Yigal Bronner; October 05, 2003 |
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The first lie comes in the shape of the name, "separation fence." This notion
promises the worried and exhausted Israeli public that the Palestinians,
together with all the misery in our dealings with them, will be "behind
the fence." Us here, them there -- and peace to all. But the fence
does not really mean separation between Palestinians and Israelis. On the
contrary. The wall that is under construction will lead to the annexation
by Israel of a considerable percent of the West Bank. On the western, Israeli,
side of the fence hundreds of thousands of Palestinians will remain. On
the eastern, Palestinian, side, there will be thousands of Jewish settlers.
So separation this isn't.
The second lie is that what we have here is a fence that constitutes a border on whose
eastern side the "Palestinian state" about which Sharon likes
to talk will be established. For the idea is not of one fence but rather
of, at least, two sets of walls. And while one of them, the one on the
west side, will steal as many kilometers as possible of Palestinian land
alongside the Green Line, the other -- on the eastern side -- will annex
the remoter settlements, like Ariel and Kiryat Arbah. Between these two
walls there will be various types of obstacles, fences and trenches. This
set up will irreversibly turn the West Bank's centers of population into
isolated human cages. What this amounts to is not a state but a smattering
of ghettos.
Take Jerusalem, for example. The wall that is being erected there does
not coincide with the dividing line that runs between the city's Palestinian
and Jewish neighborhoods. It cuts all of the former into two. In doing
so it will annex well over 100,000 Palestinians.
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Moreover, hundreds of thousands Palestinians will be left outside the fence,
the majority of whom are residents of Jerusalem, in the possession of a
valid Israeli ID card, whose life is wholly involved with and dependent
upon the city. These people will not only be prevented from entering the
city and, thus, reaching the source of their livelihood, their centers
of education and hospitals -- they will also be unable to turn eastward
instead.
For to the east they will be surrounded by walls and roads built to envelope
Ma'aleh Adumim, Pisgat Zeev, Nokdim and Tekoa. It is hard to describe the
vast variety of humanitarian problems that these walls will create on the
eastern side of metropolitan Jerusalem which will be cut up into a many-branched
system of enclosures. But the Israeli public is not willing to consider
this humanitarian issue because they have been promised that the fence
will finally bring the longed-for security.
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And that's the third lie about the wall. Again, a glimpse at the Jerusalem
area is instructive. During the present Intifada, East Jerusalem has been
the most quiet Palestinian area. The wall, which will cut through families
and streets alike, will harvest a great number of people who have nothing
left to lose. Tens of thousands of Palestinians, once annexed to Israel,
will be disconnected from their brothers, while, at the same time, the
settlers' drive for domination will only intensify (they are already at
Har Homa, Jabel Mukkaber, Ras el Ammud, Sheikh Jarrakh, the Muslim Quarter
of the Old City, etc.). The demolition project of Palestinian houses will
receive a serious boost and the government will do anything in its power
to push out Palestinian citizen. What we have here is a huge barrel full
of explosives. Instead of removing Ramallah and Bethlehem from Jerusalem,
the wall will in fact import them into the city.
Obviously, the problems are not restricted to Jerusalem. And there are
also areas -- though few in number -- in which the fence will be constructed
on the Green Line, without annexing Palestinian land and its inhabitants.
This for instance will be the case in Kalkilyah and Tulkarm. But those
who delude themselves with the thought that the fence will bring security
there are mistaken. Believers in the fence point, time and again, at the
example of the Gaza Strip.
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This is, indeed, a fascinating case. Gaza, which is encircled by a fence,
is virtually under lock and bolt thanks to a handful of settlements that
together have control over a substantial proportion of the land. It is
so peaceful over there that the IDF constantly lobbies for a large scale
invasion, while its air force is engaged in the continuous of shelling
of the place. The fence-made security enjoyed by the people of Sderot and
Ashkelon, who come under fire from makeshift missiles, is also widely renowned.
As long as the occupation continues the people of Gaza will go on resisting
it and it is only a matter of time until they find more sophisticated weapons
and better ways to dig their way through, underneath and above the fences.
Exploiting the genuine security related worries of the Israeli people and
the majority's wish for a political parting from the Palestinians, the
Sharon government is constructing a system of fences that will not achieve
separation, that will not draw a border, and that will not, eventually,
bring security. What we are facing in the "fence" is yet another
typical, thoroughly calculated "Sharonic" act of deception. The
real purpose of the walls is very different. They are intended as another
layer -- maybe the ultimate one -- in the complex matrix of control which
constitutes the Israeli occupation: the settlements, the roads, the roadblocks,
the curfews, the closures, and the use of brute military force. The walls
that Sharon is building now are intended to render Israel's hold over the
land it captured in 1967 irreversible. They are the last nail in the coffin
of the two-states solution. We shall wake up, in another year and a half
from now, to a drastically different reality: a cruel state consisting
of pens enclosures will stretch between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.
A state besides which South Africa's apartheid pales into insignificance.
Violence will not merely fail to be reduced -- it will increase, hatred
and racism will intensify. The outcome of this is too terrifying to contemplate.
Yigal Bronner teaches South Asian studies at the Tel-Aviv University and
is an activist in Ta'ayush -- Arab-Jewish Partnership.
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