The Reality Of Israeli Apartheid
U.N. votes 150-6 against West Bank barrier
UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly last year to call on Israel to dismantle a barrier that would seal off the West Bank.
Israel has staunchly defended the barrier as a means to thwart Palestinian terrorist attacks, and it immediately condemned the vote and said it would continue building the barrier.
"Thank God that the fate of Israel and of the Jewish people is not decided in this hall," said Dan Gillerman, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations.
Nasser Al-Kidwa, the Palestinian representative to the United Nations, called the vote a "very important development."
"Thank you all for doing this great job today," he said. "We are confident that all member states will deal with the provisions of the draft resolution with utmost, needed seriousness with regard to the implementation."
In the General Assembly, 150 members voted in favor of the resolution, while six, including the United States, voted against it. There were 10 abstentions.
The resolution calls on Israel to comply with the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion issued July 9 and tear down the barrier.
The planned 425-mile barrier is about one-third complete. In some areas, the barrier is a fence; in others, a concrete wall.
Al-Kidwa asked for the nonbinding resolution last week, and hailed Tuesday's vote as a landmark decision.
"This, indeed, could be the most important resolution of the General Assembly again since the adoption of the Resolution 181 of 1947," he said.
That resolution partitioned British-ruled Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arabic.
Gillerman said the world body had been duped by a Palestinian propaganda machine.
"We should not be so detached from reality as to treat an advisory opinion as though it were binding, and binding Palestinian obligations as though they were nonexistent," Gillerman said. "This is not a recipe for progress, it is a sure recipe for failure."
The international court's opinion was sought by the General Assembly after it adopted a resolution in October proposed by Arab states demanding that "Israel stop and reverse the construction of the [barrier] in the occupied Palestinian territory," the court noted.
The court said the barrier is "contrary to international law" because it infringes on the rights of Palestinians. The court urged that Israel remove it from occupied land.
The court also said that Israel is obligated to return confiscated land or make reparations for any damage to homes, businesses and farms caused by the barrier's construction.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered construction of the barrier to continue despite the court ruling.
Is it a Fence? Is it a Wall? No, it's a Separation Barrier
Nigel Parry, The Electronic Intifada, 1 August 2003
The Wall around Qalqiliya. A twenty-five foot high concrete cage cuts
residents off from their agricultural land, necessary for their survival,
and prevents you from traveling even 5 minutes out of the City. A single
gate, open at the whims of the occupying army, controls 100,000
residents.
Israel's Separation Barrier, dubbed the "Apartheid Wall" or "Berlin Wall"
by Palestinians, has increasingly attracted international media attention,
largely due to the hard-to-ignore scale of the project.
The most obvious historical parallel to the barrier is the Berlin Wall,
which was 96 miles long (155 kilometers). Israel's barrier, still under
construction, is expected to reach at least 403 miles in length (650
kilometers). The average height of the Berlin Wall was 11.8 feet (3.6
metres), compared with the maximum* current height of Israel's Wall -- 25
feet (8 metres).
[*it is not clear whether the shorter fence sections, about 6 meters in
height, are first or final stages in Israel's construction of the
barrier.]
Israel's barrier is therefore planned to be four times as long and in
places twice as high as the Berlin Wall.
Photographs of the barrier available on the wire services show two main types of section -- a wall made of concrete or concrete/fence combination, and a fence-only version of the barrier. Some references in the media suggest that the two main forms of the barrier correspond to differing levels of implementation of security by Israel, with the wall sections reserved for areas perceived as "especially vulnerable", the fence sections for areas less so. (Source: Text of multimedia element on website of The Guardian).
Interactive wall graphic from The Guardian
It is not so simple. In addition to the concrete wall and fencing
materials used in the construction of the structure, sections of Israel's
Separation Barrier additionally include electrified fencing, two-meter-deep
trenches, roads for patrol vehicles, electronic ground/fence sensors,
thermal imaging and video cameras, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), sniper
towers, and razor wire.
At this point in time it is not known exactly what proportions of the
length of the barrier is fence versus wall, or if the fence is merely a
temporary state until a wall can be built in all areas but -- nonetheless
-- the wall unquestionably represents a considerable portion of the visible
manifestation of the barrier.
