The official government justification for the construction of the West Bank barrier is that it was a security measure necessitated by an increase in Palestinian terrorism during the Second Intifada. There are many challenges to this narrative, however. The slow pace of construction on the barrier over five years before its eventual abandonment in 2007 calls into question the sense of urgency one would expect from a project intended to address an immediate and intense physical security threat. Most notably, the long, winding route of the barrier and its path over strategically problematic terrain further complicate the state’s security routines and raise questions about how exactly such a route serves Israel’s security needs. This study uses discourse analysis to answer the following question: Given the high monetary and reputational costs and the added complication to physical security routines, why did Israel choose to erect the West Bank barrier? This study analyzes 63 texts, comprised of 7 interviews, 8 government reports, 41 news articles and op-eds, and 7 political speeches from the Second Intifada years (2000-2005), focusing analysis on the discursive construction of Palestinian violence and the decision to construct the West Bank barrier. The results of this study suggest that, while the physical security threat posed by the violence of the Second Intifada necessitated a physical security response, the violence of the Second Intifada, and Israel’s initial response to it, threatened three of the state’s identities: the security-seeking state identity, the Jewish national identity, and the democratic identity. This ontological security crisis made the West Bank barrier, a policy option that had been rejected from the time of Yitzhak Rabin, palatable.