Up against the wall

Israel continues building a mammoth barrier in the name of border security. Opponents charge that it's carving more land for Jewish settlements -- and assaulting Palestinians' human rights.

By Rachel Shabi

Read more: Palestine, Politics, Israel, West Bank, News

Sept. 18, 2006 | WEST BANK -- "We haven't seen our land since January last year," says Abdul Ra'uf Khalid, sitting in his home in the Palestinian village of Jayyus. The Khalid family's 5.5 acres lie on the Israeli side of the separation barrier, which in Jayyus consists of a tall electric fence winding its way across the hilly, rural terrain. The Khalids have greenhouses, and olive, citrus and fruit trees, on the land but aren't allowed to cross the divide to tend them. "The apricots and peaches are falling from the trees and rotting," says Abdul's wife, Itaf. Stuck here, restless and unable to work, the Khalids appear to be deteriorating in similar fashion.

Along much of the West Bank's border with Israel a similar story is unfolding. It is a story of land, livelihood and a way of life lost to Israel's rising barrier, known as the "security" or "separation fence" by its supporters and the "apartheid wall" by its opponents. In June 2002, the Israeli government approved the building of the first stage of a physical barrier separating the Jewish state from the West Bank. In July 2004, the International Courts of Justice deemed the wall illegal and called for its removal. Now, the wall -- built from various combinations of concrete, razor wire and electric fencing -- is 51 percent complete, and construction of the rest continues apace.

Israel says the barrier has succeeded in preventing terror attacks, the stated aim for its construction. But opponents charge that Israel is using it to steal land and develop desirable real estate for its own citizens. They also charge that the barrier is depriving whole groups of Palestinians of their human rights -- including the freedom of movement and goods, access to work, educational and social opportunities, and other basics of daily life stopped cold by the concrete and wire and heavily fortified checkpoints. Yet, despite international censure and defiant protests on the ground, analysts agree that the barrier will almost certainly be built to completion.

According to the most recently approved plans, when the barrier is finished it will cover 436 miles of ground, even though the Green Line, the internationally agreed armistice border between Israel and the Palestinian territories, is less than half that length. This is because the barrier is quite often circuitous when, topographically speaking, it could run straight. Only 20 percent of the barrier's path actually runs on the Green Line, while the rest juts east into occupied territory, in some locations as much as 13 miles.

Indeed, critics say that the plan for the barrier is to encircle Israeli settlements on the Palestinian side of the Green Line with a clear purpose. "We say it again and again," said Ronen Shimoni at Betzelem, the Israeli human rights group. "The route of the fence is not for security but to gain more and more land."

Around the city of Bethlehem, the approved barrier route cuts a large block of land off the West Bank to encompass Gush Etzion, a sprawling block of Jewish settlements with a population of more than 20,000. A 26-foot-high concrete wall has already been built around Palestinian East Jerusalem, securing the sprawling Ma'ale Adummim settlement. (While Israel speaks of Jerusalem as its "eternal and undivided capital," East Jerusalem is internationally recognized as occupied territory, even by the U.S.) Farther north, the proposed barrier path takes two wide "fingers" of Palestinian land to gather in the settlements of Ariel, Barqan, Immanuel, Shomeron and Qedumim. Still farther north, a completed section carves loops of concrete into the West Bank, encircling the settlements of Alfe Menashe and Zufin. These loops have left the Palestinian village of Qalqilya surrounded by the barrier on three sides, with only a narrow exit to the east.

Lawyers currently involved in court cases challenging the barrier have discovered that its route also accommodates settlement expansion plans. "This is no longer a secret. It was proved in court in several instances," said solicitor Michael Sfard, a Tel Aviv-based human rights lawyer. The Israeli Association for Civil Rights cites cases involving the settlements of Zufin (which borders Jayyus) and Sal'it. In some lawsuits, companies have already bought the rights to build on the land allocated for expansion; in such cases, lawyers say, these companies are a presence in court and weight is given to their appeals.

In a written statement, Israel's Ministry of Defense said the following: "The Security Fence is not a land grab mechanism. It does not annex lands. Lands seized for the construction remain the property of their owners, who are offered compensation for use of lands and loss of crops (in cases where the lands were agricultural lands). The opinion of the Supreme Court repeated over and over in all its rulings is that the Fence is a security measure." The Ministry of Defense added that the purpose of building it is "to counter terrorism of the most brutal kind, not to dictate a border that is and remains the subject of permanent negotiations. It is our hope that by building this fence its very function will become irrelevant and that one day it will be dismantled."

But for the Palestinians whose lives the barrier cuts through, there is only one conclusion. "The aim of the wall is to force us to leave," said Nidal Amer, mayor of Mas'ha, a village of 2,000 in the Qalqilya district of the West Bank. Eighty percent of Mas'ha's land, 1,250 acres of agricultural land, is now on the Israeli side of the barrier. Before it went up, Mas'ha's markets selling furniture, tiles and flowers were famous across the West Bank -- and across the Green Line, too. "From Kiryat Shmona in the north [of Israel] to Beersheba in the south, Israelis would come to the market," said Amer. "You couldn't move for people." In the past, he adds, there were good relations among the residents of the village and their Jewish neighbors. "It was quite common to find Israelis at wedding parties in the village," he said. Today, the village is eerily quiet. Shops and workshops are shuttered, while empty restaurants bearing Hebrew signage wait in vain for customers.

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