Abstract

This is an account of the Jewish state's motives behind building the West Bank wall, arguing that at the heart of the issue is demography. Israel fears the moment when the region’s Palestinians become a majority.

The book charts Israel’s increasingly desperate responses to its predicament including military repression of Palestinian dissent on both sides of the Green Line; accusations that Israel's Palestinian citizens and the Palestinian Authority are secretly conspiring to subvert the Jewish state from within; a ban on marriages between Israel’s Palestinian population and Palestinians living under occupation to prevent a right of return ‘through the back door’; the redrawing of the Green Line to create an expanded, fortress state where only Jewish blood and Jewish religion count.
'Timely and important … by far the most penetrating and comprehensive [book] on the subject to date'
Nur Masalha, Director of Holy Land Studies, St Mary’s College, University of Surrey, and author of The Politics of Denial (2003)
'Very impressive … Some of his findings will astound even the knowledgeable reader'
Salim Tamari, Director of the Institute of Jerusalem Studies
'An original and powerful book'
Ilan Pappe, Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Haifa University, and author of A Modern History of Palestine (2004)