The West Bank Wall

Unmaking Palestine

By Ray Dolphin

Pluto Press

Copyright © 2006 Ray Dolphin
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7453-2433-3

Contents

Acknowledgements, viii,
Preface, ix,
List of acronyms, xv,
Maps:,
Map 1, xvi,
Map 2, xvii,
Map 3, xviii,
Map 4, xix,
Introduction by Graham Usher, 1,
1 Wall and route, 35,
2 'The land without the people': the impact of the wall, 71,
3 Enveloping Jerusalem, 111,
4 The wall and the international community, 145,
5 Activism and advocacy, 187,
Index, 215,

CHAPTER 1

Wall and Route

'BEAUTIFUL PHOTOS'

On 29 July 2003, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and US President George W. Bush met at the White House. Sharon was the foreign leader most favoured in Washington: it was his eighth visit to the White House and his tenth official meeting with the president. The Bush administration was sympathetic to Sharon's right-wing Likud Party to a degree unusual even by partisan US standards, and this regard had increased after '9/11' and Sharon's efforts to portray his counter-insurgency measures in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of the global war against terrorism. Sharon, therefore, had every reason to expect a cordial reception from his host, and yet a certain disquiet preceded his meeting.

Four days earlier at the same venue, Bush had hosted the new Palestinian prime minister, Abu Mazen. The Bush administration hoped that Abu Mazen would use his newly created position to wrest power from the Palestinian Authority's President Yasser Arafat, who was discredited in US eyes as an obstacle to peace. Abu Mazen was also crucial to the success of the Road Map, the recently launched peace initiative. Bush was thus uncharacteristically attentive to Palestinian concerns. At their meeting Abu Mazen raised the issue of the wall. His concern was somewhat belated as the first phase of construction, some 125 kilometres through the northern West Bank, was due for completion in less than a week. Local farmers, human rights organisations and international solidarity groups had been warning of the wall's negative political and humanitarian impact since the first olive tree had been felled almost a year earlier. The Palestinian Authority had been laggard in its response, but grassroots pressure was such that Abu Mazen could not afford to ignore the issue if he was to maintain credibility with the Palestinian public.

Abu Mazen expressed the hope that Bush would demand a complete halt to construction of the wall. At the very least, he urged, the president should use his influence to have the wall rerouted towards the 'Green Line' – the internationally recognised border between Israel and the West Bank – and stem its intrusion into Palestinian territory. The president listened attentively and appeared to take Abu Mazen's considerations on board, especially his account of the suffering the wall was inflicting on ordinary Palestinians. At their joint press conference afterwards, Bush described the wall as 'a problem', declaring that it was 'very difficult to develop confidence between the Palestinians and Israel with a wall snaking through the West Bank'.

Such publicly expressed reservations were unwelcome to Sharon, as was Bush's referring to the 'wall' with its connotations of a permanent border: Israel preferred the more homely term 'fence'. Before his encounter with Bush, Sharon had scheduled a separate meeting with National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice at which he requested that the president stop using the expression 'wall'. Rice explained that Bush used the terms 'fence' and 'wall' interchangeably and that no political inference should be drawn. At this point, Sharon reached for his photos:

beautiful photos, as members of his entourage put it, of the fence being built, which prove that it is not a wall, but rather a barrier comprised of fences and patrol routes ... [produced] to offset the impression of the presentation that the Palestinians brought on the same issue – trying to show that it is a wall.

In his meeting with Bush the following day, 'the best and most intimate meeting to date', Sharon's concerns were put to rest. '"Ariel", Bush kept referring to Sharon, and underscored his points by touching the Prime Minister's knee often.' Bush brought up the subject of the wall and its impact on the Palestinian population. 'This issue troubles us because we are aware of the price that the rural population is paying. People are being cut off from their fields. Something has to be done about that.' Sharon pulled out a photographed copy of Robert Frost's poem, Mending Wall and presented it to Bush. He quoted the last line, 'Good fences make good neighbours'. 'Construction on the fence will continue', he declared, 'but I promise to check how damage to the daily life of the Palestinian population can be reduced.'

At their joint press conference afterwards, Sharon praised Bush as a world leader in the fight against terrorism and vowed that Israel, like the United States, would never surrender to terror and evil. For his part, Bush referred to the 'fence' rather than the 'wall', which was downgraded from a 'problem' to a 'sensitive issue'. Following the Washington meetings, construction of the wall was not halted or reversed as Abu Mazen had requested, and as the UN General Assembly and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) would later demand. Five weeks later, Abu Mazen resigned as Palestinian prime minister, undermined both by Sharon and by Arafat who had their different reasons for wanting his downfall. However, he would be back at the White House in May 2005, this time as Palestinian Authority President, successor to the deceased Arafat. Again, the wall would be one of the main issues raised, but by then it had become another Israeli 'fact on the ground', snaking through the West Bank with an air of permanency, with the Palestinian rural population – now trapped in enclaves and 'closed areas' – still paying the price.

WALL OR FENCE?

What are the components of the structure that Sharon's 'beautiful photos' portrayed as nothing more substantial than a fence? According to the official Ministry of Defence website, the fence is only one element of 'a multilayered composite obstacle'. This is a wire-and-mesh 'intrusion-detection' or 'smart' fence, approximately three metres high, mounted on a concrete base. It is equipped with electronic sensors, including cameras with night vision capacity, to warn of infiltration attempts. An intruder touching the fence triggers a signal to a nearby command centre or 'war room' where military personnel monitor computers and television screens. As each section of the route is numbered, a military unit can be deployed to the affected locale within eight minutes.

The 'smart' fence is augmented by a number of static security features. On at least one and usually both sides of the fence are paved roads for patrol vehicles. Smoothed strips of sand on either side of the patrol road will show the footprints of any intruders. On the 'Palestinian side' there is a ditch or trench 'or other means intended to prevent motor vehicles from crashing into and through the fence'. This is flanked by a pyramid-shaped stack of coiled razor wire, some two metres tall. An additional razor wire barrier lies on the 'Israeli side'. The complete obstacle is generally between 30 and 70 metres wide, although it spans 100 metres in certain areas. Signs are placed on the razor wire on the Palestinian side...