WIRE SERVICE IMAGES OF THE SEPARATION BARRIER
Wire service images are important at they represent part of the
education of foreign and photo editors sitting in newsrooms around the
world who have not actually seen the barrier with their own eyes. With
caption descriptions of the barrier ranging from "concrete wall" to the
wonderfully inventive "concrete fence" of AFP's Yoav Lemmer, a large number
of images from the wire services make it absolutely clear that the barrier
is not merely or entirely a "fence".
The original AFP caption attached to the bottom right image includes some
editorialising, claiming the barrier was built to "stop Palestinian
terrorists from entering Israel", with no mention of what effect it has on
the farmers and residents of Qalqiliya.
As you read the captions, and look at the photos, it's hard to ignore what
is in front of your eyes. This structure is clearly no "fence".
Original caption: A foreign activist from the International Solidarity Movement organization sprays graffitti to the cement-blocks wall erected by Israel, during a demonstration against the wall, in the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya Thursday July 31, 2003. Protesters splashed the separation barrier with balloons filled with green, black, red and white paint -- the colors of the Palestinian flag -- and hoisted a banner calling the fence, which Israel says was built for its security, an apartheid wall. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
Original caption: Palestinian farmers tend to their aubergine crop in the shadow of a concrete wall erected across their land by the Israeli army to stop Palestinian militants slipping into Israel from the West Bank city of Qalqilya July 7, 2003. Palestinians fear the barrier, consisting of walls and electronic fences now stretching around 150 kms (90 miles), will dash their dream of a viable state in the West Bank, the goal of a new U.S.-backed peace plan. (Reuters/Mahfouz Abu Turk)
Original caption: An aerial view shows the construction site of the security fence which will seperate Israel from the West Bank, near the West Bank city of Tulkarm, July 30, 2003. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has told U.S. President George W. Bush that Israel will keep building a West Bank security fence despite U.S. concerns the barrier could block Middle East peacemaking. (REUTERS/Reinhard Krause)
Original caption: The concrete fence erected by Israel alongside the West Bank town of Qalqiliya to stop Palestinian terrorists from entering Israel. The Israeli defence ministry announced the completion of the first section of the barrier. (AFP/File/Yoav Lemmer)
SEMANTIC PROBLEMS RELATING TO THE STRUCTURE OF THE BARRIER
Typically, Israeli terminology is favored in US reportage of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In Hebrew, the word for fence is
gader. Consequently, the preferred Israeli terminology for the
barrier is gader hafradeh ("separation fence").
The Hebrew words for wall are qir and chomah. The former is
mostly used for structures and buildings; the latter for protective
fortifications -- the formulation chosen by Israeli activist organisation
Gush Shalom. Either of them would be more appropriate for this particular
structure.
The semantic problems posed by the use of the word "fence", in either
language, are enormous:
fence (n.)
- A structure serving as an enclosure, a barrier, or a boundary,
usually made of posts or stakes joined together by boards, wire, or
rails.
wall (n.)
- An upright structure of masonry, wood, plaster, or other building
material serving to enclose, divide, or protect an area, especially a
vertical construction forming an inner partition or exterior siding of a
building.
- A continuous structure of masonry or other material forming a rampart
and built for defensive purposes. Often used in the plural.
- (a) Something resembling a wall in appearance, function, or construction.
Source: American Heritage English Dictionary (irrelevant definitions deleted)To characterise the structure as a "fence" without referencing its other features is highly misleading.
The route of the wall
Similarly, looking at the route of Israel's Wall, it is clear that the wall does not run along the Green Line that separates Israel proper from the West Bank but rather runs through the West Bank, on Palestinian land.
A Palestinian-compiled map of the Israeli barrier plans from the Palestinian Hydrology Group and the Land Research Center. EI altered the legend text for greater clarity.
