“Israeli bulldozers began work today on a controversial project to erect a fence and sophisticated security system along the entire length of the West Bank in an attempt to seal off the Palestinian-controlled territory from Israel following a series of suicide bomb attacks,” The Washington Post reports.

The project, which has been discussed for years, has come under fire from both Israelis and Palestinians for a variety of political, religious, economic and social reasons. But it has drawn many new advocates — including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon — and gained wider popularity in recent months following suicide bombings that have killed dozens of Israelis and terrorized urban areas across the country.

Yeah, funny how when your hateful neighbors keep showing up at your pool parties uninvited and covered in Semtex in order to blow themselves up in the buffet line — killing many of your guests and getting chunks of gore into Aunt Ruth’s famous potato salad (her secret? Raisins!) — you come to recognize the need for a strong fence and some mean-ass watchdogs to patrol within pissing distance of your yard’s perimeter.

Israeli officials say that they hope the proposed security fence separating the West Bank from Israel will be as effective in curbing suicide bombers as the tough security measures around the Gaza Strip have been in blocking such attacks from that region. About 70 suicide bombings have occurred in the last 20 months, and almost all have been traced to the West Bank, which lies along a porous border with Israel. The Gaza Strip, a coastal zone with the Mediterranean Sea on one side, is bordered on the other by fences and Israeli patrols, effectively sealing it off from Israel.

[…] Palestinians say the fence would restrict their freedom of movement, blocking them from commuting to jobs while physically dividing some towns and splitting families. They also say much of the fence would be built on large tracts of land seized from Palestinians. They fear the fence could potentially finalize a border that is supposed to be decided through negotiations.

Yes. You negotiated with exploding Arabs and polls calling for Israel’s demise, with antisemitic indoctrination and a remarkable history of bad faith and prevarication. Israel’s counter-offer is to negotiate with concrete and barbed wire and armed sentinels.

In a related story, FOXNews is reporting that “Yasser Arafat blasted U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on Monday for comments condemning his Palestinian Authority, saying she has no right to dictate to Palestinians how their future state should look.”

Arafat’s comments came shortly after a Palestinian blew himself up in Israeli territory near the West Bank, killing only himself. Israeli officials, who have begun building a controversial electronic fence to keep suicide bombers out, also said planning would begin this month to extend the fence the length of the West Bank.

[…] Arafat has been under U.S. and Israeli pressure to curb attacks on Israel, and both nations have begun urging changes to the Palestinian Authority. Israel wants Arafat sidelined. The United States has been openly critical of the Palestinian leader, but has stopped short of demanding that Arafat be replaced.

Rice, in an interview with The Mercury News of San Jose, Calif., said a Palestinian state should not be based on Arafat’s Palestinian Authority, which she said was ‘corrupt and cavorts with terror.’

Asked about the Rice comment, Arafat said Monday that ‘she does not have the right to put or impose orders on us about what to do or not to do.’

‘We are doing what we see as good for our people and we do not accept any orders from anyone,’ Arafat said while touring schools in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Yeah, it’s worked out brilliantly for your people, Yasser…

Dissatisfaction with Arafat’s ability to rein in militants has bolstered the calls of Israelis who advocate fencing off the West Bank — an idea opposed by right-wing Israelis and Palestinians.

The incident occurred one day after Israel began construction of a fence along one-third of the so-called Green Line, Israel’s frontier before it captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war.

Israeli settlers in the West Bank and their supporters in the right-wing parties in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s coalition maintain the fence is a prelude to an Israeli withdrawal to the Green Line. Palestinians fear the fence only further carves up West Bank land they hope one day will make up their state.

‘This is a fascist, apartheid measure being done, and we do not accept it,’ Arafat said of the fence. ‘We will continue rejecting it by all means.’

Huh? So those who don’t allow you to kill them because of their Jewishness are racists? Hmm. Might be time to loosen the old headbib a little, Chairmen — let the blood circulate more freely around your brain.

Might even keep your eyes from bulging so frighteningly.

*The No-pig pen in the title refers to the shunning of pork. That’s all. Nothing “racist” about it. ‘K?