A
Wall In Their Heart
By Meron Rappaport
Yedioth Aharonoth
10 July, 2003
The maps that Sharon's people
asked for were the maps that Prof. Sofer, a geographer at Haifa University
and the prophet of "the Arab demographic danger," presented
in alecture at the Herzliya Conference a few months earlier. Borders
should be set immediately for the State of Israel,Sofer said at the
time, otherwise the Arabs will inundate us and there will be no Jewish
entity here anymore. The West Bank, he explained, must be split into
three parts,three cantons, basically three sausages. One sausage from
Jenin to Ramallah, a second sausage from Bethlehem to Hebron and a third
tiny sausage around the city of Jericho.An electric fence must be put
up around these three Palestinian sausages, which extend on less than
half the West Bank, and finish the business.
Prof. Sofer and Sharon, then
leader of the opposition, conversed at the Herzliya conference. They
have not been in constant touch since then, but when Sofer sees the
map of the separation fence going up, he smiles to himself."This
is exactly my map," he says, "it's as if an exact copy is
being put up."
Sofer takes too much credit
for himself. This map is not something new for Sharon.
"I haven't sat with
the prime minister recently," says Ron Nahman, the mayor of Ariel,"but
the map of the fence, the sketch of which you see here, is the same
map I saw during every visit Arik made here since 1978. He told me he
has been thinking about it
since 1973."
There are some who call this
plan of Sharon's "the bantustan plan" (according to Ha'aretz,
Sharon used this term when talking to the former prime minister of Italyfour
years ago), there are those who call it the canton plan. But it is clear
that this plan is now taking on concrete and barbed wire. Only now it
is called the
seamline plan. Sharon is keeping close tabs on the plan. He comes himselfto
the site, and sometimes even sketches exactly where the fence is to
run. Military sources (the army is the official body responsible for
drawing the fence) said
recently that every question that comes up goes to the Prime Minister's
Office, to Sharon's adviser on settler affairs, Uzi Keren, and to Sharon
himself. Keren,incidentally, drew up a separation map while a member
of the Third Way movement, almost identical to Sharon's map and to Prof.
Sofer's map. Something strange has been happening in recent months to
the separation fence. What began thanks to a campaign of the Israeli
Left and Center under Barak-style slogans of "we are here, they
are there," it has become the baby of the Sharon government. The
same Sharon who during theunity government opposed building the fence
and was dragged into it almost against his will, on any given day has
500 bulldozers at work, paving and building one of the largest projects
in the history of the country, perhaps the largest.
The Bar Lev line, built after
the Six-Day War on the banks of the Suez Canal, pales beside the first
150 kilometers of the separation fence, which is to be completed in
two
months. It certainly pales beside the next 500 kilometers left to complete
the project. Even the national water carrier or the draining of the
Hula swamps look like an
exercise in sandcastles compared to this colossal project.
On the face of it, the logic
hasn't changed: this fence is meant purely to prevent suicide bombers
from infiltrating, not to set the country's borders. In practice, the
fence's course has been changed over and over, each time biting off
more of the West Bank. The settlers, who feared that the fence would
be made on the Green Line and leave them outside the camp, can be pleased.
Judging by the work already done and the Defense Ministry's maps, for
a long time now the fence has not been along the Green Line but is a
system of fences that will imprison hundreds of thousands of Palestinians
in barbed wire-enclosed enclaves. The first stage of the fence already
threatens to make extinct the livelihood of tens of thousands of Palestinians,
after
the fence swallowed up their land.
Behind the separation fence are thousands of personal tragedies, which
are entirely invisible to the Israeli public. Who here cares about farmers
like Nimr Ahmed, who
in one day lost access to his lands, which he and his fathers had worked
for generations. Who cares about a shepherd like Naji Yousef who was
forced to sell his sheep because the fence blocked access to pasture.
Who is upset that the principal of a high school like Mohammed Shahin
of Ras a-Tira, was forced to use donkeys to bring textbooks from Kalkilya
since all the roads were blocked by the fence. Who cares about a doctor
from Tulkarm who drives five hours every morning from his house to his
job in Kalkilya, a distance of 15 kilometers, because he is forced to!
go by way of Jenin, Nablus, the Jordan Valley, Ramallah and the trans-Samaria
road. This kind of occupation perhaps doesn't kill. Not right away,
anyway. But it does
destroy the soul.
