Who Rules the World? (American Empire Project)

by Noam Chomsky

Meanwhile, Israel is incorporating the territory on the Israeli side of the illegal “separation wall” (in reality an annexation wall), taking arable land and water resources and many villages, strangling the town of Qalqilya, and separating Palestinian villagers from their fields. In what Israel calls “the seam” between the wall and the border, close to 10 percent of the West Bank, anyone is permitted to enter—except Palestinians. Those who live in the region have to go through an intricate bureaucratic procedure to gain temporary entry. Exiting—for example, in order to receive medical care—is hampered in the same way. The result, predictably, has been severe disruption of Palestinian lives and, according to UN reports, a decrease of more than 80 percent in the number of farmers who routinely cultivate their lands and a decline of 60 percent in the total yield of olive orchards, among other harmful effects.5 The pretext for the wall was security, but that means security for illegal Jewish settlers; about 85 percent of the wall runs through the occupied West Bank.