The road carves out its path like a long brown snake, slithering through virgin mountainsides, turning olive groves into concrete slabs Its 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. Olives 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 Israelis and illegal Jewish 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 is becoming 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 including depth barriers, forming a no-man’s land, accompanied by electric ‘smart’ fences, razor wire, trenches, security patrols and electronic gates. On the eastern side (Palestinian), are trenches to act as a barrier against vehicles, a two-lane army patrol road, then another fence. 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 insufficient funds were allocated to erect even the main crossing points.

The reason given for these massive fortifications, the old adage 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, 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. So 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 Zionist. 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.

If the northern section 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 350km long, so why one may ask does the route of the proposed Wall stretch to 1000km? The answer 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) estimate 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) to stretch from Bethlehem to Hebron, and a third smaller section 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, and 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 to transfer 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. The exact route of the walls have not been made public, but currently students of Al-Quds university are enrolling from a tent in its football field as the threatened construction will gorge on one third of the university’s land. Not surprisingly there is a sudden flurry of local football matches.

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) the 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 in Israel. 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 land to the western side. One such village, Jayyous where the Wall deviates up to 6km 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-1990’s. 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 Israel practices of restrictions of movement, bringing even higher unemployment and poverty, high psychological stress and increasing health problems. 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 has 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 Palestinians share of the Western Groundwater Basin. This drains the already scarce water supplies as for every 10 litres allocated (by Israel) to the Palestinian, 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 which 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. It’s 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, 1Vth 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. However Israeli is a master of ignoring international law and the United Nations with impunity, and countless Resolutions concerning Israel, simply gather dust.

It should be irrevocable 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 melt into the landscape, that is itself, disappearing?

Where are the international and expressions of outrage, the screams of protest from Arab States 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,” (now its Arafat who is the obstacle) 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 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 the 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 price.

-----------------------------------------
Christine Lane: Women's International League for Peace & Freedom - Palestine Section Staff, Jerusalem, Palestine.
E-Mail: ChristineLane 2002@yahoo.com