ZGram - 6/23/2202 - "Making lemonade from lemons"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGRAM - WHERE TRUTH IS DESTINY

JUNE 23, 2002

GOOD MORNING FROM THE ZUNDELSITE:

Yesterday, I told you about the building of the Israeli Wall.  You 
won't believe what follows:

[START]

Israel touts West Bank border fence in military trade show
Wed Jun 19, 9:39 PM ET

By JIM KRANE, AP Technology Writer

NEW YORK - Even as opponents decry the security fence Israel is 
building along 215 miles (345 kilometers) of the West Bank, Israeli 
firms are marketing the high-tech barrier as a potential solution for 
other countries' border problems.

The fence, which Israeli officials say is intended to block suicide 
bombers, is actually a sophisticated system of sensors, balloons, 
thermal imaging cameras and unmanned spy planes that keep watch for 
surreptitious incursions.

The same system is already in use on Israel's northern border with 
Lebanon, said Kuti Mor, deputy director general of Israel's Ministry 
of Defense.

For the first time, Israel's military is offering the security 
technology suite for sale at this week's Eurosatory military trade 
show in Paris, Mor said.

On a Ministry of Defense Web site, Israel credits the system as 
halting "over 80 percent of all planned attacks" emanating from 
Lebanon.

The border security system integrates an electronic fence and ground 
sensors for intrusion detection along with radar-equipped observation 
towers and aerial surveillance from balloons and unmanned spy planes.

Radar and cameras peer into Lebanon and are able to pick out people 
approaching the border - even at night, said Yossi Draznin, a 
Washington-based representative of Israel's Defense Ministry.

The Web site says all the elements are integrated in a command and 
control center with real-time data displays. The fence itself is 
sensitive to the touch, and sends an electronic warning to a command 
center even when approached, Draznin said.

"The intention is to know even if someone is approaching the fence, 
not waiting for him to cut the fence," he said.

On Sunday, Israel began building a fence that roughly follows the 
so-called Green Line, Israel's frontier before it seized the West 
Bank in the 1967 Mideast war.

Draznin said the cost of the fence approaches dlrs 2 million per 
mile. The system's individual elements aren't new, but the combined 
network and control room had never previously been marketed as a 
single border security solution, Mor said.

More than a dozen Israeli defense companies are exhibiting wares at 
the Paris show, the world's largest land-based defense exhibition.

___

( Source: 
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020620/ap_wo_en_po/israel_border_tech_2&printer=1 
)