Sunday July 12, 7pm. Questioned at the airport for about half an hour, telling them I am a tourist backpacking through the country. A taxi driver, Palestinian, picks me up to take me from the airport in Tel Aviv to my host family in Beit Sahour which is a small town near Bethlehem. At first he is wary to talk politics, but once we pass by Jerusalem, he points out a number of Israeli settlements on the way between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Two of these are Ramot and Gilo C. He keeps emphasizing how large they are, some with as many as 50,000 people, and how removal of them seems nearly impossible now. Since the settlements are inside the West Bank east of the 1967 border, the wall is also inside the West Bank, dividing these settlements from Palestinian villages. Its route is tediously circuitous and combined with the checkpoints makes movement even inside the West Bank difficult for Palestinians. I took a lot of footage but it is difficult to upload video to this blog because of the shaky internet service.