Standing Against The Claws Of The Wall

[Violet_Crumble]

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 commander’s 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 government’s "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. Arieli’s 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).

http://www.countercurrents.org/pa-reinhart250604.htm