A Wall in Palestine
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The West Bank Barrier is expected to be completed in 2010. Declared illegal by the United Nations International Court of Justice, this network of concrete walls, trenches, and barbed-wire fences could permanently redraw one of the most disputed property lines in the Middle East--the Green Line that separates Israel and the West Bank. To Israel the "security fence" is intended to keep Palestinian terrorists from entering its territory. But to Palestinians the "apartheid wall" that sliced through orchards and houses, and cuts off family members from one another, is a land grab.
In this comprehensive book, Backmann not only addresses the barrier's impact on ordinary citizens, but how it will shape the future of the Middle East. Though it promises security to an Israeli population weary of terrorism, it also is responsible for the widespread destruction of Palestinian homes and farmland; with its Byzantine checkpoint regulations, it has also severely crippled the Palestinian economy; and, most urgent, the barrier often deviates from the Green Line, appropriating thousands of acres of land, effectively redrawing the boundary between the West Bank and Israel.
Backmann interviews Israeli policy makers, politicians, and military personnel, as well as Palestinians living throughout the West Bank, telling the stories not only of the barrier's architects, but also of those who must reckon with it on a day-to-day basis on the ground.
With bold, brilliant, and often impassioned reportage, A Wall in Palestine renders the West Bank Barrier--its purpose, its efficacy, its consequences--as no book before.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
French journalist Backmann takes on the Orwellian semantic debate played out daily in the lives of Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank: is the massive construction project snaking through more than 400 miles of the West Bank a "security barrier," as Israel calls it, or an "apartheid wall," as many Palestinians describe it? Is it being built in order to protect Israeli citizens from Palestinian terrorism, as Israel insists, or was it conceived "to protect the settlements, to give them room to grow"? Are Palestinians' humanitarian needs being met, as project supporters say or in the words of an Israeli human rights lawyer, does the wall's construction "inevitably bring about human rights violations"? With extensive boots-on-the-ground journalism and close examination of the historical record, Backmann demonstrates that while Israeli security concerns are real, the wall is undeniably also a political tool with life-shattering implications for the Palestinians whose lives it surrounds and constricts. In gathering these various voices in one powerful and accessible book, Backmann makes a vital contribution to the discourse surrounding the potential for peace in the region and the costs the conflict continues to extract.
Customer Reviews
Sad
Offers good insight to this ongoing problem. Too often too many innocent Palestinians suffer. Just as innocent Jews suffer.
Bad book !
The wall keeps the suicide bombers away from malls,buses and schools. If it wasn't for Palestinian terror, there would be no wall.