Protesting the Israeli "Separation Wall"
by Ed McCarthy
|
"Something there is that doesn't love a wall"
— Robert Frost, "Mending Wall"
|
Thirteen hardy souls braved a cold Sunday afternoon in Monument Square,
Portland, to hold a vigil against what many have called "the Apartheid Wall"
in the occupied West Bank. But their antipathy to the Israeli wall had more
specific roots: a conviction that the structure is grossly unjust to
Palestinians, ultimately will not work, and is creating anger and alienation
which make Israeli-Palestinian peace that much harder to achieve.
The vigil, organized by Maine Peace and Justice in Israel/Palestine (Maine
PJIP) was part of an International Day of Action Against the Wall called for
November 9, 2003, in commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall on
November 9, 1989. The action was called by the U.S. Campaign to End the
Occupation, and other groups around the world. There were demonstrations and
observances in at least 28 countries, and more than 20 cities and towns in
the United States.
|
The Wall, and
continued Israeli occupation and settlement of the West Bank and Gaza, are
fueling a substantially justified anger among Palestinians which can only
feed further violence, and obstruct the just settlement that can bring
genuine peace and security.
|
The Portland participants included several from other places in Maine. As
elsewhere, both Jews and non-Jews joined in. The Maine PJIP banner said
"Stop the Wall of Expulsion." Passersby, many of whom signaled support, were
also greeted by a sign which read "The Wall is A Crime," calling attention,
perhaps, to Amnesty International's characterization of the structure as "a
war crime," as well as to the UN General Assembly's October 21 condemnation
of the Wall as a violation of international law.
A small group of counter-demonstrators, including one vociferous heckler,
took up a position across the street from the Maine PJIP gathering. Mehrene
Larudee of the PJIP group crossed over to dialogue with them but found it a
frustrating experience. "They kept trying to finish my sentences for me,"
she later reported.
The Wall: What's at Issue?
The Israeli government says The Wall, or "Security Fence," is intended to
keep suicide bombers out of Israel. But is it? As Wells Staley-Mays of Maine
PJIP asks, "If Israel is building this as a security barrier, why don't they
built it on the border?"—a reference to the "Green Line" which divides
Israel proper from the Territories. Instead, much of it is being constructed
well inside the Occupied Territories, on Palestinian land.
Israel insists that its settlements in the West Bank and Gaza must be
secured—even though most of the world regards those settlements as illegal
under the Fourth Geneva Convention, i.e., international law.
Israeli professor and activist Neve Gordon, who teaches politics and human
rights at Ben Gurion University, calls the Wall "an extremely efficient
weapon of dispossession and violation" (National Catholic Reporter, November
7, 2003). Maps and fact sheets on the stopthewall.org web site show why.
With about 100 miles completed, the structure, actually a complex of
concrete wall, barbed wire and other obstacles supplemented by electronic
sensing devices, has greatly disrupted the lives of thousands of
Palestinians. Under international law, Israel, as occupier, is responsible
for the welfare of the occupied. But the Wall keeps workers from their jobs,
children from their schools, sick people from medical facilities, and
farmers from their fields, orchards, and olive groves. Even cemeteries have
been made inaccessible. More than 10,000 people are already trapped on the
wrong, i.e., Israeli, side of the Wall, cut off from relatives and
communities in the West Bank proper and in a legal no-man's-land. The
Israelis have declared such areas "closed military zones," and, while
confirming the right of Israelis to remain there, are requiring that
Palestinian "residents" get hard-to-obtain permits to stay. This feeds an
understandable suspicion that the real aim of the Wall is to drive
non-Jewish inhabitants out of those areas, in effect annexing the land to
Israel.
