[Alex Murphy]

While Gaza teeters on the brink of a major crisis following the end of a 6-month truce between Israel and Hamas Islamists in control of the strip, a decline in violence in the West Bank has tempted back tourists who no longer fear gunbattles in the streets.

Israel attributes this partly to the barrier it is building in and around the occupied West Bank. For Bethlehem, the barrier takes the form of a daunting concrete wall 4 metres (13 feet) high with watchtowers....

....Many visitors see the wall between Jerusalem and Bethlehem as an ugly scar defiling a Christian holy site.

[Former Fetus]

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday said the Jewish state must press on with plans to complete the barrier around key parts of Jerusalem, which could be divided in a future deal to create a Palestinian state.

I don't think that's what God wants!

[the invisib1e hand]

wonder what radical muslims are thinking.