The Israeli government is planning further adjustments to the route of the wall in the wake of a Supreme Court decision upholding the right to build it but ordering changes to "30 kilometers of the route so as to minimize hardship to Palestinians." The section that will be changed is northwest of Jerusalem, in one of the most densely populated areas through which the fence will pass:
It looks like the Israeli Supreme Court is trying to do the right thing. Read the whole post here.
My deal is that the fucking wall shouldn't be built in the first place. Walls don't work (China, Berlin, The Maginot Line, etc.), especially when they cut neighborhoods and towns in half, separating friends and family, and restrict access by the Palestinians to the water supply.
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You say "walls don't work." That's true against conventional armies, which can overwhelm the wall, outflank it or mass their forces and punch through it. Against unconventional forces whose success depends on proximity and ability to infiltrate, however, fixed defenses combined with patrols are much more effective. From a purely military standpoint, the "berm" in Morocco effectively ended the war against Polisario, and the WB wall has already reduced infiltration into Israel to nearly nothing.
I've compared the I-P conflict to Algeria in the past, and I think the state of affairs now strongly resembles the final stages of the Algerian war of independence. The difference is that, in the Algerian case, France could safely retreat across the Med, while in the I-P case there is no such natural barrier. In the absence of a sea or other natural boundary, an artificial one has to be created in order to enable a safe disengagement. That's why I step off the leftist reservation in supporting the wall, although I think it should be built on the Green Line.
Jonathan Edelstein
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