How settlements in the West Bank are creating a new reality, brick by brick

How Israel's growing infrastructure in the region threatens not just the form but the very possibility of a future Palestinian state
Then there are the often striking admissions from within the establishment. Two years ago Haggai Alon, an adviser to the then Israeli defence minister Amir Peretz, told Ha'aretz that Israel was using the West Bank barrier to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state and that the Israel Defence Force was carrying out an "apartheid policy" in emptying the city of Hebron of Palestinians, setting up roadblocks across the West Bank and co-operating with settlers. "The actual policy of the IDF, especially in recent years, is creating profound changes that threaten to make it impossible to leave the West Bank," Alon said. "We cannot allow the executive ranks to get us stuck in an irreversible binational situation."