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Another Kind of Road Map: Living on the Edge - UN Security Council - Global Policy Forum Another Kind of Road Map: Living on the Edge
By Christine Lane*
Yellow Times
September 29, 2003The road carves out its path like a long brown snake, slithering through virgin mountainsides, turning olive groves into concrete slabs. It's guarded by armed border police squatting on rocky outposts, positioned every 25 metres along the route. Bulldozers roar, churning up savage clouds of red dust, while earthmovers delve into volcanic-like ditches that herald the beginning of a 25ft. high razor fence. A young donkey with a foal in tow hesitates before the ditch unable to proceed further and obviously confused, its familiar journey no longer possible. There is no path for man or beast. Large tracts of fertile land stand marooned, and forcibly abandoned, their owners denied access. Patches of old green canvas, once a carpet for the olives, lie scattered here and there, together with remnants of perhaps what was once the scene of a picnic celebration. Olive trees harvested for centuries, their upturned roots now bared to the sky; plants and herbs, long used in traditional Palestinian cuisine, wither in the dry grass. Aside from the presence of Israeli police and Palestinian labourers, there is not a villager in sight. This is the scene of the construction of a small section of Israel's 'Separation Wall' encircling the beautiful, old northern Palestinian village of Qafin, near Tulkarem. Like hundreds of other villagers, the residents of Qafin are devastated as they helplessly witness the confiscation of their lands and destruction of the olive groves. A small scene from a larger picture.
The Fortifications
When the news broke in 2002 of Israel's intention to build a wall, whimsically referred to by the Israeli government as "a fence" stretching the length and breadth of Occupied Palestinian lands to separate Jews in Israel, and illegal settlers from Palestinians in the West Bank, some thought it a joke. Memories come to mind, the Wall of China, and, of course, the Berlin wall with its ominous connotations but this wall is twice as high and potentially thirty times as long. Israel was not joking. The inconceivable would become a reality.
Israel began building the Wall in earnest in June 2002, and even the term "wall" is misleading for to be more precise, it is a 25ft. high concrete wall, some 70 metres wide, accompanied by electric 'smart' fences, razor wire, trenches, security patrols and electronic gates. On the eastern side (Palestine) are trenches to act as a barrier against vehicles, a two-lane patrol road, another for armoured vehicles and then another fence. In other sections there are 'depth barriers' some 70-100 metres wide, a no-man's land. According to Israel's State Attorney's office, five main crossing points and 26 agricultural crossings will be established along the length of the Wall. However, it appears in the 2003 budget that insufficient funds were allocated to erect even the main crossing points.
The reason given for these massive fortifications, the old adage about Israel's "security," all else having failed to quench Palestinian resistance to the Occupation, preemptive assassinations of Palestinian leaders, imprisonment [currently over 6,000 political prisoners of whom 345 are under the age of 18 years], arbitrary detentions, torture, and the murder of over 2,000 civilians including 571 children over the past 33 months. Every effort to squeeze and suffocate the Palestinians through the continued expansion of settlements, the theft of thousands of dunums of land, had failed. All efforts were based on the premise that by locking in and locking down the entire Palestinian population, Israel would become a safer place, more like that God-given retreat envisaged by the early Zionists, despite the fact that such security barriers fail to achieve their purpose, as illustrated by the complete security barrier surrounding the Gaza Strip. Gazans prove themselves capable of entering Israel whenever, but the Israeli government proceeds with the concept of enforced separation from the West Bank, and with a vengeance. To begin, Israel occupies, oppresses, then imprisons the Palestinian people.
If the Wall, itself built at a cost of roughly $2 billion ($1 million per km), is to set the future, permanent boundaries of the State of Israel, it certainly does not follow the internationally recognised 1967 temporary borders of the Green Line. The boundary between Israel and Occupied Palestine is approximately 350 km long, so why, one may ask, does the route of the proposed Wall stretch to 1000 km? The answer is it follows a circular route. It plunges into existing Palestinian lands, meandering here and there in pursuit of its victims. It cuts into existing villages, frequently leaving villagers on the one side, their lands and water resources on the other, separating them from larger towns and major public services, hospitals, health clinics, and schools. It ensnares some villages between the western border of the Wall and the 1967 Green Line.
In deference to the illegal Jewish settlers, the Wall digresses to transfer clusters of settlements, including Kedumin, Immanuel and Ariel, into Israel proper, snatching important subterranean water reservoirs in the process. The settlers are determined that the Wall absorbs most of them into Israel, no matter how far their settlements are from the Green Line. There are 231,443 illegal settlers living in the West Bank and Gaza with an increase of 5,415 since the beginning of 2003. Settlements currently take up 1.6% of the total land in the West Bank. However, together with the road networks, they control 46% of Palestinian land.
