From the airplane I could see the Rocky Mountains. I could see canyons, suburbs, snow. In the airport I walked around and bought a sandwich and a coffee and a giant chocolate chip cookie and learned that San Bernardino cops burned Christopher Dorner alive. On the airplane, the woman next to me read a book. "Dedicate yourself to leadership growth," said the book. "The workplace has become more pleasant for everyone." I took the above photo the day I left, in the West Bank village of Al-Walaja just south and east of Jerusalem (or, if you prefer, north and west of Bethlehem). Israel is building a wall around the village. All the way around it. The wall, you understand, is not a single contiguous barrier. The wall is many walls. I'm not being metaphorical. One home will remain outside the wall, cut off by the Israelis-only road to the nearby settlements of Gilo and Har Gilo. That home will be surrounded by a barrier of its own, most likely not a concrete wall, but a high chain-link and barbed-wire fence. It will be its own island, isolated from the village and the fields and olive groves in the valley below. A tunnel will connect it to the village. The tunnel has already been built. You can see it in the picture. Inside it, someone has spray-painted the words "Free Palestine." Here is a photo of the wall, still incomplete:
