OCCAM'S RAZOR WIRE

Referring to this posting, Shiring e-mails to ask why "the BBC is creating substitutions for the word "wall". A wall is a wall," she says.

Shirin makes reference to the philosophical principle of Occam's Razor, which basically states that of two equivalent explanations, the simpler one is to be preferred.

So why don't we just call a wall a wall?

Well, because in the case of the West Bank "separation barrier" -- it isn't.

Parts of the barrier are made of 8 metre high concrete slabs and so do constitute what we'd normally think of as a "wall." Other sections, however, are constructed from razor wire and ditches (for more about what the wall is and what it's designed for, try here.)

Not surprisingly it's the concrete rather than the barbed wire sections we always see on the news reports -- but that doesn't tell the whole story. To simply use the word "wall" would be misleading.

It may seem like an arcane semantic debate, but in the Middle East conflict these small distinctions matter.