The first section of the Wall runs from Salem in the north to Qalandia in the south. In its entirety, it is expected to see the confiscation of some 160,000-180,000 dunums (45,000 acres), 2% of the entire West Bank, the uprooting of 80,000 olive trees, the destruction of 35 kilometres of water pipes and the demolition of dozens of greenhouses. Any structure or home within 35 metres of the barrier will be demolished. Simply, from its first section in northern Palestine, B'Tselem (Israeli Human Rights organisation) estimates that the lives of 210,000 Palestinians who live within 67 villages and towns of the Wall's radius, will be directly affected. At least 30 villages will lose part of their lands. The built- up areas of at least 15 villages will be east of the Wall, their lands on the Israeli side. The second proposed section (southern) is to stretch from Bethlehem to Hebron, and a third smaller section will be surrounding Jericho. Finally, a further section will completely seal off the Jordan valley to the east, thus cutting off Palestine from the rest of the Arab world.
Plans for the Jerusalem section of the Wall will carve in concrete Israel's illegal annexation of the holy city, and include the annexation of at least 15 settlements including the massive colony of Ma'aleh Adumim, as well as Modi'in Illit and Betar Illit. Given that 50% of the settlers live in East Jerusalem, much of the land to be confiscated will be transferred to these colonies while placing the Palestinian neighbourhoods of the city in limbo, as with the areas in the north. The route will entail the entrapment of some 276,000 Palestinians from the village of Kfar Aqab and Qalandia refugee camp whose residents carry Jerusalem identity cards. In order to resolve this demographic problem, Israel is planning to build two walls around Jerusalem, the first around Israeli-defined municipal borders, the second to surround these residents, cutting them off from both the West Bank and Jerusalem.
An ironic thought: Successive Israeli governments have claimed their right to an exclusive Jewish 'homeland', yet the logistics of the Wall, while leaving Palestinians with only 10% of their historic homeland, will draw in some 400,000 Palestinians stranded on the (wrong side) Israeli side of the Wall, the buffer zone. They have literally been abducted from the West Bank. They will not be granted Israeli citizenship, or free access into Israel and will need a special permit to visit the West Bank. They may well be shot in the attempt to do so. Again, according to the Two State solution, this will create a new breed of refugees. One can only speculate as to their future.
As with other oppressive Israeli policies towards the Palestinian people since 1967, certain features concerning the Wall are simply ingenious. How is the land confiscated? Notice to the landowner to appear in Court! On the contrary, the owner may wake up one day to find a Notice posted on his trees, or simply dropped on this land, a lifetime's work, a generation's heritage terminated by a scrap of paper. Requisition is always for military needs' order signed by the Military Commander, which no Israeli Court would dream of reversing.
In some instances, trapping the Palestinians, depriving farmers of their only means of survival, is not enough. In the northern village of Zita, reports emerge of farmers being beaten as they await the opening of the electronic gate No 542 by border police. If anyone dares touch the fence, the gate will not be opened at all that day as a punishment. In other areas, stretches of sand await the arrival of tell-tale footprints. The city of Tulkarem will be separated from the West Bank, on its western side near the Green Line by fences and walls and on the side of the West Bank by a depth barrier, sealing in the town including Tulkarem refugee camp (15, 6000 registered refugees). More than one-third of Qalqilya's town land, the most important agricultural basket in the West Bank, has been confiscated. The town is completely encircled by the Wall and gates, overlooked by a watchtower, control the flow in and out - one person or vehicle at a time.
The Wall will meander across the fields of 300 farmers and 1,000 farmers will lose significant portions of their land to the western side. One such village, Jayyous, is where the Wall deviates up to 6 km from the Green Line (to absorb settlements); it ensnares 500 Palestinian homes, terminating residents' access to their land, and grazing for their animals. Another irony, according to Ottoman law, if the land is not utilised for a period of three years, it reverts to the State, the State of Israel naturally.
The Wall itself is merely an extension of the policies of countless checkpoints and closures imposed by Israel on Palestinian freedom of movement since the mid-1990s. The separation rhetoric is not a reflection of a real geographic or historical divide between the two peoples, but rather an extension of Israel's continued campaign of forcible, unilateral separation and expulsion plans that violate Palestinian human rights, and in complete disregard of the concept of national sovereignty for the Palestinians.
The construction of the first section of the Wall has proved itself an unmitigated social, economic and environmental disaster. It compounds existing Israeli practices of restrictions of movement, bringing even higher unemployment and poverty, high psychological stress and increasing health problems. Conditions include life under siege, living without any degree of personal security, living at the whim of Israel's boy soldiers, the greatest enthusiasts of 'shoot to kill', living in an open air prison and struggling to maintain your family and educate your children. In fact, living on the edge.
Thirty-five years of Israel's brutal occupation has turned the state of the Palestinian economy into yet another disaster. The past two years of the Intifada have seen an acceleration of horrific policies, bombardments from air-raids, the use of tank fire and missiles, have left many Palestinian cities as scenes of war-torn areas, now facing further degradation. The nature of the occupation created a source of cheap labour; now, that workforce is back on the unemployment pile. Many villages will be denied access either to purchase or sell goods and produce. Qalqilya is the major producer of fruit and vegetables in the entire West Bank; in 2002, unemployment reached 70%, the level of poverty 55%, based on three dollars or less consumption per day.
