes, Israel and Palestine are a world apart.

Quality of life in Palestine is considered, according to the UNs human development index,

roughly analogous to that of its neighbors, Egypt and Lebanon.

Israel, meanwhile, almost exactly matches the United States's HDI.

From an income perspective, it's even starker—on a per-person basis, Palestinians earn just

a third of what their neighbors in Egypt and Lebanon do, while Israelis are on average

some of the wealthiest people in the world, bringing in about what South Korean or British

This imbalance of wealth is both a symptom and a cause of the imbalance of power between

the two nations that is now just about as lopsided as it's ever been, making an already

contentious relationship all the more combustible.

In consequence, a number of militant groups have arisen to fight both for an independent

Palestinian state and against the continued contraction of Palestinian land. 

On one side of the walls there is a high-income, developed, westernized, cosmopolitan nation—centered

by one of the wealthiest, most globally interconnected cities in the world.

On the other—mere miles away—are active, growing militant groups with the stated goal

of the destruction of the state of Israel.

In Tel Aviv there are people staying at $500 a night five-star hotels, eating at $100 a

plate fine-dining restaurants, then heading to exclusive nightclubs with globe-spanning

DJs, while just a one-hour drive south there are rocket-laden militants working day and

To maintain this disconnect, Israel has, through the years, developed a sophisticated system

of security to protect its citizens while keeping Palestinian life into the enclaves

While this extends nation-wide, nowhere is this more relevant than with the Hamas-controlled

Gaza is a territory encircled on all sides by security—not just in two directions,

Israel's mission is near-complete control of what goes in and out so that the Israeli

state is entirely isolated from the activities of its captive neighbor.

Above ground it extends some twenty or so feet or six or so meters, then below ground

Following the discovery of a vast network of Hamas tunnels used to infiltrate Israel—and,

in one dramatic case, kidnap a soldier who was then held for ransom—the country spent

five years and a billion dollars building an underground wall of an undisclosed depth

to make it more difficult for Hamas to cross under the border.

As a second layer of protection, they developed a system of sensors to unveil any attempts

Above ground, Israel sets strict rules to keep Gazans, what they consider, a safe distance

away—nobody's allowed within 300 feet or 100 meters of the border; while only farmers

are allowed within 1,000 feet or 300 meters, and only by foot.

On the other side, Israel has a network of guard towers with remote monitoring equipment

like cameras and radar to inform the Israel Defense Forces when an attempted incursion

As perhaps the most dystopian feature of all, Israel has a fleet of remotely-operated, self-driving

machine gun robots that patrol the area, notify the IDF of potential threats, then allow for

remote operation—firing a slew of bullets towards Gaza to maim or kill any targets without

the need for any human soldier to leave their chairs at their base.

While Israel only borders Gaza on its northern and eastern sides, it's exerted at least

a certain degree of control on its southern and western too.

Gaza borders Egypt on the southern side, but for a period of a few decades the Sinai Peninsula

In exchange for its return in 1979, Egypt agreed to build a border with Gaza.

To accomplish this, they split Rafah in half—separating one city into two through its core, separating

Today, movement is only allowed through the Rafah border crossing which closes quickly

whenever Israel-Gaza tensions heat up—Egypt wary to let a deluge of refugees in, partially

given the impact the depopulation of Gaza would have on the Palestinian mission of statehood

On its western side, the territory of Gaza borders the Mediterranean Sea but, unlike

almost every other territory in the world, it does not control its own coast—Israel

The country forms a box around a slice of the sea and allows a select number of Gazans

to fish in it, but no more—the Israeli Navy patrols and prevents any ships from going