Plett's Pet Topic.

Barbara Plett is on the way to being well known as a Beeb Jihadophile, and she's in good form (by that standard) in her latest offering about the Palestinians and that wall.

She manages to cover most of the bases; you know, impoverished Palestinians, an eight metre high concrete wall 'in places' through 'occupied East Jerusalem' (the joke in this one is to look at the accompanying photo where children are shown playing alongside a section of concrete wall that is being assembled- the children are almost as tall as the wall!).

After dramatising and misrepresenting that case (most of the 'wall' is actually chain-link fencing, as the BBC know well) she goes on to 'explain' the cause and effect thing that the Glasgow Media group are so keen on. Dwelling on the economic crisis amongst Palestinians, she says 'The main reason is Israel's closure policy.'

This is interesting. I was hearing about Palestinian economic woes well before the construction of the wall began- and we can't forget the basic reality that no intifada = no wall. Also, it cannot be denied that a country subject to frequent explosions is less attractive to investment and visitors, so an unwalled region with frequent suicide bombings and military responses is unlikely to be a honeypot.

But for Plett it's all wall, wall, wall, and she drags in an Israeli economist to confirm that this is merely wicked Zionism at work. He dutifully confirms that the idea behind the wall is to put pressure on the Palestinians by impoverishing them.

Unfortunately for Plett and illuminatingly for her readers he also says '"[This is] not understanding that the violence is the outcome of a consensus on the Palestinian side -to use violence in order to change the political situation." '

Now, reading that, can you blame the Israelis if they didn't want to sustain economically a people united in violence against them?

I say 'if', because one of few things which is undeniable, amidst all this cause and effect tail-chasing, is that the Israeli fence with bits of wall in it has reduced suicide bombings and attacks within Israel to virtually nil. So what was the purpose of that wall again? Ah yes, to make the Palestinians poor. The side-effect isn't a bad one though, is it?