Singer wants West Bank barrier torn down

JERUSALEM, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Singer-songwriter Roger Waters wants the West Bank security barrier torn down, saying it was built on Palestinian land and is an obstacle to peace.

"What a lot of people don't understand in the United States, because of the sketchy news reports, what they don't understand, is just how many Israelis are prepared to compromise and make peace with their neighbors," Waters said during an interview on Israel Radio Wednesday,

Peace must be based on the Green Line, he said. Waters, who supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said more than 70 percent of Israelis who participated in a recent poll said "they would absolutely accept the Green Line and they would accept the resettlement of people who moved into the West Bank," he told the radio network.

Marking five years since the International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands, ruled the security barrier was built on illegal land, the east Jerusalem branch of the United Nations on Wednesday screened a 17-minute documentary named "Walled Horizons" narrated by Waters.

The film, shot in 2006 when the former Pink Floyd band member performed in Israel, depicts how the lives of West Bank Palestinians have been affected by the security barrier.

Construction of the barrier began in June 2002 in an effort to halt the spate of suicide bomb attacks in Israel by West Bank Palestinians.

The Green Line refers to the 1949 armistice lines drawn up between Israel and its neighbors after the 1948 war and also marks the territories captured by Israel in the Six Days War, including the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and Sinai, which has since been returned to Egypt.