ABBAS', BUSH'S AND SHARON'S WORD CHOICES WHEN CHARACTERISING THE SEPARATION BARRIER
Above: President George W. Bush and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas hold a joint press conference in the Rose Garden Friday, July 25, 2003. "To break through old hatreds and barriers to peace, the Middle East needs leaders of vision and courage and a determination to serve the interest of their people. Mr. Abbas is the first Palestinian Prime Minister, and he is proving to be such a leader," said President Bush. (White House/Paul Morse)
Abbas: On 25 July 2003, during a press meeting at the White House with US President George Bush, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, referred to the barrier as a "wall" twice, stating that the Palestinian vision for achieving peace: "cannot be realized if Israel continues to grab Palestinian land. If the settlement activities in Palestinian land and construction of the so-called separation wall on confiscated Palestinian land continue, we might soon find ourselves at a situation where the foundation of peace, a free Palestine state, living side-by-side in peace and security in Israel is a factual impossibility. Nothing less than a full settlement freeze will do because nothing less than a full settlement freeze will work. For the sake of peace, and for the sake of future Palestinian and Israeli generations, all settlement activities must be stopped now, and the wall must come down." (Source: White House Transcript)
Above: President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon laugh together during their joint press conference in the Rose Garden Tuesday, July 29, 2003. (White House/Paul Morse)
Sharon:In his speech at a later meeting with Bush on 29 July
2003, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon spoke of "the security
fence" -- with no mention of any "wall": "which we are forced to
construct in order to defend our citizens against terror activities," later
adding, "The security fence will continue to be built, with every
effort to minimize the infringement on the daily life of the Palestinian
population."
Bush: During his earlier meeting with Abbas, Bush commented on the
barrier, saying: "I think the wall is a problem, and I discussed
this with Ariel Sharon. It is very difficult to develop confidence between
the Palestinians and the Israel -- Israel -- with a wall snaking through
the West Bank."
Bush additionally characterised the barrier twice during the meeting
with Abbas as a "fence", the sole word he used when Sharon was
present.
Following Sharon's speech, during the media question time, an Israeli
journalist present challenged President Bush on his earlier use of the word
"wall", asking:"Mr. President, what do you expect Israel to do in practical
terms in regarding the separation fence that you call the wall? Due
to the fact that this is one of the most effective measure against
terrorism, can you clarify what do you oppose -- the concept of the
separation fence, or only its roots?" Bush's answer displayed far
less resolve on the matter than during the meeting with Palestinian Prime
Minister Abbas just four days previously:"Look, the fence is a
sensitive issue, I understand. And the Prime Minister made it very clear to
me that it was a sensitive issue. And my promise to him is we'll continue
to discuss and to dialogue how best to make sure that the fence
sends the right signal that not only is security important, but the ability
for the Palestinians to live a normal life is important, as well."
(Source: White
House Transcript)Nonetheless, politicking aside, Bush did acknowledge
during the course of the two meetings that he recognised that part of the
structure was a "wall" even if he only used this word interchangably with
'fence' when the Israelis were not around. He also acknowledged that its
path was "snaking through the West Bank," which maps of the wall depict
unambiguously.
MEDIA REPORTAGE OF THE SEPARATION BARRIER
With the US President acknowledging both the physical structure and path
of the Separation Barrier and the photographs and maps of the Wall
available on the wire services available to the US media, one would be
tempted to imagine that journalists would notice a few obvious facts.
First, that the Separation Barrier is very possibly a wall under
construction -- with some areas having both fence and wall, and other areas
still with just a fence (perhaps the first stage of a wall). And second,
that its path does not run along the Green Line between the West Bank
(which the internatonal community considers to be occupied Palestinian
territory) and Israel -- but actually inside the West Bank, on
Palestinian land.
The barrier ranges from 30 to 150 meters wide in places, a considerable
loss of land. According to Palestinian environmental umbrella organisation
PENGON, as of April
2003, "some 14,680 dunums of land have been razed for the footprint of the
Wall, including the uprooting of over 102,000 trees." When completed,
95,000 Palestinians or 4.5% of West Bank population will be isolated and
200,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem will be totally isolated from the
rest of the West Bank. A joint Israeli government/Settlers Council (YESHA)
proposal to modify the route of the Wall will isolate another 110,000
Palestinians to reach a total of 400,000 isolated, including those in East
Jerusalem, on the Israeli side of the Wall or within a completely isolated
section.
Needless to say, as regular readers of The Electronic Intifada's Coverage
Trends section will be painfully aware, the US media seems unable to
recognise basic realities that fuel and perpetuate the conflict, thus
leaving the citizens that these newspapers, magazines, and electronic media
purport to inform in the dark.