The Wall is being built in phases. Eventually, it is to run about 435
miles. Besides the structure itself, there are adjacent cleared areas 65 to
100 yards wide, all taken from Palestinian land. Estimates of its impact
vary. The Israeli Government says it will take only four per cent of West
Bank land. The Israeli peace group Gush Shalom contends that even if
construction only reaches its second phase, about 25 per cent of Palestinian
land, including 80 per cent of the most fertile, and 65 per cent of all
water, will fall to the Israelis (Gush Shalom, THE WALL: NO SEPARATION, NO
SECURITY, JUST A LAND GRAB). And a November 2003 United Nations report
projects that on completion, the Wall would expropriate 14.5 per cent of
West Bank land, with 680,000 people adversely affected. When the full
potential for loss of land, including bypass roads and military areas
designed for support of settlements, is calculated, the Palestinians could
be left with under 45 per cent of the West Bank and Gaza—or less than 10 per
cent of the original Palestine Mandate. Israeli appropriation of crucial
water and other resources could be even more devastating
All of this, it has been pointed out, is about in line with Ariel Sharon's
vision regarding a Palestinian State (Edward R. F. Sheehan, "The Map and the
Fence," New York Review of Books, July 3, 2003). It is doubtful that such a
State could be economically or politically viable—or acceptable to the
Palestinian people.
America's Role
Even President Bush, who has called Prime Minister Sharon "a man of peace,"
has expressed the thought that the Wall is "a problem" for Middle East
peace." There were even intimations last summer from the Administration that
$10 billion in loan guarantees recently granted to Israel might, in
accordance with the relevant law's provisions, be reduced dollar for dollar
in relation to Israeli expenditures on the barrier. As estimates of the
Wall's cost run from $1.5 to 2 billion dollars, such action might have
greatly concentrated the Israeli mind. It was not to be. When Mr. Sharon
defied American objections to extending the Wall to encompass the large
settlement of Ariel, US opposition melted away.
Congressional sentiments almost certainly helped to persuade the
Administration of the error of its ways. In keeping with an entrenched
tradition of granting more foreign aid to Israel than to any other country,
and avoiding any criticism of Israeli Government policies, leading members
of both parties and in both Houses signed August letters protesting any cut
in loan guarantees. The Senate version declared that "by building a security
fence in the West Bank, the Israeli Government is pursuing a reasonable
policy thatŠdoes no violence to the Palestinian people." Among the signers
of the letter was our own Senator Susan Collins. Palestinian farmers kept
from harvesting their olives a few weeks later might well have wondered at
the soundness and sincerity of such claims.
In the House, the rhetoric in defense of the Wall included pronouncements
that US "involvement in the peace process must always have as a primary
objective the preservation of Israel's security and stability" and that "the
US must never pressure Israel to take a position or action which would
jeopardize the security of its citizens"—even, presumably, when those
citizens are acting, as are the settlers, in violation of international law.
Left unaddressed was the matter of whether or not the Wall will in the end
enhance Israeli security.
Not everyone in Israel or the American Jewish community believes that it
will. Israeli opposition groups like Gush Shalom and B'Tselem have condemned
it, and in the United States, Jewish-led groups like Americans for Peace
Now, the Tikkun Community, and Brit Tzedek v' Shalom (Jewish Alliance for
Justice and Peace) have expressed extreme skepticism. They appear to
understand, unlike Mr. Sharon and his uncritical American backers, that the
offense in war more often than not eventually figures out how to breach the
defense, even with a barrier 25 feet high. They also know that the Wall, and
continued Israeli occupation and settlement of the West Bank and Gaza, are
fueling a substantially justified anger among Palestinians which can only
feed further violence, and obstruct the just settlement that can bring
genuine peace and security. That is why many in the Jewish community here
and in Israel are rallying to the recent Geneva Initiative outlining a
comprehensive settlement, and listening to former Israeli officials who
acknowledge the bankruptcy of the Sharon Government's approach—and American
acquiescence in it.
Whether Jewish, Christian, Muslim or nonbelieving, perhaps most thoughtful
people who consider the Wall might agree with what Pope John Paul II is
reported recently to have said: "What the Holy Land needs is not walls—but
bridges."
Back to Peace Talk Index,
Winter, 2003 - 2004