The Truth About the Wall

The Truth About The Wall

by Yigal Bronner; October 05, 2003

Yigal Bronner teaches South Asian studies at the Tel-Aviv University and is an activist in Ta'ayush -- Arab-Jewish Partnership.

Excerpts:

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.

...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. 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.

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.

More:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=4304

Good article. We shouldn't pretend like the conservatives even have valid arguments by framing the debate as one of their "opinion" vs. our opinion. It's really more a matter of liars vs. people exposing their bullcrap.

And yes, Sharon's government is seriously exploiting genuine security concerns as a means of stealing more land and making a reality his vision of racist Apartheid.