Israel's Wall of Control in Palestine

5 January 2008 - 7:00am

This article from Progressive Planning discusses the walls that run more than 700 kilometers in Palestine. But as author Gary Fields writes, this barrier is not about security, it's about control.

"Today there is a new generation of fear-driven landscapes, ranging from urban-based, gated communities to borderlands between nation-states, best exemplified by the border fence between the U.S. and Mexico.

These new landscapes, despite differences, share a basic similarity: they partition social differences using the built environment to preempt the circulation of groups of people across space. And nowhere are these processes of partition and separation as formidable as in Palestine.

There, entire cities are being recast as enclaves while Palestinians are routinely blocked from moving freely to homes, work and social activities by what the International Court of Justice has dubbed simply as the Wall. This structure, built by the state of Israel, is a formidable barrier, meandering for roughly 700 kilometers mostly within Palestinian territory while forging a geography of fragmented and impassible spaces. The Wall would appear to conform to the landscapes of separation so prolific in the world today, however, if one goes beyond the visual imagery, a far different meaning for this barrier emerges."

Source: Progressive Planning, November 1, 2008
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Short of erasing existing political and jurisdictional boundaries, citizens and officials need to develop the capacity to work across boundaries according to the "problem-sheds" of the land and water issues we face in the 21st century.