Here comes the Wall, like it or not!

In a nearby community called Beit Jala (a hilly little town!), a portion of the separation barrier (between Israel and Palestine) is being built. In many places around Palestine, the barrier approximates the 1948 UN "Green Line" that demarcates the West Bank (it's usually built on Palestinian land inside the Green Line, but at least it's pretty close). There are, however, many places where the barrier makes deep cuts and excises great swaths of land out of Palestine, making the land, in effect, Israeli.

And, then, there are places where the Wall follows the "settlers' roads" (which, depending on the place and time, Palestinians are not allowed to drive on, even though, again, the roads are in the West Bank). One of those places where the Wall is along a settler road is in Beit Jala. The road actually goes through two or three tunnels (I honestly don't know as foreigners are not allowed on this particular road) underneath the town of Beit Jala. Because of the topography and the layout of the town, there are places where there are houses just above the road.

For "security" purposes, then, the military decided that the Wall (including an extra angled barrier atop the 8 meter high wall) needed to line the road so that the resident Palestinians (or anyone else who wanted to cause problems) couldn't stand by their houses and throw rocks on the cars going by down below.

The problem is, you might have figured out, that there are houses and yards and gardens and trees right where the wall is planned to be put it to protect the road.

Last Thursday (a busy day for both the military, and those responding to their egregious actions), a house lost its front yard, the children's play structure, part of their patio, and several of the generations-old olive trees that provided a portion of their income. In order to continue building the Wall. To protect a road from imagined danger and threat (danger that hasn't been realized in this place).

Because this is an occupation and one group has more power than the other.