"The fence is a death
sentence for the Palestinians," says Shmil Elad. Elad is not a
peace activist. He is a settler from Einav, deep inside, and his opinions,
he says, are "very right wing." But he mentions the settlement
of Salit, next to the villages of a-Ras and Sur. He sees what is now
happening to his neighbors, who can't get to their lands, and it upsets
him. "This fence is a mistake, it will only exacerbate the problem,
it will make people more frustrated. People here want to work, and you
are creating
more hatred instead of the possibility of living together."
A gate is supposed to be
built between the village of Sur and the settlement of Salit, enabling
the Palestinians to get to their olive trees, but Elad doesn't believe
the gate will be built. Moshe Emanuel, the chairman of the settlement
until recently, also doesn't believe it. "I don't believe that
the army will invest money in some little village," he says. But
Emanuel sees the final goal and justifies it. "In 1948, the Palestinians
also lost a lot of land, and in 1967 too.; And today they'll lose again.
What can you do, those who lose in war, lose."
Officially, the Prime Minister's
Office sticks to the original version and says that the course of the
seamline barriers is in accordance with "purely security considerations,
which are mainly defense against Palestinian terror and preventing harm
to Israeli citizens," and any attempt to attribute other considerations
"are purely those of the person asking." But it is not just
the "person asking" who is thinking of other considerations.
"There is a very sneaky combination here," says the head of
the Jordan Valley Council, David Levy. "The army doesn't look at
the political side, it insists on saying that this is a security barrier.
But it is clear to everyone that this is a political line behind which
there is a political outlook. Those who try and say that the fence doesn't
represent a political line, don't know what they're talking about. Don't
give me that nonsense. Everyone is playing this double game, and it's
convenient for everybody. That
is why I am in favor of the fence, obviously it will put us inside."
Levy knows what he is talking
about. He says that the chief of staff at first showed him plans that
more or less overlapped the old Green Line. "I had words with the
chief of staff, I started a world war," he says. "This got
to Sharon and Sharon overruled it. Now the fence will run on the mountain
top to the Bekaot intersection."
Levy relates that he met
with Sharon and that the prime minister spread out a map and showed
him what the route of the fence would be in his region. He says that
according to that map, the fence will keep all of the Jordan Valley
and the Judean Desert under Israel's control, a 20-30 kilometer wide
strip. Just as it appears in maps that Sharon has been showing for years,
just as it appears in . Sofer's map. Such a fence, Levy says with satisfaction,
is a political statement, a statement of annexing the Jordan Valley
under cover of the "security fence."
But the Jordan Valley is
not the end of the story. It will take years until the fence reaches
the Jordan Valley. At this time the work is concentrated in the West
Bank, the fence that was supposed to be near the Green Line. Already
in November 2000, a month and a bit after the Intifada began, the prime
minister at the time, Ehud Barak, ordered the construction of a "barrier
against vehicles" along the seamline. Sharon inherited the project
and appointed Uzi Dayan, the director of the National Security Council!
To coordinate it, but made him as ineffective as possible.
Sharon, like the settlers and the NRP, feared that a fence along the
seamline would mean a border along the Green Line. But ultimately, after
it was shown almost weekly
with what intolerable ease suicide bombers could get into Israeli cities,
he too was forced to concede. In April 2002, the security cabinet of
the unity government decided to set up a "permanent barrier"
along the seamline. Four months later the security cabinet approved
the route of the first section, and last August, work began."The
basic idea was to follow the Green Line," says Binyamin Ben-Eliezer,
then the defense minister and responsible for building the fence. Then
came the revisions, all of them to the east, into Palestinian agricultural
areas. As close as possible to the houses of the Arab villages, sometimes
beyond them. A report written by experts from the World Bank warns that
building the fence is liable to bring economic and social catastrophe
to
the villages in the western part of the West Bank.
