Ariel Sharon stunned the world on Monday by telling the truth:
Amazing as it is, I don’t take Sharon’s statement very seriously. Words are only words; watch the “facts on the ground” to know what’s really going on. Sharon knows that there will always be new attacks which to provide a handy excuse for backing out of peace talks, but by making such a speech now he takes pressure off the Bush administration without committing Israel to any actual concessions.
Meanwhile, the Wall keeps on being built. What is Sharon’s intention for the Wall – is it the land grab it looks like? From an article in Haaretz:
According to the quotes from Ariel Mayor Ron Nahman, he has already seen the map of Palestinian enclaves being created by the fence: “That’s the same map I’ve seen every time I’ve visited Arik [Sharon] since 1978. He told me he’s been thinking about it since 1973.”
A settler from Einav, referring to himself as “very right-wing,” regards the fence as a disaster: “It’s an economic death sentence for the Palestinians,” Shmil Eldad told Rapaport. “There are people here who want to make a living and it’s creating more hatred,” he added. […]
David Levy, head of the Jordan Valley Regional Council, knows the fence will keep the area “inside,” meaning inside Israel. He says he knows, on the basis of meetings with Sharon and maps Sharon has shown him.
The Wall, as it is being constructed, appears to be an intentional land grab. That’s certainly how it will look to ordinary Palestinians. It’s unlikely that Palestinians will ever take the Israeli committment to a two-state solution seriously while the Wall is being built through their farms, and who can blame them?
Replying to an earlier post of mine, Allison at An Unsealed Room defends the Wall, writing:
Allison’s answer dodges the main issue. The question isn’t “should a security fence be built at all?” The question is “why is the security fence being built that grabs miles of prime land for Israel and destroys any chance of a viable Palestinian state, rather than being built along the green line?” As Inigo Gilmore argued in this past Sunday’s Telegraph, a wall built through Palestinian property and farmland is an incitement to Palestinian violence, and thus endangers Israelis (“There was peace here for 50 years – then the fence came”).
Allison also worries about how “border” Israeli communities – which, for most of the Wall, will in practice mean “settlement communities built on Palestinian land” – will suffer from the sight of an ugly wall. Compare the anguish of having to look at an ugly wall to what the Palestinians in Mazmuriah are facing:
Israel’s goal, it appears, is to expropriate the land “uninhabited.” It is highly unlikely, however, that the villagers will actually be forced out of their homes at gunpoint and put on buses. A more intricate strategy will be employed.
Creating a physical barrier between the village and the West Bank and not allowing the inhabitants any contact with either the Palestinian Authority or the Jerusalem Municipality will undermine their infrastructure of existence. They will be living on a virtual island with no possibility to sustain themselves. Ultimately, they will have to leave the village of “their own accord.”
This scheme of expelling a whole population from their land is in blatant violation of basic rights as well as all the agreements Israel has signed, not least the principles laid out in the Road Map. In Israel we call this policy “transfer.”
(From “The Bad Fence” by Israeli Neve Gordon.)
Allison writes:
Again, what the Israeli goverment says is a lot less meaningful than what it does. Take a look at the before-and-after maps again:
It is a territory grab, in the most literal sense – it grabs territory which should belong to Palestinians, and takes it for Israeli uses, either for settlements or for a buffer zone.
Contrary to Allison’s claim, the fence is explicitly being built to accommodate Israeli settlements; protecting the settlements is obviously the point of much of the wall’s planned route. Even the Israeli government doesn’t deny this. As Amos Yaron, director-general of the Israeli defense ministry, has said, the fence “will pass wherever it can to protect Jews. And if I need to take it further in order to protect more Jewish settlements, then that is what I will do.” (By the way, if any critic of Israel conflated “Jewish’ and “Israeli” like Mr. Yaron does, they’d be accused of anti-Semitism in an eyeblink.)
