Mark Souder: “I am so sick and tired of listening to the whining about this fence and walls in Israel. First, when I heard the…”

“I am so sick and tired of listening to the whining about this fence and walls in Israel. First, when I heard the complaining about the wall in Israel, I wondered whether they were complaining about the wall around Jerusalem itself. Walls and fences in the Middle East are as historic as the land itself. I was just in Germany, and in pretty much every city they have a castle or a walled fort. That is true all over Europe, Austria, and other places. Walls and fences have been there historically, and they were not to keep people from leaving. They were to keep people from getting in. They were built in areas where there were disputed territories, or they would not have needed a wall if people were not going to attack them. In Rome, we see all sorts of walls in different parts of the Roman Empire. It is a historic tradition in Europe. And, of course, there is the Great Wall of China that goes for thousands of miles and is fairly famous. When we look at our own country, let us say the border with Mexico where we have a fence that goes along the border with Mexico, or let us say gated neighborhoods in the United States, are we suddenly going to ban gated neighborhoods? Is the rule when we want to put a fence around our yard or security system at our house in order to keep people from intruding, are we going to say suddenly we need to unlock our doors and we can put no fences up in our own yards?”