Bush in Israel: The West Bank Problem

Tim McGirk, TIME, 9.1.08. When George W. Bush last visited Israel — as Texas governor, back in 1998 — he was taken on a helicopter ride by then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. They soared over Jerusalem's ancient rooftops and across to the stony, terraced hills of the Palestinian West Bank. On Thursday, when Bush boards a U.S. Chinook helicopter bound for a meeting with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, he will traverse much of the same ground. During his chopper ride, however, Bush will glimpse a changed landscape — and witness the growing obstacles to peace. Bush will see that a hundred new, illegal Jewish outposts have mushroomed on rocky hilltops inside the Palestinian territories; some are no larger than a few trailers circled defensively inside barbed wire, while others are fortified towns of neatly rowed houses with red tiled roofs. Extremist settlers flaunted their disdain for Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday by colonizing two more hilltops on Palestinian land. Bush will also see a grotesque new feature: a 26-ft.-high concrete wall that snakes through the hills for miles. Built by the Israelis to keep out suicide bombers, this security barrier has cut deep inside Palestinian territory and has been condemned by Palestinians and international jurists.