The day of Bush's speech during Abbas' visit, The Washington Post
website published an article ( "Bush Criticizes Israeli Fence", July 25th),
which noted: "President Bush criticized Israel's efforts to build a
fence separating Palestinians and Israelis on the West Bank yesterday,
saying it is 'a problem' that makes it 'very difficult to develop
confidence between the Palestinians and Israel'", choosing to emphasise
Bush's use of the word "fence" rather than "wall".
While noting at least that the barrier included both fence and wall
components, the Post's preferred choice of word is apparent when the
frequency of appearance is noted:"The decision by the Bush administration
to press the fence issue appears to have taken the Israeli
government by surprise. The fence, which is a high concrete wall in some
areas and an electronic wire fence elsewhere, has emerged as a key
concern for Palestinians, who contend that Israel is using the fence
to draw the contours of Palestinian state that would be limited to 45
percent of the West Bank territory. But the fence is not formally
mentioned in the U.S.-backed peace plan known as the road map, which is
supposed to guide negotiations."CNN has had some problems as well over the
entirety of the last year, with multiple reports on the website
referring to the barrier only as a "fence" and various claims that the
barrier runs between the West Bank and Israel:"Israel's government insists
the fence -- which will stretch along the border between Israel and the
West Bank -- is meant only to provide security, not to form a
border."
(Source: "Israel building fence along West Bank", CNN.com,18 June
2002)
"Israelis say the huge fence system being built along their border with
the West Bank will give them more security. Palestinians say the
construction of the barrier system will take some of their land."
(Source: "Opposing views of West Bank fence", CNN.com, 3 July 2003)
Following effective intervention by at least one correspondent, the text
of recent articles on CNN's website was updated to reflect the realities
and hi-tech nature of the structure, although CNN's graphic of the barrier
remains deeply flawed, including the delineation "ISRAEL" appearing over
the occupied West Bank:
In a 19 July 2003 article with an Associated Press byline, "Penn State
student arrested at Palestinian protest back in U.S.", the article managed
to both mischaracterise the barrier as a fence, and its route as on the
Green Line:A part-time Penn State University student arrested while
protesting the construction of a security fence between Israel and
Palestinian territories is back in the United States, officials
said."Reuters was less confused, careful to both attribute the source of
the terminology to the sides using them in the conflict and the location of
the wall: "Israel pushed ahead Wednesday with construction of a security
barrier in the West Bank despite Palestinian dismay and Secretary of State
Colin Powell's pledge to keep pressing on the issue. President Bush failed
in talks Tuesday to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to stop
building what Israel says is a security fence and Palestinians call a new
"Berlin Wall."And noting it's makeup: "But continued construction of the
security barrier -- a concrete wall in some place and a metal fence topped
with razor wire in others -- stoked resentment among ordinary
Palestinians."
(Source: "Israel Builds Security Barrier Despite Outcry", Reuters, 30 July
2003).In this Israeli-Palestinian conflict version of "Is it a bird? Is it
a plane? No, it's Superman!" multi-perspective confusion -- as the issue
flies across our screens before we can grasp hold of what exactly it is --
we are once again cautioned to pay close attention to the language used by
the media compared with the actual realities described. Journalism has the
potential, like teargas, to blind and disperse while the horrors of history
elude us.
As Israel fails to learn the lessons that normal people in East and West
Berlin ultimately taught the world on 9 November 1989, we should pay
attention to these same people in Palestine, currently living in an
increasingly caged environment, watching their land daily swallowed up as
Israel rushes to put new facts on the ground while we struggle to keep in
focus the fast pace of history -- and the even faster pace of Israel's
confiscation of Palestinian land.
