AL TUR, WEST BANK - APRIL 25: Palestinian workers wait for their employer to collect them after crossing into Israel on April 25, 2010 at the Olives Crossing in Al Tur, West Bank, a few kilometers north east of Jerusalem. West Bank workers queue before dawn to cross the separation barrier into Israel to be permitted to work on the Israeli side of the fence which divides the suburb which once formed part of Jerusalem. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

The Jerusalem Post had a story yesterday about how a Palestinian village is being surrounded by Israel’s West Bank security wall which is squeezing the village towards an almost certain death.

Surely this is wrong.

The barrier threatens to outright smother Walajeh: The community of about 2,000 on the southwest edge of Jerusalem is to be completely encircled by a fence cutting it off from most of its open land, according to a Defense Ministry map.

the loop runs tightly around Walajeh’s builtup area, penning it within less than a square mile and isolating it from almost all its farmlands. Of 36 Palestinian villages that are or will be caught in the seam zone, none are as closely encircled as Walajeh, said Ray Dolphin, a UN barrier expert in Jerusalem.

Sadly, the security barrier is necessary to protect Israelis, but surely more can be done for the Palestinians affected by it.

Ahmed Barghouti, 63, who lives close to the fence’s path, says he lost 88 olive trees last month and now fears for a nearby family burial plot. The village’s lawyer, Ghiath Nasser, says he won a temporary order to stop work on that section until the High Court of Justice decides what should be done with the graves of Barghouti’s parents and grandmother.

The house of a neighbor, Omar Hajajla, lies just outside Walajeh’s barrier loop.

Hajajla said Israeli officials last week informed him his home would be surrounded by its own electric fence.

“This is like putting my entire family in jail,” the father of three young boys said. “My children need to cross four gates to go school. We don’t know how it will work out, but I’m sure it will be hell for my entire family.”

Some will argue that if the Palestinians had chosen peace the barrier and the many issues emanating from its construction would have been unnecessary.

It’s stories such as this which undermine Israel’s international standing and fuel the ‘apartheid’ slur and provide oxygen to those who want to destroy chances of peace.

These are difficult issues,  and although I understand the reasons for the barrier, the emiseration of the lives of these particular villagers is not something Israel or its suppporters, myself included, can be proud of.

Maybe someone could enlighten me and persuade me that this is necessary and there is no alternative.