Extreme Rambling: Walking Israel’s Separation Barrier. For Fun.

Bestselling author, comedian and activist Mark Thomas finds a very British way to try to comprehend the Middle Eastern problem

‘Good fences make good neighbours, but what about bad ones?’

The Israeli separation barrier is probably the most iconic divider of land since the Berlin Wall. It has been declared illegal under international law and its impact on life in the West Bank has been enormous.

Mark Thomas - as only he could - decided the only way to really get to grips with this huge divide was to use the barrier as a route map, to ‘walk the wall’, covering the entire distance with little more in his armoury than Kendal Mint Cake and a box of blister plasters.

In the course of his ramble he was tear-gassed, stoned, sunburned, rained on and hailed on and even lost the wall a couple of times. But thankfully he was also welcomed and looked after by Israelis and Palestinians - from farmers and soldiers to smugglers and zookeepers - and finally earned a unique insight of the real Middle East in all its entrenched and yet life-affirming glory. And all without hardly ever getting arrested!