As Palestinian villagers decide to take dismantling the Israeli occupation into their own hands, the Real News Network’s Lia Tarachansky speaks to Jesse Rosenfeld on segregation and the West Bank. Checkpoints and roadblocks play a key role in separating Palestinians from Israelis and Israeli appropriated areas, from commercial areas, and from each other. Since the beginning of the second Intifadah in September 2000 the number of checkpoints in the West Bank increased to over 500. In an act of resistance, the International Solidarity Movement organized a symbolic action of dismantling four roadblocks segregating four villages from each other. Hours after the protest Israeli bulldozers replaced two. This action comes days after former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told in a Yediot Ahronot interview he believes Israel must withdraw from most of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

This program was produced by the Real News Network for October 17, 2008.

For more information, visit:
therealnews.com
palsolidarity.org

Phyllis Bennis on a two-state solution: “From what I saw in this trip to the West Bank, I would say that if it’s not already impossible, it is so close as to be virtually the same. The division of Palestinian land within the West Bank, has divided the West Bank, as have the series of roads that connect settlements but bypass Palestinian villages, towns, refugee camps. The checkpoints—imagine 567 checkpoints, according to the United Nations, in this tiny territory the size of the US state of Delaware. It’s insane.”

This program was produced by The Real News for August 1, 2008.

For more information, visit:
therealnews.com
www.ips-dc.org