WADI FOQUIN — Many foreigners I meet believe that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is on the path to being resolved. They are familiar with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ recent upbeat visit to the White House and Israel’s planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

But the realities that Palestinians experience in West Bank villages like mine contradict hopes for peace and instead signal a deepening of Israel’s occupation.

The Israeli army recently delivered a seizure order to Wadi Foquin and three neighboring villages about 12 miles southwest of Bethlehem for 189 acres of our land. The army justifies this seizure as necessary to prevent terrorist attacks and to build a security wall. The order has left our small village in crisis, its very existence threatened.

Wadi Foquin lost 80 percent of its original land when Israel was established in 1948. Later, the creation of the Israeli settlement of Betar Illit consumed about 175 acres of village land. The army now wants to seize our remaining property. …

Israel is imprisoning Palestinians in countless unconnected ghettos, turning the Palestinian territories into a series of open-air prisons. We must stop the wall. It is a monster, rapidly swallowing Palestine’s body and endangering its very existence. The world must act immediately before this damaged body becomes a lifeless corpse.

Israel plans to double Jordan Valley settlers

Israel’s agriculture ministry has drawn up plans to double the number of Jewish settlers living in the sparsely-populated Jordan Valley area of the West Bank, a spokesperson for the ministry said on Friday.

“The plan which has already won approval from within different ministries will increase the number of residents in 21 settlements by 50 percent in a year and then by a further 50 percent in the following year,” spokesperson Benjamin Rom said. …

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who held talks with Sharon in Jerusalem last weekend, has consistently warned Israel against creating “facts on the ground.”

Sort of speaks for itself.