In perhaps not the most surprising ruling ever, the Israeli wall has been ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice.

This is right and proper. The security situation has become so bad that a wall to keep murderous bastards out of Israel is necessary. An absurd wiggling wall that means settlements in the occupied territories don’t have to be knocked down isn’t.

In some ways, it’s ironic that many of Israel’s problems stem from being a democracy: if Arik didn’t depend on votes from right-wing elements, he could just have all the settlements disbanded, retreat to pre-1967 borders, build a huge wall, and everything would be better for all the non-crazy non-settling Israelis and the non-crazy non-self-exploding Palestinians alike.

Stupid vaguely relevant joke: “I always used to annoy my Israeli flatmate by giving him all the mail that came addressed to ‘the occupier’.”