Finger After
Finger
By Uri Avnery
02 March, 2005
Gush
Shalom
Seven words uttered by President Bush
in Brussels have not been paid the attention they deserve.
He called for the
establishment of a democratic Palestinian state with territorial
contiguity in the West Bank, and then added: A state on
scattered territories will not work.
It is worthwhile
to ponder these words. Who did he point the finger at? Why did he say
this in Brussels, of all places?
Nobody warns of
a danger without a reason. If Bush said what he said, it means that
he believes that someone is causing this danger.
Just who might
that be?
For years now I
have been warning that this is the intention of Ariel Sharon, the basis
of the whole settlement enterprise planned and set up by him. The lay-out
of the settlements on the West Bank map is designed to cut the territory
up from North to South and from West to East, in order to forestall
any possibility of establishing a really viable and contiguous Palestinian
state, a state like any other.
If the settlement
blocs that have been created are annexed to Israel, the Palestinian
territory will be sliced up into a number of enclaves perhaps
four, perhaps six. The Gaza Strip, an isolated ghetto by itself, will
be another enclave. Each enclave will be surrounded by settlements and
military installations, and all of them will be cut off from the world
outside.
The American intelligence
agencies are familiar with this picture, of course. They can see it
with their satellites. But that did not deter President Bush from promising
Sharon last year that Israeli population centers in the
West Bank will be annexed to Israel. These population centers
are the very same settlement blocs that were defined by the US in the
past as illegal and an obstacle to peace. During
the presidency of the first President Bush, the American administration
even decided to deduct the costs of new settlement projects from the
financial benefits accorded to Israel.
So why did the
second Bush suddenly make a declaration whose practical meaning is that
some of these settlement blocs must be dismantled? And why did he make
it in Brussels?
It is clear that
he wanted to gain favor with his European hosts. The European Union
opposes the annexation of West Bank territory to Israel. Bush said what
he said in order to reduce his differences with Europe.
So he said it.
And what is happening on the ground in the meantime?
Last Sunday the
Israeli government decided for the second time to implement the disengagement
plan, a decision that was hailed by the media as historic.
With all the hullabaloo, hardly any attention was paid to a second resolution
adopted at the same meeting: to continue building the wall in the West
Bank.
At first sight,
that is a routine decision. After all, the government argues that this
is nothing but a security fence. It does indeed have a certain
security function, and Israeli public opinion accepts it as such. But
by now, informed people must know that this wall is intended as the
future border of Israel. Therefore, this week all government spokespersons
took pains to stress that the new path of the wall cuts off only 7-8%
of the West Bank.
The word only
deserves attention. President Bill Clintons last peace plan spoke
about the annexation of 3-4% of the West Bank to Israel, in return for
the transfer of 1% of Israeli territory to the Palestinian state. Seven
percent of the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany is much
more than the whole state of Saxony. Seven percent of the territory
of the United States of America is more than the whole giant state of
Texas. (Imagine: Mexico conquers Texas, builds a wall between it and
the rest of the US and fills it with Mexican settlements.)
But the percentage
game is misleading. It is not only the size of the territory that is
important, but also its location.
In this respect,
the controversy between Israel and the US remains. It concerns mainly
two places, where the path of the wall causes the dismemberment of the
West Bank. If the wall is to include the settlement town of Ariel, it
will send a finger deep into the West Bank. This finger will connect
with a second one, coming from the opposite direction the two
fingers together will cut through the whole width of the West Bank south
of Nablus. Another finger will extend from Jerusalem to the enlarged
Maaleh Adumim settlement bloc, also cutting practically the full
width of the West Bank.
The Americans do
not yet agree. So Sharon is using one of his typical methods: in those
two places he leaves a gap in the wall. He will build there in due course,
after using a future opportunity to wrap President Bush so to
say around his little finger.
But the percentage
account is also wrong in another respect. Nowadays one speaks only about
the wall that will separate the West Bank from Israel proper. Nobody
is talking now of the Eastern wall.
It is no secret
that Sharon plans to build this wall in order to complete the encirclement
of the West Bank and cut it off from the Jordan valley and the Dead
Sea shore. That is a big slice of territory, about 20% of the West Bank,
and would cut the West Bank off from any contact with the world. Sharon
knows that he cannot build this wall at the moment, because of the opposition
of the US and the whole world. Also, there is no budget for it. Therefore,
he is leaving it for the future.
The government
decision does formally include the southern border of the West Bank,
where the planned path of the wall runs almost completely along the
Green Line. That looks really nice. But this, too, contains a trick:
Sharon does not intend to build this part of the wall in the near future.
He is postponing it for another time and then he will propose
a different path altogether, including a finger thrust deeply into Palestinian
territory, so as to annex the South Hebron settlement bloc, up to Kiryat
Arba.
By way of deception
shalt thou build settlements.
In the meantime,
Sharon is keeping himself occupied with building on the 7% of the territory
that has been approved by the government decision. All this area between
the wall and the Green Line the territory already annexed in
practice is being filled with new settlements. Among others:
O A new town called
Gevaoth that is to be built west of Bethlehem, in what is called the
Etzion Bloc.
That is a mendacious
name: the original Etzion Bloc consisted of a small group of settlements
near the Green Line. It was occupied by the Arabs in the 1948 war and
re-conquered by Israel in 1967, when the former settlements were also
re-built. But then a whole new town (Efrata) was added to the East,
and beyond that a number of new settlements, until the original few
settlements had expanded into a massive settlement bloc almost surrounding
Bethlehem. Now Sharon is going to fill it with even more settlers.
O A big new settlement
called North Tsufim that is to be built north of Qalqilia.
This, too, will reach the proportions of a town.
0 Giant housing
projects, that will be set up in order to connect the Maaleh Adumim
bloc to Jerusalem, and just about reach the Jordan river.
Also in the Jerusalem
Area, the new (Labor) Minister for Housing, Yitzhak Herzog, promises
to build big housing projects from Har Homa to Maaleh Adumim,
while another one is going to be built east of a-Ram. The aim is to
cut Jerusalem off completely from the West Bank.
All this is happening
while Israel and the world are waxing lyrical about the disengagement
plan which, in essence, is nothing but a plan to consolidate
the Gaza strip as one of the enclaves in a state of scattered
territories. (The Gaza Strip constitutes only 6% of the occupied
territories.)
The Labor party
is a full partner in this scheme.
As far as Sharon
is concerned, the disengagement plan plays with the dismantling of some
small settlements in a remote corner of the occupied territories for
the fulfillment of his grand design to take over most of the West Bank.
Now President Bush
has declared that he does not accept this design. His European hosts
smiled politely. Perhaps they believed him, and then, maybe they did
not.