The Wall | The American Task Force on Palestine

Palestinian PM: Israel's West Bank separation fence will fall like Berlin Wall
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA)
October 3, 2011 - 11:00pm

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad Monday said the half-concrete, half fence barrier Israel is building along the West Bank will fall just as the Berlin Wall did. Speaking at a reception at the German Representative Office in Ramallah to mark the Day of German Unity, Fayyad said the barrier, which in places snakes deep into the West Bank, "is going to fall under the will of the Palestinian people just as the Berlin wall had fallen under the will of the German people who wanted to reunite their country."

Israel's West Bank dilemma
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The San Francisco Chronicle
by Joel Brinkley - (Opinion) August 13, 2011 - 11:00pm

Shaul Goldstein knows that most everyone on Earth dislikes him and his kind. For some, it's visceral hatred. For others, he represents the largest obstacle to solving a problem everyone everywhere wants resolved. "We are the enemy of the world," he volunteered without any prompting. "We have to hide behind a curtain."

AN ISRAELI VIEW Building a future border
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by David Newman - (Opinion) August 7, 2011 - 11:00pm

The construction of the West Bank barrier has, in reality, been the construction of a border between Israel and a future state of Palestine. This does not mean that the location of the barrier will remain in situ and that there will not be changes in its course if and when a formal agreement is reached.

A PALESTINIAN VIEW Still seeking victory
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Sharif Omar - (Opinion) August 7, 2011 - 11:00pm

It was in September 2003 that the meaning of the Wall that Israel had constructed between me and my land began to sink in. Despite our refusal to apply for permission to cross the Wall, Israeli officials had gone ahead and issued permits to some of the farmers in Jayyous, where I live. There were 650 permits issued for our village, and my name was not among them.

Justified, despite the many mistakes
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Yossi Alpher - (Opinion) August 7, 2011 - 11:00pm

Successive Israeli governments since those of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have made nearly every mistake possible in creating the West Bank security fence. Yet the fence has not only served its original security purpose well; it has also delineated the broad outline of a future Israeli-Palestinian border everywhere in the West Bank except Jerusalem.

Illegal, unjust and ultimately destructive
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - (Opinion) August 7, 2011 - 11:00pm

Ten years after Israel started building a Wall in the occupied West Bank, the project has not proven Israeli arguments in its defense, but rather illustrated the Palestinian view that this is one more component of illegal Israeli settlement expansion. Israel, for the most part, said that the Wall was needed for its security. In response, Palestinians asked why then it was built to incorporate settlements into Israel, rather than on the internationally-recognized 1967 borders between Israel and the West Bank.

Palestinian 'ghosts' keep the Israeli economy moving
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Mona Issa - July 28, 2011 - 11:00pm

"We built Israel," says Abbas, a young migrant worker from Salem. A decade ago, he began travelling illegally from the northern West Bank to Tel Aviv to work in construction. "We have no jobs, so the only option is to work in Israel."

New neighborhood in Bil'in after wall moved
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
June 29, 2011 - 11:00pm

Bilin residents are due to start the construction of a new neighborhood on land returned to them following the re-routing of Israel's separation barrier. Villagers will start building "Bilin West" on Friday as part of the weekly demonstration against the wall, a statement from the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee said Thursday. The Popular Committee announced a new strategy of building community and public buildings on lands that were returned as a way to assert their possession of them.

Nonviolence, a Palestinian path to liberation
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from NOW Lebanon
by Hussein Ibish - (Opinion) June 27, 2011 - 11:00pm

At the end of last week in the West Bank village of Bilin, an important principle was decisively demonstrated: Palestinian nonviolence can achieve real results in resisting the Israeli occupation. After almost a decade, Bilin protests against Israel’s gruesome West Bank separation barrier has finally produced a substantial rerouting of the wall, giving villagers access to a significant portion of their confiscated land. The greater part remains seized or inaccessible, and protesters vow that their struggle is far from over.

Peaceful protesters of Bil'in say struggle is far from over
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Hugh Naylor - June 26, 2011 - 11:00pm

BIL'IN, WEST BANK // A dedicated supporter of his village's weekly demonstrations against Israel's separation barrier, Ahmed Abu Rahme, 38, turned up to Friday's protest in a solemn mood. Two days earlier, Israel's military began re-routing a 3-kilometre segment of the massive barrier that severed his community of 1,800 people from an estimated two thirds of its farmland.