Around 12,000 people in about
13 villages, including large villages like Baka Sharkiya and Bartaa
Sharkiya, will be west of the fence, in other words, will be sandwiched
between the fence and the Green Line. The fence will separate them from
their Palestinian brothers in West Bank and in order to go to Jenin
to buy something or sell something, they will have to pass a border
crossing, which is unclear when and where it will be. It is also not
clear how they will receive basic services such as schools or
health services from the PA, which will be on the other side of the
fence. While there will be no fence between them and Israel, in Israel
they will be considered illegal residents, and there is no intention
to annex them or turn them into Israeli citizens.
But this is only part of the story according to the same report, which
is based also on a detailed report by B'Tselem. More than 30,000 Palestinians
are liable to completely lose their livelihood because their lands are
on the "Israeli" side of the fence. This is the most fertile
part of the West Bank with almost 40% of the agricultural land of the
West Bank. In the Jenin, Tulkarm and Kalkilya districts - the districts
in which the work on the first stage is being done - around a quarter
of the residents work in farming, more than twice the percentage in
the rest of the West Bank. One square kilometer (10,000 dunam) of farmland
in these areas produces income of about USD 900,000, more than twice
the income from a similar area in the rest of Judea and Samaria. Around
two thirds of the water sources in the West Bank are also in this area.
28 wells will be west of the fence, and it is unclear what will become
of them. In short, a blow to agriculture in Jenin, Tulkarm and Kalkilya
is a blow to all the Palestinians in the territories. According to the
World Bank report, the first stage of the fence will affect the livelihood
of over 200,000 Palestinians.
The village of Jawis, situated
more or less opposite Kochav Yair, numbers around 3,000 people. Before
the Intifada, many of the men worked in Israel. Now, obviously, this
is all over, and many have gone back to farming. More than half of the
breadwinners in the village work the land. Or more correctly, used to.
The route of the separation fence flanks the last houses of the village
and 9,000 dunam of farm land, almost all of the village's lands, will
remain west of the fence, in the side close to Israel.
A short walk from the outer
homes of the village, not more than 200 meters, leads suddenly to the
edge of a cliff. The view here is marvelous, the air fresh. Below one's
feet is the coastal plain, from Kfar Saba to the sea. The Green Line
is discernible with the naked eye. At one point in the plain, relatively
far (six kilometers separate the village from the old border) the small
and crowded farming plots of the Palestinian are replaced by the open
fields of the kibbutzim and moshavim in Israel. You look a bit more
and suddenly realize that this cliff, more than 100 meters high, is
the work of man. The work of the fence builders.
The hill was cut in the middle,
and the route of the fence is paved beneath it. The word "fence"
is too paltry to describe the matter. On the eastern side, the Palestinian
side, there is barbed wire, then a deep ditch, then a dirt road, then
the fence itself, eight meters high, and then another dirt road, then
an asphalt road ("wide enough for a tank," the Defense Ministry
explains to me later), and then more barbed wire. You have to be almost
insane to think that somebody uprooted mountains, leveled hills and
poured billions here in order to build some temporary security barrier
"until the permanent borders are decided."
From the hill where the village
sits, one can see the tomato, cucumber and flower hothouses, the citrus
orchards, which remain beyond the barrier. A narrow dirt road, suitable
only for donkeys, links the village to its lands, crosses the route
of the fence, which is still incomplete in this section. And what will
happen the moment the fence is completed? Nobody knows.
After work was begun on the
fence nine months ago, the army promised, in a reply to the High Court
of Justice, that "agricultural gates" would be inserted in
the fence, enabling people and farming vehicles to reach their land.
Will such a gate be made in Jawis? Villagers relate that they tried
to talk with the army commanders in the area, and received no answer.
In the meantime, few dare to cross the route of the fence and risk being
shot by the security companies guarding the work to reach their fields.
One thing is clear to all of them: if there is no access to the
fields, this village will effectively remain without a source of livelihood.
And another thing is clear to all of them: the chance of them having
access to their fields through the fence is very small, almost nil.
