Roger Waters narrates UN film on West Bank separation fence

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"Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, an outspoken critic of Israel's policy in the West Bank, is now the voice behind a United Nations film documenting Palestinian life behind Israel's controversial separation fence, the AFP reported on Wednesday.

The UN premiered its 15-minute documentary "Walled Horizons" this week, to mark five years since the International Court of Justice ruled that the route of the fence through Palestinian land was illegal.

The film features Palestinians who had lost a part of their lives to the wall, said the AFP. Interviewees include a farmer whose land was severed in half and a family caught in the "seam line" between the wall and the Green Line.

Waters, who wrote Pink Floyd's 1979 hit album "The Wall", is featured in the opening shot of the film walking beside a concrete section of the barrier, on which is painted a giant laying on its back.

"The reason for walls is always fear, whether the personal walls that we build around ourselves or walls like this that frightened governments build around themselves," Waters says. "They are always expressions of a deep-seated insecurity."

A shot of Palestinians cramming en masse into a fenced-in corridor awaiting a safe passage through an Israeli checkpoint wraps up the film on a dramatic note.

"It fills me with horror, the thought of living in a giant prison," Waters says, as the camera catches him spray-painting "We don't need no thought control" on the separation wall, in reference to the title song of the album."

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Which it has done outstandingly, and no one with any knowledge of the wall can dispute. Why is Israel expected to end something that has such a profound positive impact on the every day lives and safety of the people of Israel?

surely occur due to more suicide bombings against Israelis.

It appears those who are against the barrier (and only 5% of it exists in W.Bank territory) would rather see more death on both sides.

Of course they never explain why if that's the excuse for it, there was a need to build it in the West Bank and not in Israel or on the Green Line. And anyone with any knowledge of the wall could ignore the profound negative impact it's had on the everyday lives of Palestinians. Apart from those Israelis who are RW ultranationalist types who think the West Bank is part of Israel, I doubt it's had any positive effect on the lives of Israelis....

Are you seriously disputing that?

Are the rockets launched from Gaza a figment of my imagination or something? Also, as construction of the wall isn't complete, how exactly is it keeping out anyone determined to carry out a terrorist attack?

btw, going to try explaining the route the wall takes and why it takes in chunks of the West Bank like it does?

Rocket can also be responded to militarily in ways that suicide attacks can't. For that reason rocket attacks aswell are finally being brought down to manageable levels. The wall may not be complete, but it has already reduced the number of ways for terrorist to enter Israel and shortened the route the IDF has to patrol, when it is complete it will be even more effective.

Honestly, I couldn't address every single deviation of the wall from the green line, sometimes it's because of terrain, other times it is to keep it from bisecting cities, there are plenty of reason you wouldn't want to build right along the green line.

Can you at least admit it was wrong set up the wall so that it keeps innocent Palestinians from their land(you do at least acknowledge a Palestinian CAN be innocent, don't you?)?

What about everyone in the West Bank who can't get to their own property because of the Wall(and who knows that property will now be stolen for the settlements)?

What about everyone who can't get to their jobs and then ends up poor and homeless?

What about the hundreds, maybe thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands who will inevitably be driven into supporting militant actions they otherwise never would have supported out of the sense of humiliation the Wall causes.

It's time to admit that collective punishment is wrong. AND that it doesn't actually work, since you and I both know this will provoke something worse at some point(that's not a threat, and I'd be glad to be wrong, but it's the Newtonian physics of the Occupation).

Here's some statistics and a map from B'Tselem...

http://www.btselem.org/english/Separation_Barrier/Statistics.asp

http://www.btselem.org/Download/Separation_Barrier_Map_Eng.pdf