Standing
Against The
Claws Of The Wall
By Tanya Reinhart
25 June, 2004
Yediot
Aharonot and Ynet
Along
the route of the separation barrier in the West Bank, a new culture
is springing up: on one side, soldiers and bulldozers; on the other,
Israelis and Palestinians embracing the land and the trees, trying to
save them both. Last week, Sharon decided he was secure enough in the
role of man of peace to start pushing the wall towards the settlements
of Ariel and Kedumim, deep in the West Bank, about 20 kilometres from
Israel. And since then the Israelis and Palestinians have also been
there.
The breathtaking
scenery of the Ariel district has been sliced up by the new roads that
the rulers have built for their own exclusive use. Beneath them lie
the old roads of the vanquished. There, on the lower level, is where
the other Israel-Palestine treads. Israeli youths arrive in settlement
buses and then make their way on foot and in Palestinian taxis among
the checkpoints. They trek between the villages in groups or alone.
Some sleep in the villages. Others will travel the same route the next
day to reach the demonstration. Everywhere they go they are greeted
with blessings and beaming faces. "Tfaddalu," the children
in the doorways say, as if they had never heard of stone-throwing. Like
the inhabitants of other Palestinian villages along the route of the
fence, those in the Ariel area have opened their hearts and their homes
to the Israelis who come to support their non-violent resistance to
the barrier that is robbing them of their land.
The Israelis who
go into the villages are not afraid of Hamas. If they fear anyone, it
is the Israeli army, which can decide at any time, on a commanders
whim, to douse the demonstrators with inordinate quantities of tear-gas
or to declare the area a closed military zone (i.e., closed to Israelis)
and arrest any Israeli who tries to remain in the area.
What brings young
Israelis to stand with the Palestinians in front of the army is the
conviction that there is a basic line of justice that must not be crossed.
It was not security considerations that determined the present route
of the fence. If the goal were to prevent terrorist infiltration, the
fence could have been built differently. The route planned by Col. (res.)
Shaul Arieli, head of the Barak governments "Peace Administration",
also deviated from the 1967 border and enclosed the large settlement
blocs, placing them on the Israeli side. But the 300 square kilometres
of West Bank territory which that route would have devoured is less
than a third of what the present route will grab. Arielis plan
would have cut off 56,000 Palestinians from contiguous connection with
the West Bank; the current route will strand 400,000 (Eldar, Ha'aretz,
16.2.04).
Sharon and the army
have designed the barrier with a view to taking over as much West Bank
land along the border with Israel as possible, and to gradually empty
it of its inhabitants. Qalqiliyah, which has been isolated from its
lands and the rest of the West Bank, is already a dead city. Many of
its inhabitants have fled to seek subsistence at the edges of other
West Bank towns; those who remain have succumbed to the despair and
decline that characterizes prisoners. This is what lies in store for
Biddu, Beit Sureik and the other villages between the settlement Givat
Zeev and the Israeli town Mevasseret Zion. Now it is the turn of Zawiya
and Deir Balout, which lie between the settlement Ariel and the Israeli
Rosh Ha'ayin. In the armys language, Ariel and Kedumim are the
claws of the fence, claws that are now sunk into the West
Bank, grabbing a giant chunk of Palestinian land that will be transferred
to Israel. As part of the process, it will be necessary to cleanse
the land of its inhabitants by slow strangulation, as in Qalqiliyah.
The Israelis who
face the army went to the West Bank because they know there is a law
that is higher than the armys laws of closed military zones: there
is international law, which forbids ethnic cleansing, and there is the
law of conscience. But what brings them back, day after day, is the
new covenant that has been struck between the peoples of this land,
a pact of fraternity and friendship between Israelis and Palestinians
who love life, the land, the evening breeze. They know that it is possible
to live differently on this land.
Translated from Hebrew
by Mark Marshall and Edeet Ravel.