The situation is similar
in the nearby village of a-Ras. Eid Yassin, the village leader, has,
together with his brother Nimr, 120 dunam of olives and almonds, 110
of them beyond the fence. "Soldiers came, and didn't let us approach,"
Nimr Yassin relates. "We asked the commander if we could go to
our land and he said: yes, no, I don't know. Now we sneak over to our
land like smugglers. Sometimes they shoot at us, sometimes we manage
to get there. Our olives have dried up."
Eid Yassin says that the
fence has also cut off the road to Tulkarm, the local district town,
creating a very difficult problem for the village. There is no clinic
in a-Ras, or high school. For all this they need to go to Tulkarm. What
will they do now? Naji Yousef, another villager, relates that he doesn't
feel safe even in his own home. His house is close to the fence route,
and his wife went on the roof to hang up laundry, and soldiers shouted
to her to get down. "If you go up there again, we'll shoot you,"
they told her, he says. When the fence is under your nose, even hanging
up laundry is a security risk.
Many Palestinians say that
behind the building of the fence is the desire to steal their land.
Attorney Azzam Bishara of the Kaanun organization, who represented landowners
in petitions to the High Court of Justice against the fence, mentions
the Ottoman land law, which everybody in the territories can declaim
by heart. According to that law, which is still valid in the territories,
"miri" type lands are given to the farmers to work, and they
are allowed to hand them from generation to generation, but they
continue to belong to the sultan, and the fallah is not allowed to register
them legally in his mane. If the fallah does not work the land for three
years running, they
revert to the sultan. Israel considers itself the successor to the sultan
in the territories, and by exploiting this law, much land in Judea and
Samaria was declared state land, after aerial photographs proved that
the lands were not worked for three years or more. Most of the settlements
were established on such lands. Now all the Palestinian fallahin are
convinced that Israel will not let them have access to their land for
three years and will then declare them state land, and they will lose
them forever.
TThis is not oriental fantasy.
"The Palestinians' fears are not unfounded," says Uzi Dayan,
"but their fears are no greater than the fears of the residents
of Tzur Yigal."
This sentence embodies the gist of the concept of the first people to
come up with the idea of a fence.
Dayan, who has since resigned, believed in the separation fence project
from the first minute, and he still believes in it with all his heart.
Before leaving the National
Security Council in June 2002, Dayan presented a report to the prime
minister in which he wrote that Israel must build itself a border "according
to demographic principles." In
other words, a fence that will provide as much security as possible
and include as few Palestinians as possible. The monetary outlay, now
estimated at over NIS six billion, is
secondary in! his eyes. The loss to the Israeli GNP as a result of terror
attacks is much greater. A fence, he says, is worth it.
Since he began working on
it, Dayan supported moving the fence east of the Green Line. There is
an obvious security reason for this. If a terrorist nevertheless manages
to
cross the fence, explains Netzah Mashiah, director of the seamline administration
in the Defense Ministry and today responsible for getting this enormous
project off the
ground, the security forces need additional response time before this
terrorist reaches the homes of some Israeli community. But along with
this reason there are also
political reasons. The moment the work began on the fence last August,
everyone understood that this was to be the new border, and those who
don't board the train now, would miss it. Even Uzi Dayan said: "The
Green Line is not sacred. There are places where more territory should
be included, thinking in the long term."
The settlers, who realized
that if they did not support the fence, would lose the public's support,
shifted their activities to lobbying to include as many settlements
as possible to inside the fence. Ben-Eliezer, who to this day continues
to contend, "the fence has no political purpose and those who say
otherwise are wrong," is almost alone in
this claim. Even Netzah Mashiah, the guy building the "security"
fence, says: "The politicians found a formula, but I believe the
fence will be the border."
An excellent example of the
fact that the fence can be flexible is Alfei Menashe - an established
settlement of 5,000 residents, five kilometers east of Kalkilya, which
at
first was to be outside the fence. This was very much not to the liking
of Eliezer Hasdai, head of the local council and member of the Likud
Central Committee. "According to
the first plan," he says, "the fence was supposed to be close
to the Green Line. I undertook a great deal of political activity, Sharon
and Fuad came to visit me and
agreed to put Alfei Menashe inside and to ?wrap' the fence around it."
But Hasdai didn't like this solution either. "The way it was, after
leaving the gate, I would enter
Palestinian territory in Habla 200 meters later and ! only come out
at the fruit junction."
