The wall, as it now stands, is the single biggest barrier to a sustainable peace. 

Walls are made to separate people from each other, to keep some in and others out. The Israelis have added a new dimension to this. They use the wall and the checkpoints to humiliate Palestinians. Our group went through checkpoints at the wall on the way to Bethlehem. As we traveled in Palestinian territory we stopped (along with thousands of Palestinians) at several checkpoints: Nablus, Nazareth, Jericho, and Hebron, all fully within Palestinian territory.

• The wall or Separation Barrier, a 700-kilometer long (420 miles) mixture of 25-foot high concrete slabs, electrified fences, trenches and surveillance devices, was started in 2002 and is near completion. It would be one thing for Israel to erect a wall to protect itself from Palestinian terrorists, but 80% of the barrier lies within the West Bank while leaving 220,000 Palestinians on the Israeli side of the barrier, which defies all security logic.

• The wall cuts through towns, villages and fields. It separates families, prevents agricultural work, restricts movement and obstructs access to essential services such as medical care and employment opportunities.

• One of the tenets of the early Zionist movement and of Prime Ministers from Ben-Gurion to Ariel Sharon was to remove the Arabs from the land. In many cases, this was done by violence, by threats of violence, and by war. But it is pursued on a daily basis by the existence and the use of the wall and the checkpoints. It is obvious even to the casual observer that Israeli soldiers deliberately harass Palestinians at every checkpoint in the Occupied Territories and at the wall. This harassment is part of a recognized plan designed to make life so miserable for Palestinians that they will leave and not come back. When this does happen, Israelis move into the vacated homes and villages and claim it as Eretz Israel.

• In his book, Whose Land? Whose Promise?, Gary Burge quotes Joseph Weitz, director of the Jewish National Land Fund in the year 1940: “It must be clear that there is no room for both peoples in this country. If the Arabs leave this country, it will be broad and wide open for us. If the Arabs stay, the country will remain narrow and miserable. The only solution is Israel without Arabs. There is no room for compromise on this point.” He goes on to note that “David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, was specific about his strategy. In a letter to his son in 1937 he wrote, ‘We will expel the Arabs and take their place.’” It is my belief (and that of the entirety of our group) that this strategy continues to dominate Israeli domestic and foreign policy.

The growing number and size of Israeli settlements outside the 1967 borders are “facts on the ground,” essentially annexing large portions of Occupied Territory and making a non-viable, ungovernable archipelago of those sections “controlled” by Palestinians.

• The most striking aspect of entering an Israeli settlement is the luxury, security and permanence of each of them. This contrast to living conditions among the Palestinians in the adjacent territory could not be more stark. This is a continuation of the Israeli strategy mentioned in the previous section. For a Palestinian to live so poorly in the shadow of the opulence of each Israeli settlement is a constant insult and daily reminder that they are second-class people in their own land. By continuing to destroy Palestinian villages, farms, olive gardens and fruit orchards and replacing them with Israeli “glory,” Israeli leadership hopes to further motivate them to leave their own land for good.

• As of December 2005, there were a total of 129 settlements (106 in the West Bank) with nearly 440,000 inhabitants. In 2007, there were 135 recognized settlements in the West Bank alone and dozens of unrecognized outposts. The establishment of illegal settlements is one of the means Israel has used to take control of 50% of the land in the West Bank. Land for settlements is expropriated by declaring it “state land,” an “abandoned asset” or needed for the “public good.” The other method used to appropriate land is to seize it for “military needs.” Palestinians are prohibited from using the settlements and settlement land in any way.

• Jewish migration to the settlements is encouraged through financial incentives and benefits, e.g., generous loans and grants for purchasing apartments, price reductions in leasing land, incentives for teachers and social workers, income-tax reductions for individuals and businesses, and grants for investors.

• In their Report on Settler Violence, B’Tselem (Israeli human rights organization) states, “When Palestinians attack Israelis, the authorities invoke all means at their disposal – including some that are incompatible with international law and constitute gross violations of human rights – to arrest the suspects and bring them to trial. Defendants convicted by military courts can expect harsh sentences. In contrast, when Israeli civilians attack Palestinians, the Israeli authorities employ an undeclared policy of leniency toward the perpetrators...[and have] little interest in stopping or uncovering the substantial violence that Israeli settlers commit against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories… Over the years, settler attacks on Palestinians in the Occupied Territories have become routine.”

• The government applies Israeli laws to the settlements in the West Bank, effectively annexing them to Israel. This gives settlers liberties and legal guarantees that are denied to Palestinians. The West Bank is not formally part of the State of Israel, and is supposed to be under Jordanian law and military legislation. While Israeli citizens, Jews from around the world and tourists are all permitted to freely enter areas that fall under the jurisdiction of Jewish local authorities, Palestinians are forbidden entry unless they obtain a special permit – rarely granted. This two-system legal situation has not been seen since the end of apartheid in South Africa.

We were told by many Christian Palestinians that there can be no just peace until this policy of creating Israeli settlements on Palestinian land is stopped and the existing settlement-land returned to the Palestinian people who owned it for centuries.

This is unlikely to happen without intense pressure from outside Israel by the USA and the other members of the so-called “Quartet.”  And the “Quartet” led by the USA does not appear to be inclined to address this issue. So, we can only conclude that there is no real desire among current Israeli leadership for peace and co-existence with the Palestinians.

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