Observable Security/ Self Assessment

When I was growing up, I watched ‘The Wild Thornberry’s’ and ‘Indiana Jones’. I always thought that Nigel Thornberry and Indy were the most brilliant and perpetually optimistic characters ever put to thought. I mean, how captivating would it be to travel across seas to foreign lands all for the sake of exploration and discovery? Danger and adventure for the pursuit of knowledge; it all seemed like a fantasy but none the less all the more aspiring to live a similar life. So I dreamt that one day I’d be the one making the great journey and crossing the unknown void. I’m a ranch hand by trade but I know the ins and outs of what it means to be an adventurer. I learned from my father the importance of caring for the world we live in, while also being able to appreciate the absolute beauty it has to offer. Paired with the tenacity to live better stories, I was ready to discover what this world really has to offer. After receiving my Magellan Scholarship, I was overwhelmed with emotion and inspiration to live the lives of the heroes I grew up with. However, what I discovered along the way was that I was my own adventurer, and I didn’t accomplish my initial agenda, but I did take the road that was less traveled.

My Magellan Project initially was simple: travel to Israel, take photos of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, travel back to the United States. What I discovered on my arrival to Jerusalem was very obvious; nobody was fighting. I struggled to understand how the media could portray the country as though it was falling apart, while here I was standing in the center of a very hot, arid, but extremely hospitable city. I tried to understand how all of this could be and the longer I stayed within the city, the more clearly apparent, and extremely familiar, it all became. As a contracted ROTC Cadet at Washington and Jefferson College, I’ve pledged to serve the United States of America as a U.S. Army Officer for 8 years. Being situationally aware is part of the career, and once I familiarized my surroundings, I soon found that maybe there was a war going on here after all.

I looked at the country as though I was conducting a military operation and soon I found myself changing my assignment to a security studies analysis. I examined how the observable Israeli security and military presence effect the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and how it also effects the culture in whole. Every citizen, from the ages of 18-22, is required to give service back to the country, whether that be through the Israeli Defense Force or through the Israeli Police Force. That, when applied, creates a culture of omniscient security. Each citizen, being a defender of his or her nation, is trained and knowledgeable in military combative, tactics, and operations. These citizens are trained to look for suspicious individuals and unusual behavior. Since the inception of the state in 1948, the people of Israel have consistently been under the threat, brought to the brink of, or at war with foreign nations or international and domestic terrorist organizations. In a sense, when you grow up in a society that’s culture itself is structured under the principle of being highly defensive, you come to understand, and even sympathize, how and why people live the way they do.

Terrorist cells and networks that operate within the Palestinian territories conduct rocket strikes against highly populated areas in Israel. Israel, in defense of this, has established a complex network of surface to air missile systems known as the ‘Iron Dome’ to counteract these rocket strikes. While traveling through the country, I received alerts for rocket strikes occurring in the surrounding areas. After roughly one month, the total number of strikes against the state was 19, all of which were destroyed before hitting targets by the surface to air missile systems. However, even for how concerning of an issue that was, I never felt that my life was ever in danger. The collective security concerns in the area and networks that are in place and being utilized by the Israeli military and intelligence services, such as Mossad and the Israeli Defense Force, are some of the most advanced systems in the world. Much like the United States with regards to our intelligence and federal investigative teams, the Israeli’s stop about 99.9% of the “traffic” (terrorist threats, plans, and attacks) that could have occurred in a given year; it’s the 0.1% that makes the morning news. However, if you were to go to the Golan Heights in the West Bank and stand on the Mountains bordering Syria, you’d be able to see the black smoke rising from the border towns that are being bombed in the civil war. Now if you find yourself within Palestine, such as Ramallah or Bethlehem, you can find posters presenting local martyrs who have died when trying to combat the Israelis. Of course these men come from radical organizations and terrorist cells within Palestine, because the majority of the Palestinian people believe that it has become counterintuitive to resist the Israelis. Based on modern military history, we can analyze why they might start to fight in the court rather than the streets. Every time the Palestinian Authority, as a state actor not a terrorist organization, launches an attack to combat the Israeli’s, Israel capitalizes on the defense and expands its territory more into the West Bank. It’s become apparent that if the West Bank is split into two separate areas, a two state solution would be obsolete and a one state solution would have to be made. So based on my military analysis, because Israel is seeking a one state solution rather than a two state solution, I would launch an operation, starting in Jerusalem, straight across the West Bank separating it into two territories. This, indefinitely, would achieve Israel’s strategic goals.

 

As for another proposal, Jerusalem should be transitioned into a city state monitored and secured by a international council made up of arbitrators from Israel and Muslim and Christian nations. This would result the removal of a multitude of embassies in the city, but in essence create a sovereign religious state open to Muslims, Jews, and Christians. It’s ironic to believe that Jerusalem is considered the ‘City of Peace’ but has been conquered and reclaimed 31 times since its founding. Making Jerusalem a city state would result in solving one of the many geopolitical problems facing the conflict. I honestly believe that traveling to the state of Israel and being able to sit down over a cup of coffee and discuss the present crisis and issues facing the state with the very citizens who have seen the face of war and the threat of it gave me more insight into the Israeli Palestinian Conflict than any collegiate course could foster.