The Two Sides of One Wall: NPR Reports on the Mideast

[cali]

Published: April 5, 2009
“Israel’s Barrier,” a four-part National Public Radio report that begins Monday on the afternoon newsmagazine “All Things Considered,” addresses two seemingly intractable issues. One is the report’s subject: the effects of the system of fences and walls, begun in 2002 and still under construction, that separates Israel from the Palestinian West Bank.

<snip>

NPR is billing “Israel’s Barrier” as its “most extensive single multimedia report to date.” In addition to the traditional radio segments, which will total about 30 minutes over four days, there is an ambitious presentation at npr.org: the segments as both audio files and transcripts; related videos and slide shows; a map of the wall’s progress.

The project, which is the work of the reporter Eric Westervelt and the photographer David Gilkey, is a series of vignettes of life along the wall. Frustrated workers wait at gates for hours; a Palestinian in Bethlehem, cut off from his job in Jerusalem, sits around the house watching Arabic soap operas. Israelis cite a 90 percent drop in suicide attacks; Palestinians point to the significant chunk of the West Bank that now lies on the Israeli side of the wall or has been confiscated for the barrier itself, a wide swath of fences, trenches, checkpoints and holding areas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/arts/06wall.html

[Violet_Crumble]

1. Sounds very interesting...

Do you know if the broadcast will be available online? I'd really like to listen to it...

[Scurrilous]

2. Overview: Life Along Israel's Barrier

<snip>

"Most everything about Israel's West Bank barrier is disputed; Israelis and Palestinians disagree on its name, its route and its impact.

Israelis call it the "security barrier" or "the good fence." Many Palestinians call it "the apartheid wall" or the "racist fence."

Young conscripted Israeli soldiers guard its network of checkpoints and roadblocks and patrol its walls and fences. Palestinians regularly protest its existence with peaceful demonstrations, rocks and -- sometimes -- armed attacks. For Palestinians, much of the concrete in the barrier has become a canvas for political graffiti, satire and, on occasion, art and humor.

Israel's new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has emphasized an economic peace process with the West Bank Palestinians and downplayed any talk of a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Arabs say the barrier is one of the biggest impediments to economic growth. Israelis maintain it's vital to the Jewish state's security to thwart suicide bombers.

This four-part multimedia series explores how the barrier has affected the lives of those who live there today -- profiling workers, businessmen, settlers and soldiers.

It introduces Palestinian laborers, farmers, small-business owners and school kids who, daily, have to navigate the barrier and its checkpoints to get to work and school -- and to see family and friends. It also looks at Jewish settlers who have mixed feelings about the barrier and who want to be included in the route of the controversial project. And it profiles other settlers who were left on the "wrong" side of the wall who now want to leave the West Bank -- if compensated by the government.

The series captures the realities of life along the barrier, including the struggles of the people who find good and bad in it everyday."

http://www.npr.org/news/specials/2009/israelbarrier/index.html

[Sezu]

3. Since it saves lives it should be maintained until no longer

needed unless one doesn't care about dead Israelis. Life trumps inconvenience.

[Violet_Crumble]

4. So if someone is opposed to the wall being in the West Bank, they don't care about dead Israelis?

That's a really stupid thing to say...

[Sezu]

5. Since it has decreased deaths, yes. Because to remove it NOW

would lead to Israeli deaths. Life TRUMPS inconvenience in my book. Why doesn't it in yours?