Help came from an unexpected
direction. According to the Defense Ministry plan, a new road was to
link Alfei Menashe to the Green Line in the area of Matan, a community
between Kfar Saba and Rosh Haayin. Matan residents feared that this
road would block their view. So while Hasdai was being active in the
Likud, Matan residents were taking
action in the Labor Party. "Kalkilya must be cut off from Habla,"
they wrote in a letter to the Labor Party Central Committee, which met
at the end of August 2002 to discuss
the separation fence. "Kalkilya, the largest terror nest in the
heart of the Sharon, must not be made a large city with 100,000 residents,"
Matan residents added. The
numbers were twice the actual fact, but the pressure worked.
At the end of September,
so the Internet site of Matan proudly relates, the director general
of the Defense Ministry Amos Yaron and Haim Ramon, then the chairman
of
the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee visited the site and said,
"It would be a mistake to have territorial contiguity between Kalkilya
and Habla." On September 25,
Amikam Svirski, the defense minister's adviser on settler affairs, sent
them a letter with the good news. Your position has been accepted. "We've
gone very far from the
original plan," Hasdai boasts, "We've moved the Green Line."
Changing the route cost Israel
a lot of money. NIS 130 million, Hasdai estimates. The Settlers Council,
he relates, were a bit envious of him, they said he'd only succeeded
because he was a member of the Likud Central Committee and Sharon needed
him in the primaries. Hasdai dismisses this. "It wasn't because
I'm a Central Committee
member that NIS 130 million was spent on the fence in Alfei Menashe,"
he says. "I won because I stressed that we are situated on the
first mountain chain after the coastal
plain, and we could serve as a security barrier."
Alfei Menashe and Matan's
success was a catastrophe for Kalkilya. The city became an island surrounded
by fences on four sides, cut off from the villagers that bring it
goods and do their shopping and depend on it for civil services. But,
as Uzi Dayan says, "The fence isn't supposed to make everybody
happy. There was no choice."
On paper, the planners looked
out for the Palestinians' rights. Mashiah relates that the farmers whose
land was taken for the fence were given seven days to submit their
reservations, and in some cases, were given a further extension so they
could petition the High Court of Justice.
In practice, there was little
consideration of the Palestinians. Mashiah relates that in only one
place, near Umm el-Fahm, were the Palestinians' reservations on the
fence's route accepted.
So in what way were the fence
builders considerate? The ancient Egyptian city discovered near the
Taibe roadblock delayed work there by two months. In order not to harm
the Gilboa irises, it was decided that the width of the fence (the barbed
wire, the ditch and the fence) in the Gilboa reserve would only be 35
meters and not 80, as it is in the Tulkarm and Kalkilya area. Israel
appears to care more about flowers and antiquities than people.
The original plan called
for a complex system of gates:
five controlled crossings similar to the Erez crossing, and another
around 30 "farming" gates through which fallahin who have
land west of the fence could cross. The Civil
Administration was to provide permits for those with land beyond the
barrier and to allow medical teams or teachers cross the barrier. It
was on the basis of these promises
that the High Court of Justice denied the petitions of the Palestinians
against the fence.
The security establishment now admits that there is no chance that the
terminals meant to channel civilians and goods will be ready by July,
at which time the first section of the fence will be completed and become
operational. "There are seven control points for Jews and nine
for Arabs, and they will be operated the moment the fence is operated,"
the army says officially.
The matter of the crossings also tends to become blurred. In reply to
a query in the Knesset, Defense Minister Mofaz said: "At this time
there is no budget for farming
crossings." The Palestinians say, for example, that in the section
already paved between Kafin and Shweika, which according to the map
is to have eight farming crossings, there is not even one. And even
if there were, it is unclear who can cross and when. attempts by the
attorneys of the Palestinian landowners and of B'Tselem to
receive clarifications were rejected with the reply that "the matter
is being examined." Even to the question as to what time the farming
crossing would open (the fallahin go
to work at 4:00 in the morning), and would it be open all year, there
was no reply.
