The words, and the acts, go back before the bible itself -- trench warfare and siege. The Romans built walls and laid siege to Jerusalem and Masada. Trenches, though for a different purpose, became synonymous with World War I. Now to further inflict still more divisions and suffering on the Palestinians -- as well as to further enforce the new Apartheid, the new "separation" both from us and from themselves -- the Israeli army is digging trenches and laying siege around the already divided and controlled Palestinian "population centers".

But actually, this isn't warfare at all. One side is overwhelming powerful and supported by the world's most powerful country. The other side is weak and increasingly enslaved, further diminished by a corrupt, repression, and impotent group of "Arab leaders", the "client regimes".

What is really going on here is vanquishment and subjugation, oppression and occupation, dispossession and neo-apartheid -- a new stretched out and camouflaged form of ethnic cleansing Israeli-style. And one day, whenever that day comes, what is being done today will have to be undone, and those who do it today will have to be held accountable.

Ha'aretz 8 March 2001: - Israel Defense Forces bulldozers left a ditch Thursday night which effectively closes off the large Palestinian city to some 65,000 residents of 25 local villages.

Tearing into a road that runs north of Ramallah, the IDF digging damaged the water pipes and telephone lines used by one West Bank village, Surda, leaving residents there complaining of dry taps and disconnected phones.

According to the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment, the IDF plowed a trench two meters deep, and dozens of meters in length. Army bulldozers worked on a stretch of road between the Bir-Zeit region and the "Wallerstein" road.

The IDF plowing cut-off the Bir Zeit region, classified as a "B" area - under Israeli security control - from Ramallah "A" zones, which are under complete Palestinian Authority control.

While the IDF had responded to five months of Al Aqsa Intifada violence by distributing concrete slabs on roads and digging up trenches to seal off a number of towns and villages in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, until now the army had refrained from placing any such obstructions on routes between Ramallah and outlying Palestinian communities.

On occasion, the IDF set up temporary checkpoints which restricted the movements of some local residents.

But by and large, residents moved freely on the road north of the Palestinian city, which was used as an alternative route for villagers who live west of Ramallah, whose own local roads (which pass by Jewish settlements such as Beit El and Ofra) have been shut down.

The IDF sources say that the road north of Ramallah was blocked off in response to a number of terror attacks that took place in the region recently, including a gunfire attack on February 25 in which two settlers from the Ateret settlement were wounded.

Tuesday's trench digging appears to have had two objectives: to contain terror units based in Ramallah and prevent them from carrying out attacks in regions to the north of the city; and to make it clear to Palestinian residents that there is a "price" to be paid for continued attacks against Jewish settlers in the region.

One institution which is likely to suffer from the new road block is Bir Zeit University.

Classes there have been conducted without interruption throughout the months of Intifada fighting.

One Bir Zeit academic predicted yesterday that university students who have not so far participated in clashes against IDF troops, are likely to take to the streets and confront soldiers now that their university studies have been disrupted.

Palestinian academics and activists aren't the only groups harboring doubts about the wisdom of the IDF's new policy of cutting off Ramallah.

IDF officers in the Central Command told Ha'aretz that by digging the trench, "we are taking on a major risk here.

"In contrast to manned checkpoints at which a reasoned decision by an officer enables Palestinians to pass for humanitarian reasons, this trench cannot be crossed.

"The practical significance is that thousands of people are cut off from hospitals and health clinics, not to mention places of work, and markets."

The IDF sources concluded: "It's doubtful that the collective punishment of tens of thousands of people, in retaliation for the acts of a few isolated terror cells, can be justified.