We got an email from someone who said the following:

"Hi, I just saw your blog. I'm an Israeli living in Ramat Gan.

My justification for the security fence is that it stops terrorists from exploding themselves together with our children in Israel proper, and it has success cause until the hudna it stopped 80% of all of those attempts.

Why don't all of you take care of that not happening anymore, so I can change my views about the (human) legality of that fence.

Thanks in advance for the answer"

Without going into how exactly the Wall has stopped 80% of attacks on Israel ‘proper’, (if you say so), let’s look at what is Israel ‘proper’ in the first place – the Wall (let’s not get into whether it should be called a fence or not either) is not about security at all. Why else is it being built so deep inside the West Bank? This is a new method of stealing Palestinian land to be used for expanding the illegal settlements.



In the photo above you can see the hill that used to be visible from Bethlehem before 1997. On the other side of the hill is Jerusalem.



In this second photo you can see the monstrosity that is ‘Har Homa’ as it was in 2001. All of this is built inside Palestinian West Bank, inside the so called Green Line.

More photos of Har Homa Settlement as it was being built (and it’s still expanding).

And guess what? IMEMC news reported just last week that ARIJ have found out that Israel plans to build a new settlement on Beit Sahour's land:

Dr. Jad Isaac, head of the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem said on Wednesday that Israel is planning to build a new Jewish settlement on the land of the West Bank town of Beit Sahour east of Bethlehem.

Dr. Isaac's comment came in a meeting organized by the municipality of Beit Sahour and the Ministry of Local Governments in the Palestinian Authority with the residents of the lands threatened to be confiscated for the settlement to be built on.

He urged the land owners to provide the municipality with their land deeds so that the lawyer can act and try to stop the confiscation.

The land projected for confiscation is 3666 Dunams (916 acres) where as the area of the town of Beit Sahour is close to 4500 Dunams (1225 acres).

The Israeli army has already built a crossing point on the eastern entrance of the town and is planning to build a permanent military base close to it.

This would block Bethlehem area from the rest of the West Bank from its east and northern sides.

Thanks to Ben White and to the Israeli, who we won’t name here, who emailed us. Why is the route of the ‘security fence’ cutting so deep inside Palestinian land (see map above from stop the wall)? Answers on a postcard please...