Education Quote by Charles Schumer

“As long as” does a lot of moral engineering here. Schumer frames the conflict as a single-direction pipeline: Palestinians produce terror; Israel responds with infrastructure. It’s a structure that sounds conditional and pragmatic, but it quietly hardens into inevitability. If the premise is permanent, the “no choice” becomes permanent too.

The phrase “send terrorists” is especially loaded. It doesn’t just condemn attackers; it implies a coherent Palestinian agency dispatching violence like a policy memo, collapsing distinctions between militant groups, a fragmented leadership, and a civilian population. That rhetorical compression matters politically: it turns a security argument into a justification that can travel easily through American media and congressional talking points.

Then come the chosen images: “school buses” and “nightclubs.” They’re not accidental. They are iconic sites of ordinary life, places where innocence and leisure are supposed to be safe. Invoking them recruits the listener’s gut before their brain, anchoring the fence in the language of child protection and public safety rather than in disputes over borders, land, or rights.

Context sharpens the intent. In the wake of the Second Intifada, Israeli suicide bombings were a dominant American news frame, and the separation barrier was marketed as a life-saving measure. Schumer’s line is tailored to that moment: it offers pro-Israel clarity, sidesteps the fence’s contested route and humanitarian impact, and translates a complex conflict into a binary suitable for U.S. domestic politics. The subtext is a warning: challenge the fence, and you sound like you’re excusing the bombings.