oneworldtalk

FEW legacies of the former prime minister Ariel Sharon remain so popular among Israeli voters as the 723-kilometre security barrier that separates Israel from the Palestinian West Bank.

In some parts an eight-metre concrete wall, but in most parts consisting of two wire fences separated by patrol roads, construction of the barrier started in mid-2002 after a wave of Palestinian suicide bomb attacks.

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But the wall hasn't come cheap. So far costing $US4.1 billion ($4.27 billion), it is Israel's largest engineering project. And with 87 per cent of the barrier built on Palestinian land inside the "green line", or the internationally recognised border dividing Israel and the Palestinian territory, the wall has also brought with it opposition from around the world.

Not the least of which was a judgment by the International Court of Justice four years ago this week that ruled that those parts of the barrier built on Palestinian land were in violation of Israel's obligations under international law.

The court's judgment also delivered non-binding orders to Israel to stop further construction of the barrier around East Jerusalem, and to dismantle those sections of the wall inside the green line - orders that have gone unheeded by Israel on the basis that it has a right to defend itself against terrorism.

When complete, the barrier will separate 420,000 Jewish settlers living in the West Bank, and isolate about 9.2 per cent of West Bank land from Palestinians.

Popular as it might be among Jewish Israelis, the barrier has brought little joy to Palestinian communities cut in half by its route. Drive a few kilometres north of Boker's grocery store and you end up in the Palestinian town of Ar Ram.

"This was once a good place to do business," says Tariq Said, a 23-year-old university student who lives on the Palestinian side of the wall in Ar Ram.

Said, who is heading to the United States in August to study engineering at the University of Southern California, describes the effect of the wall as catastrophic.

Walking alongside the wall that divides Ar Ram, Said points to long streets of now deserted shops and abandoned apartment buildings as one of the barrier's less than cheerful consequences.

"Before this was built, my father and my mother had permits to do things in Jerusalem," Said says. "My father had work there and I could travel freely around, also. One day it was just announced that the wall would be built along this road here, right in front of all these shops."

Made from enormous prefabricated concrete slabs slotted straight into the ground, the wall that divides Ar Ram blocks access to either side.

"I don't have a permit to travel over there," Said says, pointing to the Israeli side of the wall. "We have friends there. Some people I know had businesses there. They can't travel over to see us, and we can't get to them either."

Mohammed Yunus, a 38-year-old lawyer and father of three, lives in Abu Dis. It is another Palestinian town on the edge of the Jerusalem municipality at the foot of the Mount of Olives.

Most of Abu Dis, the town chosen by the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation chairman Yasser Arafat as the Palestinian capital because of its proximity to Jerusalem, is now behind the wall.

Abu Dis has several Christian monasteries and convents, and used to be the main thoroughfare for Christian travellers wishing to visit Jericho, where Jesus was believed to have performed several miracles.

Unlike most residents of Abu Dis, Yunus and his family have managed to stay within the Jerusalem municipality, but only just. From the balcony of his fourth-floor apartment, Yunus has a perfect view of the wall that cuts across his apartment block's backyard.

"Around here," Yunus says, pointing to apartments either side of him, "we have money. This is a rich area and some of us here challenged the route of the wall. We managed to stay on the Israeli side."

It's one of the ironies of life here that most Palestinians - if given the choice - would prefer to have residency within Israel as it provides access to a much higher standard of living than in the Palestinian-controlled West Bank.

"My father has farmland in Abu Dis, on the other side of the wall. To get to that land now he must drive the long way around, through Maele Adumim [a large Jewish settlement] and he must go through several checkpoints, which - depending on traffic - can take anywhere from one hour to three. It used to take about 10 minutes."

A report issued this week by the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Human Affairs says the barrier has had a devastating affect on Palestinian villages, towns and cities, isolating communities and separating tens of thousands of people from services, lands and livelihoods.

"The barrier compounds the fragmentation of the West Bank by creating non-contiguous enclaves of Palestinian communities and territory, which are isolated from each other and from the remainder of the West Bank," the UN report says. "Movement and access for Palestinians is controlled by permits and gates, or channelled through 'fabric of life' routes, that is, secondary roads, tunnels and underpasses created or upgraded by the Israeli authorities to restore transportation contiguity between disconnected Palestinian localities. These physical and bureaucratic measures add to the closure regime of checkpoints and roadblocks, preventing and delaying Palestinians from accessing essential services and workplaces."

With little public support within Israel to dismantle any part of the barrier - despite several rowdy public demonstrations this week from Jewish Israelis protesting the route of the barrier - its most enduring legacy may be to act as yet another seemingly impenetrable barrier to resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Yet in Pisgat Ze'ev, Yossi Boker is unmoved by international criticism of the barrier or suggestions it may be hindering peace, rather than maintaining it.

"All I see it doing is protecting our way of life. What is important to me is protecting our way of life."