by Issa Samandar - Bitterlemons - 12 March 2007
Act one: Reports amass detailing the increasing havoc Israel`s wall is wreaking on Palestinian lives, livelihoods, their access to education or health facilities, the economy and environment. You name it, it`s been covered by well-meaning international NGOs, who warn time and again that the wall will spell the end of hopes for peace. The truth is out there.
Act two: Appalling audiences, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decides to grant Palestinians and the settlers of Nili and Na`aleh the gift of yet more walls, this time one that will trap some 20,000 Palestinians in five villages west of Ramallah between the wall and the green line in another ghetto, made in Israel.
Act three: An American-sponsored public relations campaign is launched. US officials call it "peace negotiations". The campaign aims to prettify the ugly face of the Israeli occupation, particularly the wall, a deep scar that runs from the ear to the mouth. The dramatic denouement is a perversion of the story of the Emperor`s New Clothes. Israel`s occupation stands fully exposed for all the paltry fear and greed that sustains it, but only the audience perceives: the actors stay silent, either cowed or diverted.
Like a Greek tragedy, Israel`s wall project is building to a long foreseen but apparently inevitable conclusion. International actors, with the notable and crucial exception of the United States aided by the spineless impotence of the European Union, have been consistent in their condemnation of the wall. Most recently, on March 3 the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination had this to say. "The Committee is of the opinion that the wall and its associated regime raise serious concerns under the Convention, since they gravely infringe on a number of human rights of Palestinians residing in the territory occupied by Israel. These infringements cannot be justified by military exigencies or by the requirements of national security or public order."
The wall, once completed (it is nearly 60 percent finished at time of writing), will run for 703 km and by some projections will place 45.5 percent of West Bank territory under direct Israeli control. Some 360,000 Palestinians could find themselves stuck between the wall and the green line. Anything else is detail. That much many have acknowledged.
Politically, the wall has changed the ground rules. In response to international criticism, Israel has hit on the "magic" solution of building local walls, tailored to fit snuggly around Palestinian villages and thereby protect nearby illegal Jewish settlements. Astonishingly, this change in tactic appears to have done the trick. While local walls are still built on land taken from Palestinian villages and in occupied territory, as are the Jewish settlements the walls protect, the Israeli high court has apparently ended its protestations and is cooperating with the Israeli army in this venture to dispossess more and more Palestinians and preclude any possibility of the emergence of a viable Palestinian state.
And with the Quartet now too busy punishing Palestinians for exercising their democratic right to vote, the pressure on Israel has almost ended. So why not? Why not take advantage of the American cover? (Because, make no mistake, that is what Washington is providing.) And for as long as the US retains its power to ignore international law, why shouldn`t Israel take full advantage of its special friendship with Washington? After all, what are human rights violations, but three words in ink on paper that prompt memories of a bygone era?
On this side, meanwhile, our politicians are preoccupied with polishing the seats they want to occupy in the future. Apparently, even for our own leaders, the dust from the settlement and wall construction work and the smoke from Israeli guns and bombs are obscuring the view of what is happening on the ground.
Israel`s wall and Jewish settlements in occupied territory are causing untold suffering to Palestinians and placing entirely avoidable yet insurmountable obstacles in the way of peace.
The wall is theft and apartheid made concrete, pure and simple. In turn, anger is brewing among Palestinians, anger that is fomenting and will soon create a potent brew. Another round of protests and struggle will ensue.
It is time for all those believing in "rights for peace" to unite their efforts. This horse and carriage will soon tumble over a sheer cliff side, despite the simple and well-understood cure: End the occupation, destroy the wall and send the settlers packing.- Published 12/3/2007 © bitterlemons.org
Issa Samandar is coordinator of the Land Defense General Committees and project manager of the Popular Committees Against the WALL.
