[All across the West Bank] -- In 1989 a wall came crashing down in Berlin, destroyed by the powerful desire for peace. Around the world, we felt the injustice of imprisoning a city with a concrete barricade, barbed wire, and guards instructed to shoot to kill.

Fifteen years later, another wall is going up. The power of peace will take this wall down, too. This week.

This week, the Palestinian communities of the West Bank, joined by international activists from across the globe as well as within Israel, will no longer wait for a man deafened by a lifetime of warfare to listen.

By the end of July, the Israeli government wants to finish the first 145 kilometers (60+ miles) of a wall designed to imprison West Bank Palestinians in their towns and cities. Claims that the wall is designed to protect Israel's "security" have already been discredited by internal Israeli reports. World opinions, including those of Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, and George Bush, have insisted that the wall is a "problem."

Arik Sharon, however, manipulating his people's fear, ignoring the plight of the Palestinians under his power, and disregarding international law, insists the wall will continue. The wall creates a "gulag archapelago" of his own throughout the West Bank. He has already turned every resident of Qalqiliya into a prisoner behind a three-story concrete wall. In other places, swathes that are more than 180 feet wide of trenches, razor wire, fences, and armored patrol roads have been cut through Palestinian farmlands and villages.

As in Berlin in 1989, we will start to dismantle the wall with our own hands. In Jenin, in Qalqiliya, in Mas'ha, in Tulkarem, throughout the week we will increase the pressure. We will work peacefully and nonviolently. We hope that the Israeli military will respect this and choose not to respond with violence, but we will not let them stop us.

For more information, contact Huwaida Arraf (ISM Spokespersona) 067 473308 ISM Media Team 051 659 376 / 067 981 126 ISM Media Office 02 277 4602