Last update - 13:22 17/09/2003
An outcome too terrible to imagine
By Yigal Bronner
The morning after the horrific suicide bombing at Cafe Hillel in Jerusalem, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked on the radio whether this was the right time to cut the defense budget. Netanyahu reiterated his promise that the funds earmarked for what is known as the separation fence will not be reduced and will even be pumped in faster to accelerate its construction. This will be done in order to guarantee the security of Israeli civilians. It never occurred to the radio host to ask whether the fence would, indeed, guarantee security. As in other areas, the escalating violence and heated emotions rule out any alternative views.
One of the most dramatic geo-political changes in the history of the region is taking place at record speed and without any public debate. Before it becomes too late, we must take time out to look through the veil of lies about the fence.
The first lie is in the title. The so-called separation fence promises the worn-out and worried public that the Palestinians, and all the troubles that contact with them entails, will be tucked safely behind the fence. We are on one side, they are on the other, and that's that. The alignment of the fence will, in reality, annex much of the West Bank to Israel. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians will still be living west of the fence, on the Israeli side. Thousands of settlers will be living east of it. Call it what you will - separation it ain't.
The second lie is that this fence marks a border, and that the Palestinian State that Sharon speaks of will be established east of it. This is not one fence, but at least two sets of walls. And while one of them, the western one, will steal as much Palestinian land as possible along the Green Line, the other one, the eastern one, will be annexing remote settlements. Several other obstacles, including fences and ditches, will be created between the two walls. This system will turn the populated areas of the West Bank into uncontiguous pens.
Take Jerusalem, for example. The wall that is currently being built there is not on the line separating the Palestinian neighborhoods from the Jewish ones. Instead, it crosses through all the Palestinian areas in town and will be annexing more than 100,000 Palestinians to Israel. Moreover, the hundreds of thousands who will be left outside the wall will not only be barred from entering the city, making their living there, going to school and getting medical care, but they will not be able to get such services from cities to the east - since from the east they will be surrounded by the walls and roads that will be built around Ma'aleh Adumim, Pisgat Zeev, Nokdim and Tekoa.
One can hardly imagine the scope of humanitarian problems that these walls on the east side of the Jerusalem metropolitan area will create as they slash the region into an intricate system of unconnected compounds. But the promise of security that the fence carries with it turns the Israeli ear deaf to any humanitarian arguments.
And the third lie about the wall, again through the Jerusalem prism: East Jerusalem was the calmest Palestinian region during the current intifada. The wall will divide families and streets and leave us with many people who have nothing to lose. This is a giant barrel of explosives.
Of course this is true of other areas, as well. And yes, there are places - a few - where the fence will be built along the Green Line and will not be annexing any Palestinian population to Israel, as in the case of Tul Karm and Qalqilyah. But anyone who believes that at least there the fence will promise us quiet is deluding themselves. Gaza is a fascinating case study for this theory: it is so quiet there that the Israel Defense Forces repeatedly asks for permission to invade and the air force bombs the region time and time again. There is no need to elaborate on the extent of security that the fence around Gaza has given the residents of Sderot and Ashkelon.
By manipulating the genuine concerns of Israeli civilians, Sharon's cabinet is building a system of fences that will not provide any separation, will not create a border and will not guarantee security, either. The purpose of these walls is entirely different: they are designed to make it impossible to weaken the stronghold that Israel has gained in the territories occupied in 1967. Eighteen months from now, we will be awakening to an entirely different reality. Ours will be a brutal land of pens stretching between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean that will make South African apartheid pale. The outcome is too terrible to even imagine.
Dr. Bronner teaches at the department of East Asian studies of Tel Aviv University.