The natural resources of the West Bank continue to be a major casualty of the Occupation. The most critical impact of the Wall is through the loss of agricultural land, and the destruction of the trees and water supply. Every aspect of the micro-climate will be displaced. In villages around Tulkarem and Qalqilya, 30 artisan wells have been lost, 18% of the Palestinian share of the Western Groundwater Basin. This drains the already scarce water supplies as for every 10 litres allocated (by Israel) to the Palestinians, 50 litres are allocated to the illegal Jewish settler. Israeli settlers annually discharge 224,000 tons of waste into Palestine, polluting village streams and farms. The land is treasured by the Palestinian farmer, and trees play a vital role in preserving the environment and ecological balance of the area. The olive tree is a basic part of the Palestinian landscape, culture and heritage, yet 250,000 olive and other fruit trees have been destroyed over the past two years.
The Wall should also be viewed against a background of other concrete necklaces that suffocate Palestine. The Trans-Israeli highway runs from north to south through a 17% swathe of the West Bank. It, too, has a buffer zone the width of three football pitches on either side. Its creation, as with the Wall, was only made possible through the demolition of Palestinian homes and the virtual desertification of Palestinian land. In April 2003, UNRWA reported that, since the beginning of the Intifada in September 2002, 12, 237 Palestinians had witnessed the demolition of their homes. This highway compliments the 250 miles of the exclusive settler-only road system, which criss-crosses the West Bank
As with all of Israel's policies and actions, the construction of the Wall violates Article 47, IVth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the annexation of land. Moreover, any destruction of real or personal property by the occupying power is prohibited, except where it is "rendered absolutely necessary for military operations." Israel argues that the Wall is built for "security purposes", and not military. However, the life of the entire Palestinian population is being impacted, and international humanitarian law forbids collective punishment. Israel is a master of ignoring international law and the United Nations with impunity, and countless resolutions concerning Israel simply gather dust.
As stated in a report on the Apartheid Wall by the Palestinian human rights organization LAW', "The Apartheid Convention" declares "the crime of apartheid to be a crime against humanity" defined as system of institutionalised racial segregation and discrimination for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination of one racial group…over another… and systematically oppressing them. Israeli policies clearly fulfill these elements including: denial of right to life and liberty, murder, infringement of their freedom and dignity, degrading treatment or punishment, by arbitrary arrest, and illegal imprisonment; deliberate imposition of living conditions calculated to cause a group their physical destruction in whole or in part.
It should be irrevocably clear that Israel not only intends to vanquish the Palestinian people, but is intent upon their 'disappearance' by one means or another. It is exactly like this for all captive people. Should the Palestinians collaborate with their own extinction? Should they close their eyes believing that they are invisible, and have melted into the landscape that is, itself, disappearing?
Where are the international expressions of outrage, the screams of protest over this most historic and disastrous development since 1948, namely Israel's Separation Wall?On July 25th, 2003 in a joint news conference with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, George Bush stated the Separation Wall "is a problem," giving the same blandness of language to a time when "settlements were an obstacle to peace," and look what happened! Bush added, "it is very difficult to develop confidence between the Palestinians and Israel with a wall snaking through the West Bank." In the same breath, Bush stated "we must improve the daily lives of the ordinary Palestinians." One assumes by deduction, making the lives of the unordinary, those who continue to resist the occupation, a living hell. Again, US National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice raised her concerns with Sharon. "The route of the security fence that you are building arouses our deep concern. I propose that you reconsider the route where the 'fence' passes." Sharon rebuffed Rice's comments. Even if Western leaders had been quick off the mark concerning the Wall's construction, it is doubtful if Sharon would have changed his Zionist goal post.
The Wall will make the establishment of a viable, thriving Palestinian state virtually impossible and it will achieve no security advantage for Israel. It will further impoverish the Palestinian community, and for some provide the ultimate challenge. Its unimpeded construction reflects the failure of the peace process over the past ten years, and the abject failure of American policy, and the failure of the international community to live up to its moral and legal obligations. There is nothing in the mentality of Ariel Sharon and his ilk that cares for a solution based on justice for the Palestinians. Yet George Bush and his ilk continue to pour billions of dollars into Israel which funds Israel's military apparatus, its settlements and now the construction of the Wall. Its foundations entirely overshadow the road map to peace. Unless urgent action is taken to oblige Israel to remove every trace and fabric of the Wall, and facilitate the rehabilitation of the horrific damage to both Palestinian land and its people, the consequences will bring a human and ecological catastrophe of nightmarish quality. Should this occur, we should all pay the moral price.
*Christine Lane grew up in South Wales but has resided in Palestine for the last ten years.
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