Contrary to Palestinian claims,
army officials say that the farmers' gates are part of the fence, and
they are all ready. "The question is when and how they will open,
but
that's not our affair, that is a matter for the Civil Administration."
Abu Mazen raised the issue in his first meeting with Sharon and Sharon
himself promised, the newspapers reported, that nobody would block the
farmers from getting to their lands. "You should realize that I
am a fallah. I know what attachment to the land is, and that is why
I ordered that many gates be opened in the fence to let the farmers
work their land. The fence is not a border," Roni Shaked quoted
Sharon in Yedioth Ahronoth.
However, as said, there is still no clear procedure in the Civil Administration
to arrange the crossing. The Civil Administration refused to comment.
IDF officials say that the
farmers will be allowed to cross to their land with no problem, "after
they prove they have rights to the land." Army officials say there
is a plan to
define clearly who exactly has the right to cross the fence, "but
it is still too early to make this public." In any case, if it
turns out that a Palestinian who has to
cross the fence for farming or other matters has a "security past,"
his chances of reaching his destination are nil. "You don't build
a fence at an investment of
millions to be like Swiss cheese, where every senior Hamas wanted man
can cross because they have land beyond the fence," army officials
say. Mashiah sounds even more adamant: "Even if the fallah's son
has a security past, he won't cross. The fallah should take this into!
account. And if even one terror attack manages to get through a
farming gate, this crossing will turn into a wall. Nobody will cross."
Mashiah promises to hand
over the first section of the completed fence this July. At this time
the plan is being drawn up for the rest of the fence. This has been
totally
changed. Before Ben-Eliezer left the Defense Ministry, the ministry
had drawn up a plan for the rest of the fence.
"There was a general
order to continue the route," says Ben-Eliezer, "as close
as possible to the Green Line."
Security sources involved in the fence's construction confirm that this
was the order, and that the first maps were drawn accordingly.
These plans were thrown in
the trash. "I fought against this plan from the start," says
Ron Nahman, mayor of Ariel.
"Fuad and the Labor Party wanted to abandon us, to leave 50,000
Jews outside the fence." Nahman met with security establishment
leaders, and proved to them with numbers that in his area there are
more Jews than Arabs, but nothing helped. That is until the second Sharon
government came to power. In early May Mofaz told him festively that
it was decided for good that Ariel would be inside the fence.
Along with Ariel, the settlements of Elkana, Maale Shomron, K! arnei
Shomron, Kedumim, Emanuel, Pduel and Alei Zahav would be included. The
last two settlements are ten kilometers away from the Green Line.
Pinhas Wallerstein, head
of the Binyamin Regional Council, says that in the last few days he
has been meeting with army commanders in the area over the maps and
trying to persuade them to also include what is known as "the Talmonim
bloc" (five Jewish settlements northwest of Ramallah, about 20
kilometers from the Green Line) into a
"balloon," as was done around Alfei Menashe. If this plan
is realized ("I won't say I have their consent already,"
says Wallerstein), this would
mean that the separation fence would look like a string of Norwegian
fjords. And the difficulties the Palestinian residents have along the
section now being completed would be child's play in comparison.
These plans outrage Fuad. "I very much hope this doesn't happen,"
he says. "It is both expensive and it complicates the pursuit of
terrorists and will make it difficult to
maneuver troops." Military officials involved in planning the fence
share Fuad's opinion. For the fence to be effective, they say, it has
to be as short and as straight as possible. What is happening is exactly
the opposite.Military sources involved in the fence say that the security
establishment has basically completed drawing the route of the fence
from Elkana to Camp Ofer - exactly 210.5 kilometers. "Now we are
only waiting for the budget and we're off." And the matter of the
budget is no minor matter. Originally, when Ben-Eliezer was defense
minister, this section was to be 100 kilometers. "Another 110
kilometers were added, because it was decided that the fence would also
surround Israeli settlements in the West Bank," say military sources.
A simple calculation shows
that this addition will cost the taxpayer around NIS 1.3 billion. And
this is a moderate estimate. "South of Elkana the region is more
difficult.
