JERUSALEM: BATTLE FOR THE HOLY LAND PART 3 OF 6
Battle for the Holy Land programmes explore what has happened to people on both sides of the divide since Israel’s conquest of the West Bank and other territories in 1967.
Meet with Palestinians in Bethlehem and the villages nearby to see the effect on their lives of the checkpoints, the Wall and the machinery of military occupation. The official justification for the Wall is to close off the West Bank and stop suicide bombers coming into Israel, ‘but,’ says Liddle, ‘it does not follow the line of the 1967 border. Instead, it twists and turns deep within Palestinian territory.
Its tortuous, circuitous route has left Bethlehem virtually enclosed.’ He describes the wall seen from above: ‘In the distance one of the Jewish settlements of the West Bank, with acres of land to expand into. And right there, Palestinian Bethlehem, hemmed in on all sides.’
There are now close to half a million settlers in the West Bank, living in apparent prosperity, while few Palestinians are granted permits to build homes on their own land. Over 5,000 Palestinian homes have been destroyed in the occupied territories in the last six years and, as Paddy Ashdown discovers in Jerusalem, not only are the houses knocked down but the Israeli government requires their owners to pay the cost of the demolition – at as much as £20,000 a time.
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