Old Jaffa port window (Image)

(Photo: Dave Bender)

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All in all, just another prick at the wall (Video - Images)

(Photo: Dave Bender)

"Pink Floyd front-man Roger Waters, who inspired the rock band's iconic album "The Wall," has scrawled "tear down the wall" on the concrete panels of Israel's security fence on Wednesday.

Dave here, Mr. Waters. Here's what I know about that wall; I'll try to keep journalistically professional:

Welcome to our neighborhood. I took that above picture a few hundred meters from my living room, from where I write this post, where my children sleep, where I live, here in Gilo. Maybe you were scrawling your aristo-rocker's screed on the other side, maybe nearby.

"The barrier was the first stop on a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories for Waters, who had been criticized by some fans for planning to play a concert in the Jewish state. "It's a horrific edifice, this thing," Waters told reporters as he stood beside a section of the barrier in Bethlehem."

Yes, the "Jerusalem Envelope" is an ugly "edifice," as you smarmily put it. Unfortunately, so are the results of suicide bombings, like those of Jerusalem Egged bus No. 32, which I and my children ride almost daily. Shani Avi-Tzedek, one of 19 killed and 74 wounded in the blast on June 18, 2002 was the child of neighbors of mine.

I hear the early morning police helicopters, Mr. Waters, seeking out Palestinian infiltrators into my neighborhood - you do not. Well, perhaps it's harder to hear on stage or in London. Here are reminders.

From the Israel Foreign Ministry website:

"Hamas [which now head the Palestinian Authority-ed.] claimed responsibility for the attack and identified the bomber as Muhamed al-Ral, an Islamic law student at An-Najah University. A preliminary investigation indicated that he had made his way from Nablus to Bethlehem. From there he infiltrated Jerusalem's southern city limits the night before the bombing, despite a massive deployment by police and soldiers alerted by intelligence warnings of an attack in the capital.

"Al-Ral boarded Egged bus no. 32A from Gilo at 7:50 A.M. at the stop in Beit Safafa, an Arab neighborhood opposite Gilo, and almost immediately detonated the large bomb which he carried in a bag stuffed with ball bearings. The blast destroyed the front half of the bus, packed with people on their way to work and schoolchildren. Of the 19 victims, 17 were residents of the Gilo neighborhood."

Mr. Waters, when the terror ends, the wall falls. It's that simple, and no inane buzz words written for you to say to the claque of sycophantic reporters and pr shills will change a damn thing until that happens. Until my triplets, and others Israelis are safe from sadistic killers trying to get to them, after we kiss them goodbye at the door as they go off to school.

From a talkback poster on Haaretz:

"Someone should explain to Waters that if the fear of suicide bombings has gone down enough for musicians such as himself to begin to come back to Israel, it is precisely because of the security barrier.

"Someone should also explain to him that Palestinian snipers will be unable to take pot shots at his convoy as he drives on certain sections of Israel`s highway system because of those parts of the barrier that are a concrete wall.

"And finally someone should tell Waters that quite a few young Israeli fans of his will be unable to attend his concert because, before the barrier was up, they rode on the wrong bus or sat in the wrong cafe or ate in the wrong restaurant or attended the wrong wedding party or went to dance to his music in the wrong club. Unlike the wall, their lives are over for good."