Israel Right demands wall to keep Palestinians out of Jerusalem

Israel’s vision of Jerusalem as its “indivisible capital” has come under attack as leaders reacted to yesterday's attack by an Arab construction worker by calling for a wall across the city’s ethnic divide.

The Government says that the separation barrier erected between Israeli and Palestinian communities in the West Bank has thwarted innumerable terrorist attacks. But two recent acts of terrorism by Arabs living in East Jerusalem have left some asking whether Israel should isolate itself further from Arab communities.

Haim Ramon, the Israeli Vice-Premier, led a growing chorus calling for a barrier to separate many of East Jerusalem’s neighbourhoods from the rest of the city. “It would be much more difficult to carry out attacks like these and 50,000 Palestinians who live in those two neighbourhoods would not be able to reach Jerusalem so easily if they didn’t have blue identity cards,” he said.

Hossam Dwayyat, 30, turned drove his digger off a construction site and into the oncoming traffic on Jaffa Road at noon yesterday, killing three people and leaving a trail of destruction 200 yards long before he was shot dead by security personnel. Video footage of twisted metal heaps and an overturned bus that Dwayyat had rammed repeatedly with the digger stunned the Israeli public, who turned to their leaders for answers on how their security could be guaranteed. Times Online