ARCHIVED CONVERSATION
Read through archived FRONTLINE/World conversations around this story below.

Tammy - Winnipeg, Manitoba
Neighbourly gesture? You bet it is. Can you think of a more humane way to deal with this situation? Perhaps Israeli children and women should just drown themselves in the sea, as Arab leaders plan (and have planned historically). What do you suggest a government should to do to protect her citizens from murderous bombs and kassa rockets? The security certainly isn't comfortable for either side, but hey, death is irreversible and permanent -- while fences are not. This project certainly is divisive - just not in the same way Palestinian suicide bombs divide Israeli children bodies into tiny, irreparable pieces.

George Clark - London, England
If we refuse to look at the root cause the problem will get worse. The billions of dollars and massive military support of the ever expanding Israel by the USA is surely one, if not the major cause of a backlash by the Arab world. Strong elements within Islam are fighting the USA/Israel alliance. This has resulted in 911, the attack on Iraq and global terrorism. Arabs see one Palestinian (Muslim) youth shot almost every week (over 500 children shot for throwing stones by IDF troops recently, a form of slow genocide). This has infuriated fundamentalist elements in Islam around the world. Israel/Zionism is easily the biggest reason for the conflict between Islam and the west.

Anonymous - Katy, Texas
I don't like the idea of suicide attacks, but when people talk about how wrong suicide bombers are, they should take a look at Israeli troops. I saw with my own eyes, a soldier beat and abuse Palestinian school children for no reason. They didn't provoke him. So when a force such as Israel uses such cruelty to scare other people, perhaps Palestinians are justified in doing the same thing right back.

Jon Adams - Bremerton, Washington
I think Israel should build this wall. They should stick to the 1967 boundary, pull their own people out and then leave the Palestinians alone. The Palestians should convice the UN to recognize this wall as the border between them and Israel and have UN peacekeepers patrol it, not Israelis, to keep both sides separate.

Anonymous - Atlanta, Georgia
Why should a country have to justify it's defensive strategy[?] If a neighboring country to the US was letting its citizens launch attachs against the US should we be told not to protect our citizens? I think if the Palestinian people would worry more about peace, about making peace and not killing children and innocent people they would be better off. Better they should teach their children to love life and respect life and forget about what roll a fence plays in their future. Better they love their children more then they hate their neighbors so then maybe their children will stop blowing themselves up and killing other children. Better they teach their children to love themselves more then they hate others.

Chris Keenan - Boulder, Colorado
Well done. Did not know about this divisive Israeli project. Hardly a neighborly gesture. Actually seems unjust and cruel. Makes me feel sad, anyway. I don't think this has been a widely reported story. Would be cool to read a mirror piece written/photographed by a Palestinian journalist.

Bernard Eckholdt - Nashville, Tennessee
A horrible story. Two people in one space, where might makes right. Everybody loses. A recipe for endless violence and hatred.

Leeron Kopelman - Ann Arbor, Michigan
If Israel has no border, then it must follow that its neighbors also don't have borders.

Nonetheless, following Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon, the UN was able to certify that Israel had indeed pulled back behind the international border -- which seems to indicate that there is indeed such a border.

Israel's peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan also stipulate such borders (consider the mini-dispute, over about 1/4 of a mile, regarding Taba -- which originated over differences between the 1906 and the 1913 borders).

Israel does not have a border with Syria (or rather, there are several different borders) because Syria has failed to come to the peace table.

Similarly Israel does not have a border with a not-yet-existing Palestinian Arab state in the disputed territories. As per UN Security Council Resolution 242 (the basis of the Oslo Accords), such borders must be negotiated as part of a comprehensive peace agreement.

Marge and Tony Messina - Sag Harbor, New York
Read the story. It is fascinating. But have the Palestinians been asked about the seaming of the area. It sounds to me like going back to feudal days when cities were surrounded by walls and moats. Electronic fences are very effective especially to keep pets in and to keep unwanted animals out. It's sad that people who can exchange ideas have to be separated in the same way. ... A great news story.

Ken Green - New York, New York
On page 6 of this story there is a photo with the caption that photo's of suicide bombers adorn public places all over Gaza. This is a clear "heroization" in Palestinian Authority areas of people that kill themselves in order to kill maximum Jewish men, women and children indiscriminately. How can one talk "peace" or trust the commitments of those that don't cease to glorify such barbarians? Indeed since 1993 Arafat was obligated by Oslo to disallow and to actually dismantle the vast terrorist network in his areas-not encourage them! (terrorist means those that PURPOSELY target civilians)

Arthur Victor - Turner Falls, Massachusetts
It seems that a lot of journalists covering the Israel-Palestinian tragedy suffer from a species of 'Stockholm Syndrome' in their attempts to curry favor with people who would otherwise treat them as poor Daniel Pearl was treated. Plus a 'fashioradical' bias which is often simple editorializing masked as objectivity.

San Francisco, California
Very helpful story, unbiased & direct. Thank you.

Mike Ross - St. Paul, Minnesota
Direct, yes. Unbiased...no way. Again, Israel is the clear aggressor here and the Palestinians the victims...no mention of their vicious crimes of terror against Jewish civilians. For instance: The Lebanon Invasion by Israel was in retaliation for a decade of Arab attacks against Jews in the North. The check points and curfews, the result of 10 years of suicide bombings and shootings within Israel proper, and the Security fence, the result of a nation who is sick of burying their families for the last 50 years. Wake up Frontline!!!!!!!!!!