17 october 2015, death, death, death spiral

"We are all human beings" was the protest of a jew stabbed by another jew who thought he was an arab in haifa. Sadly though more than ever in israel today there are no human beings, just jews and arabs. The centre of the violence is jerusalem, where a new physical dividing line looks to be emerging as an end result of this latest wave. Israel has long resisted admitting that jerusalem is not, after all, one indivisible city. However, whilst not, yet, the berlin wall, throwing up checkpoints and controlling movement across a line is simply following the logic of the rest of the west bank barrier, a peace line that literally separates two peoples. Pre-wall, when I travelled around a quarter of a century ago, there was no way of knowing when you crossed the invisible"green line". A generation on, the two populations know each other less and consequently fear each other more. With random knife attacks the terror of choice, with seven jews killed this week, and around 40 palestinians, it is ever easier to see security as only possible through division - yet how does that work when in much of the country the communities live at the top and bottom of a hill. There is no security without a solution, just the prospect of more terror, methodical and horrific, from both sides. "The unalterable truth: the last day of occupation will be the first day of peace". However israel has ever less inclination to think any solution can bring it security. And the world, that's us folks, absenting itself hardly helps.