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The "Wall" is Not Just a Wall

By Sara Roy
The Daily Star, Opinion (Lebanon)
Posted on Monday June 2, 2003

Considerable debate has already emerged around the “road map,” America’s latest diplomatic initiative to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Ariel Sharon’s recent and highly conditioned acceptance of the road map has already produced declarations of “historic compromise” similar to those heard a decade before when the now failed Oslo peace accords were announced.

The road map incorporates many of the deficiencies that doomed the Oslo process but one of its most glaring is the absence of any reference to the “Separation Wall” that Israel has been constructing in the West Bank for nearly one year.

According to Israeli officials, the wall is meant to separate and isolate the Palestinian population from Israel and from settlements, thereby preventing suicide bombers from entering Jewish areas. For Palestinians ­ already devastated by years of closures, curfews, territorial fragmentation, land confiscations, settlements, barriers, and virtually unabated socio-economic decline ­ the construction of the wall has proved to be an extremely pernicious measure further threatening individual and collective well-being.

Indeed, the wall continues to fragment and isolate Palestinian communities over and above the enduring isolation already imposed. This exacerbates a process that began a decade ago during the Oslo period, and intensified during the current uprising. It should also be noted that in the years since the 1993 peace process began, Israeli state infrastructure has been extended to all of the West Bank, leaving only Palestinian enclaves.

An internal analysis of the wall by the World Bank reveals a stark reality that few, especially in the West and in Israel, are aware of.

One little known fact is that 120 kilometers of the wall have already been built through the northwestern governorates of Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqiliya, and Salfit. The wall’s projected length is 347 kilometers ­ twice the length of the Berlin Wall ­ at a cost of $1.6 million per kilometer. Other constructions have begun in the Bethlehem area.

Perhaps most significantly, the wall’s route does not overlap with the Green Line ­ Israel’s border with the West Bank ­ and in some areas it curves as far as 6 kilometers into the West Bank, cutting roads and water networks. By curving inward, the wall incorporates ten Israeli settlements, which are now situated on the “Israeli” side of the wall.

It appears that the wall’s designers are trying to capture as much West Bank land and Israeli settlements as possible. Yet, in this same area wedged between the wall and the Green Line live some 12,000 Palestinians in 14 villages who are now cut off from the rest of the West Bank, and, to varying degrees, from the land they have farmed for generations and from needed markets. (Some analysts believe these people will be the most vulnerable to “transfers”).

Some landowners can no longer access their land while others are “only allowed to cross by foot or donkey cart,” imposing obvious limitations on transporting produce and other commercial transactions. 83,000 fruit and olive trees have already been uprooted due to construction involving the razing of thousands of acres of productive land, and the destruction of property and infrastructure.

Furthermore, urban localities near the path of the wall’s construction are commonly subjected to increased movement restrictions in the form of closures and curfews, reducing and sometimes prohibiting mobility within and between Palestinian towns, villages, and hamlets.

In the 228-day period between June 17, 2002 and Feb. 12, 2003, for example, Tulkarm was under curfew for all or part of 215 days (94 percent); Jenin, 156 days (68 percent); and Qalqilya, 119 days (52 percent).

Communities situated near the wall will be cutoff from part or all of their agricultural land, water sources, business assets, urban markets, public services and extended social networks, resulting in “loss of income-generating assets, reduced geographic scope for economic activity, and, potentially, a trend away from a monetized economy [toward one that produces] for domestic and local consumption.”

The World Bank states: “The wall is not just a wall. Depending upon location, sections will comprise some (or all) of the following
elements: 4-meter deep trenches on either side; a dirt path ‘to which access will be forbidden’ where potential infiltrators would be exposed to (Israeli Army) fire; a trace path to register foot prints; an electronic warning or ‘smart’ fence; a concrete barrier topped with barbed wire; a concrete wall rising as high as 8 meters; a two-lane military patrol road; and fortified guard towers placed at regular intervals.”

Furthermore, the Israeli State Attorney has indicated that the territory between the Green Line and the wall will be declared a “Closed Military Zone.” When the first of three phases is completed, the World Bank estimates that some 232,000 people living in 72 communities will be affected with 140,000 living on the eastern side of the wall but, in effect, encircled within its winding path. This encirclement is clearly seen in Qalqilya, home to 40,000 people who now have only one point of entry into the West Bank.

More strikingly, the World Bank projects that when completed, the wall could isolate as many as 250,000-300,000 Palestinians, mostly residents of East Jerusalem, which equals approximately 12-14 percent of the population of the West Bank. Furthermore, the wall could annex as much as 10 percent of the West Bank to Israel.

Recently, Sharon gave his support for the expansion of the wall along the eastern side of the West Bank, effectively encircling the territory and separating Palestinian lands from Jordan. Given the 14 conditions to the road map recently announced by the Israeli government, particularly with regard to Israel’s continued control of Palestinian borders, it may be that the wall’s design is aimed at carving out and encircling the 42 percent (or less) of the West Bank that Sharon has said he is prepared to cede to a Palestinian state.

There appear to be no plans to stop the wall’s construction. Its completion, alone, will preclude the creation of a sovereign entity with the real attributes of a state. No peace initiative can succeed unless the wall is terminated. Injustice should no longer be tolerated as the price of “peace.”

Dr. Sara Roy is a research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, and author of The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development.