The question is whether a military withdrawal from the West Bank will have a similar effect. Most suicide bombings have always come from the West Bank, not Gaza, hence the efficacy of the wall. But the wall alone would probably not provide adequate protection. Whatever the political and moral costs, the most effective way the IDF has to prevent and disrupt Palestinian terror attacks is by tightly controlling the movements of the Palestinian population in the West Bank. Granted, an Israeli withdrawal could set off another power struggle between Hamas and Fatah, as it has done in Gaza, meaning that Palestinian terrorists might spend more time trying to kill each other than Israeli citizens. Whether the security benefit of this hypothetical civil strife would be greater than that provided by Israeli troops and checkpoints on the ground I don't know. But either way, Israel could do itself and everyone else a favor by dismantling the bulk of civilian settlements beyond the Green Line.

Walls like this are analogous to duct tape over a hole in an inflatable raft or perfuming yourself instead of bathing. Both give nice results for the near future, but in the long run, you need to solve the real problem.

If they are simultaneously going at the root of the issue, then this should work. If not, let me be the first to predict their fuckedness.

I hope you're right, and honestly, I don't follow Israeli politics closely enough to know how I feel about the wall. Still, I think there are other factors at work here in addition to the wall. Possibly changes in leadership among the Palestinians is a factor in the decline of terrorism as well. Or, if in fact terrorist funding is all connected as our president would like you to believe, maybe funding has been diverted to the terrorists in Iraq and Lebanon. That last statement was probably really dumb and way off base, but hey, I'm brainstorming here.