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The West Bank Wall: Unmaking Palestine

The West Bank Wall: Unmaking Palestine
By Ray Dolphin

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Product Description

What is the purpose of the West Bank Wall? Since Israel began its construction in 2002, it has sparked intense debate, being condemned as illegal by the International Court of Justice. Israel claims it is a security measure to protect Israeli citizens from terrorist attacks. Opponents point to the serious impact on the rights of Palestinians, depriving them of their land, mobility and access to health and educational services. In The West Bank Wall, Dolphin explores the Palestinian experience of the Wall and places the debate in its international context. Dolphin's writing is informed by his work for the UN, where for three years he monitored and compiled reports on the Wall's impact on the humanitarian conditions in refugee camps, towns and villages. With an introduction by Graham Usher, who has worked as Palestine correspondent for major international publications including the Economist, Middle East International, al Ahram English Weekly, the Guardian and Le Monde Diplomatique, this book puts the purpose of the Wall to the test. What are the real intentions behind the Israeli security argument? Is it a means of securing territory permanently through an illegal annexation of East Jerusalem? Ray Dolphin provides some answers, offering a unique critical account of the impact of the wall and how it affects plans for a Palestinian state and for future peace in the Middle East.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #577260 in Books
  • Published on: 2006-03-20
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 256 pages

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ray Dolphin has worked with various UN agencies in emergency relief situations for more than 10 years. He is currently working in the West Bank reporting on humanitarian conditions in refugee camps, towns and villages and compiling an initial report on the impact of the West Bank wall on refugees.Graham Usher is a journalist and author long based in the occupied territories. He has written for the Economist, al Ahram English Weekly, the Guardian ,the Observer and more . He is the author of Palestine in Crisis (Pluto Press, 1995) and Dispatches from Palestine (Pluto Press, 1999).

Customer Reviews

A critical account5
THE WEST BANK WALL: UNMAKING PALESTINE is a top pick for any college-level Middle East collection: it surveys the purpose of the West Bank wall since Israel built it in 2002, using the author's work for the UN as a reporter on the Wall's impact as a foundation for analysis. Chapters survey the real intentions and imagery of the Wall, offering a critical account of its impact and affect on a Palestinian state.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

...and important work. 5
The review below is unfair and inappropriate. The subject matter is important and should not be dismissed by the racist and ignorant.

Horrible1
This is one of the more counterproductive works on the market.

First of all, it complains about the Israeli security barrier. That barrier is obviously disliked by everyone in the region, including the Jews and Arabs (although this book only appears to worry about the Arab dislike of it). But it is needed to reduce the number of murderers who would otherwise get into Israel more easily. With the barrier in place, the number of murders is significantly reduced. In addition, a military operation to cross the barrier could no longer be explained away as some sort error, where people simply got lost and wandered off the road by mistake. It would be seen as a serious and planned attack and it could be treated as such.

That's why I think that books such as this one simply do us all a disservice by refusing to condemn the murders that make this barrier necessary. Oh, by the way, not much of the barrier is a wall. Why do you suppose Dolphin calls it one?

Anyway, if we actually want to get rid of the barrier (and I think just about everyone on both sides probably wants to), then we need to make murder (including murder of Jews) against the law. We can't have non-stop incitement to kill and destroy (and applause when there is death and destruction) and still expect folks to refuse to defend themselves with at least a security barrier! If we do remove the wall, self-defence may require even more, um, annoying measures!

There is a nation in the Levant called Israel. Now, is it right on top of some other famous nation? Does it exist only to annoy the Arabs of some mythical state that it has replaced? No. Of course not. Modern Israel is actually a little West of Ancient Israel, in part because the Eastern part has more Arabs and fewer Jews. And even if there had been some ancient Arab nation, it too could have moved a few miles to the East or West. But there wasn't. The Levant did not have Arab sovereignty in centuries. The author is being very misleading by pretending, right in the title of his book, that there is some Arab nation whose existence is precluded by the fact that Jews are permitted to have human rights in parts of the Levant.

At one point, Dolphin tells of an Arab who boasts that he won't sell his home to a Jew for any price! That's outrageous. Is he trying to tell us that Good Arabs are heroes for not allowing their homes to be sold to folks with the Wrong Religion, or Wrong Skin Color, or Wrong Gender, or Wrong Sexual Preference, or whatever? If so, that's pretty racist of him! By the way, as a Pagan, I think it is a mistake (both morally and practically) for people in Monotheistic nations to refuse to sell their homes to Pagans, even when the Pagans are high bidders and are offering much higher than market prices.

Still, there is something I think we need to realize about this. Namely, sooner or later, people will indeed sell their homes, even to people with the "Wrong" religion or skin color, if the price is high enough. That happened in the Levant from 1878 to 1948 rather often. And it will happen in the future. The author ought not be implying that we humans all have a duty to stop the, um, contamination of Monotheistic lands by Pagans, or of White lands by Blacks, or whatever other anti-social ideas of this sort he refuses to denounce. And he ought to realize that sooner or later, societies that want to be more competitive and more prosperous will stop this sort of discrimination.

Meanwhile, rather than complain about the barrier, let's make it politically incorrect to murder people.