Israeli 'shoot to kill'-style warning sign on part of the separation barrier. As expected, the Hebrew word for the barrier is gader ("fence"). However, the Arabic word used is jidar, which -- while related at its root to the Hebrew word gader actually means "wall" in Arabic. (ISM)
They just wanted to go home together
by Amira Hass
www.haaretz.com
23/02/2006
The Reality Of Israeli Apartheid
R. had a work meeting in Ramallah. She planned to return home, to East
Jerusalem, with M., her partner, who works in Ramallah. They reached the
Hizma checkpoint, east of the Pisgat Ze'ev settlement, where there is a
permanent Israel Defense Forces post that checks all travelers heading to
Jerusalem. You are forbidden to take this route, said the soldiers. Only
your husband is allowed. Take the Qalandiyah checkpoint route
R. and M. have been married for about 10 years. He is a Palestinian, born
in East Jerusalem, an Israeli resident. She has an ID card from the
territories. She has a permit to be in Jerusalem, at home, with her
children and spouse.
As soon as they were married they applied to the Israeli Interior Ministry
for "family unification." Despite promises, including written promises, she
is still waiting for the residency document. They've been through a lot of
Kafkaesque travails as a result, but the new prohibition against going home
together shocked even them. They thought it might have been a soldier's
whim, but a news item in Haaretz last Friday made clear to them that it is
a military order, signed by Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh, commander of the IDF in
the Judea and Samaria region. The order forbids Palestinians from entering
Israel via any route other than 11 special crossings that were allocated
only to them - and they can only cross those on foot. Palestinians are not
allowed to drive inside Israel. The order also prohibits Israelis from
bringing Palestinians into Israel through passages designated for Israelis
only.
At the Hizma junction, which is for Israelis only, the "seam
administration of the Defense Ministry has not yet hung the signs that it
already hung on the road leading from the settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim to
Jerusalem. The signs are hung alongside the road and at the military
checkpoint, and say, in Hebrew and Arabic, "Passage is for Israelis only.
Transporting and/or movement of people who are not Israelis is forbidden
through this passage."
The yellow signs explain who is an Israeli. The definition is in the major
general's order, and is the standard definition used in military orders
declaring "a closed military area" to Palestinians, where only Israelis are
allowed to enter. "An Israeli," says the order and the sign, "is a resident
of Israel, someone whose residency is in the region [meaning the occupied
territory - A.H.] and is an Israeli citizen [a settler - A.H.] or one who
is eligible to become an immigrant according to the Law of Return-1950 and
someone who is not a resident of the region but has a valid entry permit to
Israel [a tourist - A.H.]
A military source confirmed to Haaretz that a decision has been made to
allow Palestinians who work for international organizations to travel, with
their foreign co-workers, through two passages designated for Israelis only
"instead of making them go to the ends of the earth" to passages designated
for Palestinians only. The problem with the separate passages is not only
that they are remote and distant, as the military source admits; the
problem is not only the wasted time involved in reaching those passages,
the revolving doors that suddenly are locked, the humiliating crowdedness,
the alienating technological devices or that most of the "passages"
effectively legitimize more land expropriation and annexation of
Palestinian territory to Israel. The problem is that they are another
building block in the policy of separate development for Jews and non-Jews,
another expression of the mentality that cloaks itself in security but
whose real purpose is to preserve the hegemonic privileges of Jews, at the
expense of the Palestinians in the territories conquered from them.
This policy of separate development of two demographic groups in the same
territorial region - the occupied West Bank, where the Israeli army is the
sovereign - began with the first settlement. It continued and deepened as
the settlements proliferated and grew into separate demographic-territorial
pockets where Israeli law, which does not apply to the original inhabitants
of the area, is in force.
The residents of those territorial pockets also won extra rights, which are
denied to the native neighbors and the non-Jewish citizens of Israel. Like
the right to choose where they want to live, on both sides of the Green
Line. Protected by the superiority of the ruling military force,
territorial borders were set and bureaucratic limits were placed that a
priori limit the separate development of the native Palestinians: The area
available to them is gradually shrinking, water quotas are dwindling in
comparison with what is made available to Jews, freedom of movement is
limited, and economic development is shackled and controlled.
With time, and with international accommodation and the increase in the
number of Israelis who benefit from the system, the settlements are being
transformed from "Israeli territorial pockets" to Jewish territorial
contiguity, in which there are poor, rights deprived, over croweded and
inferior "populated pockets" of the Palestinians.
A comparison between flourishing Pisgat Ze'ev on the lands of Hizma and
Anata with Hizma and Anata, hemmed in and suffocating behind a horrendous
cement wall, proves that the policy of separate development began long
before the suicide bombings and the rise of Hamas.
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