A wall more real than any map

On one side of the imposing concrete barrier that now separates the Palestinian city of Qalqilyah from central Israel, smooth Palestinian lawyers conduct almost-daily tours for journalists, diplomats and European solidarity groups to show how "the wall" has cut through Palestinian homes, separated farmers from land and bottled up 80,000 people in a pocket that can be entered only through a single Israeli checkpoint.

On the other side, Israeli briefers point to the more modest, fence-style portions of their "security obstacle" and recount how, before its construction, snipers shot and killed Israelis on a nearby highway and suicide bombers passed through unchecked to Tel Aviv.

Diplomatic process

For many on both sides, the barrier that Israel is constructing on the western edge of the West Bank was a more compelling issue than the Bush administration's roadmap even before the collapse of the diplomatic process.

The unilateral "separation" of Israelis from Palestinians has loomed as an alternative to the "peace process" for the past decade; now it is emerging in concrete and barbed wire on the ground, and politics and diplomacy centre around what form it will take.

The terms of a negotiated, two-state peace were mostly worked out three years ago, thanks to the Clinton administration. Most Israelis and Palestinians know what these terms are; most tell pollsters they would accept them. Yet Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has already rejected the available two-state solution, while Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon considers it unacceptable.

So while the Bush administration belatedly seeks to revive the process it scorned on coming to office, many Israelis and Palestinians have been pursuing a parallel struggle focused on the fence, but really about all the old questions that once were thought solved: whether there will be one or two states between the Mediterranean and the Jordan; whether one will be predominantly Jewish; and if there are two, where the border will be.

A surprising number of people on both sides are back to arguing that there should be only one state. Lawyer presenting the Palestinian case against the wall would like it to be torn down while Palestinians petition the world for citizenship and voting rights. That would mean that in less than a decade, when Palestinians outnumber Israelis, it would be possible to dissolve the Jewish state at the ballot box.

Though Sharon says he supports two states, most of his Likud Party and his most likely successors as prime minister do not. Instead, they now press for a network of fences that will connect Jewish colonies to Israel on restricted "bypass" roadways while penning the Palestinian population into several cantons where it may enjoy self-government but not sovereignty.

Already, smooth new highways, from which most Palestinian traffic is banned, carry Israelis from Occupied Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to the colonies, bypassing Palestinian towns. The old roads, used by Palestinians, are choked with checkpoints and the chaos of backed-up traffic.

To travel the short distance from Ramallah to east Occupied Jerusalem, one must pass on foot through a border-like obstacle course of hostile sentries and document inspectors - and to do it twice, in two places.

Israeli doves - the few who remain - and Palestinian moderates argue for a fence along the 1967 border between Israel and the West Bank. Slightly to the right are those who say the fence should be expanded to include Jewish colonies near the old border, a solution that might allow 70 or 80 per cent of Israeli colonisers to be folded into Israel at a cost of about five per cent of West Bank land.

Arguments

It's because of such arguments that the fence has now become part of diplomacy: Bush spent almost as much time on it in his last meeting with Sharon as he did on the roadmap. So far the 90 miles of fence built by Israel have been on or near the old border, but under Sharon the barrier has crept out to include Jewish colonies on both sides of Qalqilyah - with an extra fence thrown in to complete the encirclement.

Plans call for its next stage to penetrate 17 miles into the West Bank in order to scoop up Ariel, one of the largest and most politically influential colonies. Fences are meanwhile sprouting around Occupied Jerusalem, including a large colony inside the city, while encircling two big Palestinian areas.