Behind The Smoke
Screen
Of The Gaza Pullout
By Tanya Reinhart
15 April, 2005
Yediot Aharonot
Sharon
travelled to the USA as a hero of peace, as if he had already evacuated
Gaza and only the follow-up remained to be worked out. What has completely
disappeared from the public agenda is what is happening meanwhile in
the West Bank. The media continue to deluge us daily with disengagement
storms, like the Nitzanim bubble. But for now the disengagement the
Gaza pullout - exists only on paper. On the ground, no settler has yet
received compensation. Even those who agreed to accept compensation
are now waiting, because if they have a chance to get Nitzanim - the
pearl of Israeli real estate - why hurry? In the meantime, three and
a half months before the projected date of evacuation, it is still not
clear where the evacuees will be housed until the discussions regarding
their final relocation destination are concluded. Contrary to the prevailing
impression, no infrastructure has been set up even for their temporary
dwellings. The Settlement Department of the Jewish Agency, responsible
for providing the caravillas[the caravans that were supposed
to host the evacuated settlers temporarily] has so far received no order
from the government. (Petersburg, Yediot Ahronot,
8 April 2005)
If Sharon intends
to evacuate the Gaza settlements, he is doing so with outrageous inefficiency.
He is far more efficient in the West Bank. There, plans are carried
out precisely as scheduled. Right from the start, during the first agreements
between Sharon and Netanyahu one year ago about the disengagement plan,
it was agreed that the disengagement would not be put into effect before
the separation fence was completed on the western side of
the West Bank(1). Indeed, the construction of the wall is moving towards
completion. In July the announced date for the beginning of the Gaza
evacuation the wall surrounding East Jerusalem and cutting it off from
the West Bank will be in place. The Palestinians who live there will
be able to leave only with permits. The centre of life in the West Bank
will become an enclosed prison. As well, the northern wall, which has
already imprisoned the residents of Tul Karem, Qalqilya and Masha,
and which has robbed them of their lands, continues to advance southwards.
Now the bulldozers are headed for the lands of Bilin and Safa,
bordering the settlements of Modiin Elit. The farmers who are
losing their lands are trying to stand their ground, together with Israeli
opponents of the wall. But who would hear about their sufferings and
about their struggle, amid the tumult over the disengagement?
The disengagement plan was born in February 2004, at the height of a
wave of international criticism over the wall project, on the eve of
the opening of deliberations at the international court in The Hague.
In the ruling that was handed down in July, the court determined that
the route of the wall was a blatant and serious violation of international
law. Moreover, the court indicated that there was a danger of a
further change in the demographic composition as a result of the departure
of the Palestinian population from certain areas (para. 122).
In other words, the court warned of a process of transfer.
According to UN
data 237,000 Palestinians will be trapped between the wall and the Green
Line and 160,000 others will remain on the Palestinian side, cut off
from their land. (The route that was approved at the governments
meeting in February 2005 reduces their number only slightly) (2). What
is to be expected for those people, for the farmers who lose their land,
for the imprisoned who are cut off from their families and their livelihoods?
In the ghost towns of Tul Karem and Qualqilya and the villages around
Masha, many have already left in order to seek subsistence on
the edges of towns in the centre of the West Bank. How much longer will
the others be able to hold on under conditions of despair and atrophy,
inside villages which have become prisons?
Transfer
is associated in the collective memory with trucks arriving at night
to take Palestinians across the border, as occurred in some places in
1948. But behind the smoke screen of disengagement, a process of slow
and hidden transfer is being carried out in the West Bank today. It
is not easy to judge which method of transferring people
from their land is crueler. Nearly 400,000 people, about half the number
of Palestinians who were forced to leave their land in 1948, are now
candidates for voluntary emigration to refugee camps in
the West Bank. And all this is currently being passed over in silence
because maybe Sharon will disengage.
(1) Here, e.g. are
some reports from April last year: The prime minister took a commitment
that the separation fence will be completed before evacuation starts...
Security echelons estimate that the fence can be completed at the earliest
towards the end of 2005. In other words: It is possible that Israel
will not be able to complete the evacuation at the date that was promised
to the U.S. (Yosi Yehushua, Yediot Aharonot, April 19, 2004).
Netanyahu announced that he intends to support the disengagement
after the three conditions he posed were met
[including] completion
of the fence before the evacuation (Itamar Eichner and Nehama
Duek, Yediot Aharonot, April 19, 2004).
(2) The figures
are from the ICJ advisory opinion of July 9 that can be found at http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/idocket/imwp/imwpframe.htm.
Similar figures were given in the Israeli media, e.g.Meron Rappaport,
Yediot Aharonot, May 23, 2003; Akiva Eldar, Ha'aretz, February 16, 2004.
The new line of the barrier as approved by the Israeli cabinet in February
20, 2005 reduces the size of Palestinian land to be annexed by the barrier
by 2.5%, mainly in the Southern Hebron area, where work is only starting
(so the barrier route can still change many times, as the work progresses).
There were smaller adjustments in other areas, dictated by decisions
of the Israeli Supreme Court, which means that some of the encircled
villages should get some of their land back. But this does not effect
the total number of Palestinians encircled by the wall. In Khirbet Jbara
in the Tulkarm Governorate, the cabinet approved moving a 6km section
of the Barrier closer to the Green Line. As a result, the Palestinian
population in this area will no longer be located in a completely closed
area, but rather on the West Bank side of the Barrier. This will reduce
the overall Palestinian population completely isolated from the West
Bank by about 340 persons (according to UN OCHA report of March 2005
on the preliminary analysis of the effects of the new wall route approved
in February 2005. www.ochaopt.org)
Translated from Hebrew by Mark Marshall