A Masked Reality (Amira Haas)

April 11, 2004

Media interest in the separation fence is dying down, although construction is continuing. The disengagement from Gaza is still making headlines, but does not go further than words at this stage. Between the rising and ebbing waves of interest, two basic assumptions are being established. One, that the separation fence is the way it is due to the typical Israeli brouhaha in government and administration procedures.

Two, that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement is integrally tied to his and his sons' legal entanglements.

However, these assumptions derive from the reality we know within the Green Line. Within the Palestinian territories that were occupied 1967, there is a reality of rigorous, elaborate long-term master planning that disguises itself as confusion. This is a reality of evicting as many Palestinians as possible from their lands, concentrating them in crowded residential enclaves, and thwarting their desire to establish a state that will enable them to live with respect.

Why should the confusion in the decision-making process of the fence construction produce a route that harms the Palestinians? How is it that confusion and lack of planning result in more Palestinians being forced to leave their homes - in Qalqilyah, Barta'a, and the little village of Siapa in the north of the Gaza Strip?

How is it that the repercussions of the separation fence are so similar to those of the security roads and fences around the settlements, like Efrat, Karnei Shomron, Beitar and Dugit? Less and less land for the Palestinians, wider quarters for the Jews? How is it that the brouhaha in the Oslo years produced bypassing roads so consistent with Sharon's plans from the '80s, which today are the main instruments for imprisoning the Palestinians in their enclaves to protect the settlements' safety?

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=5299

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