The Wall

In 2002, the Israeli government began building a 419 mile long wall, which winds around and through the West Bank, in order to separate it from Israel as well as Jewish Settlements in the West Bank. About 95% of the wall is a 16 ft tall barbed wire fencing with a concrete base. The other 5% is a 26 ft tall concrete wall spotted with guard towers (meant to protect Israelis from gunfire.) On both sides of the wall, rolls of razor wires have been placed and a 13 ft deep ditch has been dug to keep pedestrians and vehicles from crossing. It has also separated many Palestinians from their communities, schools, hospitals, and mosques as wells as places of work. In the current plan, 10,000 Palestinians are on the Israeli side of the wall.

The wall has become known as the "separation fence" (geder ha'hafrada in Hebrew) to many Israelis and "racial segregation wall" (jidar al-fasl al-'unsuri in Arabic) to many Palestinians.

The United Nations highest court, in 2004, found the barrier to be illegal and ordered it to be dismantled. The Israeli government, rejecting the UN's order, claims that it is vital in protecting Israeli Jews from terrorist attacks and pointing to the UN decision as "one-sided, highly politicized and biased." However most of the terrorist/freedom fighters, who attempted (successfully and unsuccessfully) to attack Israeli Jews, came from the Gaza Strip and not the West Bank. It should be noted, that there have been instances where Jewish Israelis have engaged in terrorism by attacking Arab Israelis.

Both the Israeli government and members of terrorist/freedom fighter organizations (like Islamic Jihad) are in agreement that since the government began construction of the West Bank wall there has been a drastic decrease in the number of suicide attacks in Israel. Members of Islamic Jihad have said openly that it is much harder to infiltrate into Israel.

Some have questioned if the wall will set the new boundary, between Israel and the West Bank, which the Knesset, Israel’s legislative body, plans to draw before 2010, in conjunction with plans to continue disengagement. The Knesset has rejected these claims.

The first stage of disengagement took place over this previous summer with the evacuation of five thousand Israelis from Jewish settlements, in the Gaza Strip. The second stage will remove some 250,000 Israelis from the West Bank, in order to establish a larger Jewish majority in the Knesset as well as to full fill an agreement that was made with Hamas last year. In the agreement, Hamas promised to a cease fire with Israel; a promise which the new political party has kept.

In 1994, the Israeli government built a wall around the Gaza Strip, but the wall was built along the border and did not invade on Palestinian land making it far less controversial then the West Bank wall.

The question, on the table, is: is Israel justified in building this wall (which is about thirty percent complete) in order for the protection of its Israeli citizens, but at the same time restricting the rights of those peoples who reside in the West Bank?