The Wall

I was serious about taking you through the end of the program, so we've still got some traveling to do. Galilee is still coming, but I'm trying to keep things in order.

This is the separation wall, just a few miles from the Jerusalem Center. It is being built along the border of the West Bank and Israel by the Israeli government under the pretext of preventing terrorist attacks. Most of it is actually a fence surrounded by fine sand (to show footprints) but it is a wall in the urban areas.

These are the kind of terrorists they're trying to keep out.

This gas station no longer gets any business because the wall was built right next to it, cutting off the main road and thus all of their customers. That is just one example of the effects of the wall. We talked to people who couldn't go to weddings of family members, who now have to travel 45 minutes instead of 5 to get their kids to school, who walk to work so they don't have to deal with cars at the checkpoints, who have been humiliated and beaten by soldiers, who have not been allowed through checkpoints and have missed church, doctor's appointments, etc. etc.

"Welcome to the Ghetto Wall of Tears" I think the graffiti shows how people feel about the wall. It is supposed to be built along the 'green line'-- the line drawn after the 1967 war establishing the borders between West Bank and Israel, but the border is unclear so the wall conveniently goes around Jewish settlements which are continuing to grow and important monuments and historical sites and the such. It is cutting out a lot of area from West Bank and solidifying the borders in ways that seem to hurt the Palestinians, but they're powerless to stop it. I'm not taking sides here, just pointing out some facts that the media tends to leave out.
I'm not taking sides here, just pointing out some facts that the media tends to leave out.