Allison also claims that Israel’s critics have no suggestions of what Israel can do. Okay, here’s a suggestion: Tear this wall down and build a new security wall on the Green line. It’s true that a security wall can provide real safety to Israelis, from most suicide bombers. If Israel can build a fence to protect Israeli lives, of course it should.
But this wall uses Israeli security as an excuse for grabbing territory that isn’t Israel’s; saving Israeli lives has become an excuse for destroying Palestinian livelihood and lives. And in doing so, it not only harms countless innocent Palestinians (according to World Bank research, “a finished barrier could leave 95,000 Palestinians trapped in walled enclaves” – quoted from Newsday, 5/26/03), it makes peace less likely and therefore endangers innocent Israeli lives, too.
If the Israeli goverment really wants peace and safety for its people, it would be building the wall on the Green line. And if that’s what Israeli citizens want, they’ll have to learn to stop making excuses when their government grabs yet more Palestinian land.
P.S. I should mention, Allison and others caught me in a couple of errors. During a brain-fart, I stupidly linked Rachel Corrie to the Wall in my earlier post; and I complained only about Sharon, rather than including Barak in my criticism. But I think Allison mistakes nit-piking for debate.
The question is, why is a Wall being planned and built that has the effect of destroying any hope Palestine has of forming a viable state, and of unjustly grabbing huge swathes of land for Israel? Yes, I screwed up some minor facts; but the major fact – the Wall itself – is not in doubt, yet that’s the one fact that Allison refuses to address. Why not build a wall along the green line? Why build a wall that will obviously incite violence and be a barrier to peace talks?
Until Allison and my other critics answer those questions, they haven’t really defended the Wall at all..
Shades of the Enclosures Act. Same idea. Worse implications.
Have you seen this video? footage taken following the suicide bombing of bus no. 19 in Jerusalem on Jan. 29, 2004 (warning: it is very graphic.)
The point of the fence not being on the Green Line is to encircle Israeli settlements that are in the West Bank. You mentioned this in your article: I quote,
“It is a territory grab, in the most literal sense – it grabs territory which should belong to Palestinians, and takes it for Israeli uses, either for settlements or for a buffer zone. Contrary to Allison’s claim, the fence is explicitly being built to accommodate Israeli settlements; protecting the settlements is obviously the point of much of the wall’s planned route. Even the Israeli government doesn’t deny this.”
Of course it is protecting Israeli settlements, That’s the whole point. But how can it be a land grab if that land was already owned by Israel? The West Bank is not considered Palestinian property because they do not own it. Gaza, yes. But the West Bank? It’s part of Israel. Land grab? My left buttock.
In fact, the construction of the wall actually cuts off part of Israeli land. The land beyond the wall will be considered Palestinian and not Israeli, even though the Israelis still conquered it fair and square.
You claim that this “Land Grab” makes the creation of a Palestinian state impossible. The only thing, as far as I can tell, that makes a Palestinian state impossible is the complete refusal of Palestinians to accept anything other than all of Israel. There have been at least two Israeli offers for a Palestinian state-that is still the accepted peace plan in Israel. But the PA refused all of the offers and instead asks unreasonable things, like the total destruction of Israel as a country. And when they cannot achieve these things through political peace talks, they resort to slaughtering innocent Israelis in the streets of their own ancestral homeland.
Back before Israel was recognized as a state, Palestinians living in Israel lived a typical nomadic lifestyle. When the European intellectuals moved into Israel and showed that the desert could be made into a modern country, Palestinians became jealous and demanded the land for themselves. You had it before… It isn’t our fault that you didn’t do anything with it.
Also, the wall is a TEMPORARY MEASURE. I cannot believe how many people have forgotten this. Yes, the Palestinians will recieve their land and farms back (even though most of the land that the wall is being built on does not contain any farmland that is being used). But only when the slaughter of innocent people ceases. Fix your own problems before you complain about a legal defensive measure of a neighboring country that you regularly attack.
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