The Wall

The history of the wall dates back to April 14, 2002, the years of the second intifada (2000-2005), when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced the construction of a separation barrier between Israel and the West Bank. Construction plans, however, went back to '95 when the then Labor prime minister Yitzhak Rabin presented a project to block the infiltration of terrorists into Israeli territory. Israeli writer Abraham Ben Yehoshua was one of the earliest advocates of construction for a physical separation between Israelis and Palestinians. According to Ben Yehoshua there was a need for a border to protect Israelis from Arab terrorism and to give the Palestinians the full right of sovereignty over a well-defined territory. The project involves the construction of a 708 km long defensive barrier that runs along the 1949 armistice line between Jordan and Israel, the internationally recognized border known as the "green line" but at its completion, only 15% will respect these borders. In several places the barrier diverges from the line to include in the Israeli territory Israeli settlements such as East Jerusalem, Ariel, Gush Etzion, Emmanuel, Karnei Shomron, Givat Ze’ev, Oranit and Maale Adumim.