It could cost more," say army sources. "It would be cheaper
to give each resident of Kedumim a villa in the center of Israel than
to build this fence." The delay in building the fence is also liable
to be long. The new route is complicated and goes through mountains
and is!
also liable to raise tough
legal problems, army sources say. The Finance Ministry also doesn't
know where precisely it will get such sums.
None of this interests Ron
Nahman. "I reject all of Fuad's statements and his bunch,"
he says. "Who are these army people? What do they understand that
I don't understand,
they have nothing to teach me. Nu, so what's the big deal if the fence
is lengthened another 60 kilometers. Aren't 50,000 Jews worth it?"
In the opinion of the Defense
Ministry, the settlers in Samaria are worth it, and how. At precisely
this time, the region is being mapped from the air, and around ten
planning offices are working on preparing the maps. The Prime Minister's
Office said that discussions on the fence route from Elkana to Jerusalem
"are taking place at this
time, and the government's decision will be made at the time set,"
but in an interview to The Jerusalem Post last week, Sharon left no
room for doubt. Ariel and Emanuel
will be west of the fence, he said. These additions very much lengthen
the fence. The original plan was for 350 kilometers of fence. Now the
fence is 650 kilometers, in
other words, another NIS 4.5 billion. And this is without counting the
fence along the mountaintop.
A look at the map leads to
a simple conclusion - the separation fence being built at this time
basically overlaps the Sharon map for a Palestinian state. A bit more
than 40% of the West Bank, split and sliced into pieces. The northern
West Bank is cut off from the
southern West Bank and to go from Bethlehem to Ramallah a Palestinian
will have to cross two border crossings.
The system of internal fences,
"open prisons" the Palestinians call them, will be even more
sophisticated in the new section. For example, the fence is meant to
go on
the eastern side of road 446 and leave the settlements of Ofarim, Beit
Aryeh and Nili on the Israeli side. In the middle there will be about
ten large Arab villages such as
Kibiya and Rantis imprisoned behind another fence in the shape of a
loop. These ten villages will have only one exit to the east, to Ramallah,
through a control point in
the "main" fence. A similar loop, with another internal fence,
will be extended south of road 443, the Modiin-Jerusalem road, and will
also include about ten
villages. Jamal Juma of the Palestinian Environment Association says
that around 50,000 people live in these enclaves alone.
"It would not be an
illusion to speak of cantons," says Uzi Dayan. Dayan thinks that
all this preoccupation with extending the fence is in fact meant to
delay its construction because Sharon and Mofaz don't want a fence.
Perhaps there is something to this. Army officials say that building
the new section, from Elkana to Ramallah,
will take a year and a half to two years, becit is winding and more
complicated than the first section, whose construction took exactly
a year. Only afterwards will
construction on the fence in Judea begin. "The fence could have
been finished a long time ago," says Dayan, "Sharon and Mofaz
are not working on the fence.&! nbsp; That's it. Everything else
is immaterial. They are trying not to do it. I don't believe there is
a master plan. If there was, the fence would have been up."
He could be right. But he
could very well be wrong. Sharon is known for his affection for creating
facts on the ground. According to the Palestinians' calculations, almost
400,000 Palestinians (around 20% of West Bank residents) including residents
of the neighborhoods and villages around Jerusalem will be on the "Israeli"
side of the fence. The 80% on the Palestinian side of the fence will
also find it very hard to ! move from place to place without Israeli
permission.
The road map talks about
a Palestinian state by the year 2005 in "viable" borders.
It's hard to see how anyone can live within such borders. And perhaps
that is precisely
Sharon's plan. Just like he initiated the settlements to mark the future
borders of Israel, now he is marking them by means of the fence. And
it will be very hard to move
this fence.
"You leave us no room
to grow, you leave us no room to live," says Jamal Juma. The only
thing left the Palestinians is to live in huge pens and to work in industrial
zones that will no doubt be built in the settlements, near the openings
to these pens. "You want us
to live like slaves. It won't work. If you had built the fence along
the Green Line, there would be no problem. This way perhaps you'll have
quiet for four-five years,
but you will create only hatred. Instead of 20% Hamas, you'll have 60%."
(Yedioth Aharonoth is the
most popular Israeli newspaper. The map of the wall, as published in
"Yediot Aharonot" can be found here
)