The Green Line and the Security Fence:

38
In September 2000, a new round of Palestinian terrorist suicide attacks interrupted the lull
of the late 1990s. 39 The idea of constructing the Security Fence finally appeared on the
agenda in 2001. This is signaled by the reduction of the coefficient before the DGL, but
Ariel Sharon, then representing the Right, still got twice as many votes as Barak, on the
Left. Only the blind could miss the P-factor, but it would be important to check the
consistency of the coefficient before the DGL: (-3/DGL % per 1 km) with a reliable set of
control parameters.
Though by the next elections on January 28, 2003, the Security Fence had not yet been
completed, its construction was underway, supported by the entire Israeli political
spectrum. 40
A feeling of increased security guaranteed another sweeping victory for
Sharon. Again, the importance of the P-factor would be of interest. We predict the
discovery of a drop of significance of the P-factor in the 2003 elections, and its possible
disappearance in the latest, March 2006 elections True, a more refined analysis might be
needed here, since the 2003 and 2006 elections lacked a major ingredient of our analysis,
the two-ballot system. 41
The relevance of the “distance” parameter we have introduced here for the general
political or sociological discourse can be tested in the elections of countries where two
rival populations live in clearly defined areas, such as the French-speaking vs. the
English-speaking in Canada, or the Flemish and Walloons in Belgium.
Notes 42
∗ Corresponding author. E-mail belenka@mail.biu.ac.il