Separation Anxiety By Erik Schechter Reprinted from The Jerusalem Post (June 19 and 22, 2003) rom the slopes of Kibbutz Ma’aleh Gilboa, belongs to someone else. Yehoshua says a clearly around the West Bank. But Dayan will not discuss eight kilometers west of Beit She’an, one delineated border will allay Arab fears of Israeli what route his proposed fence should take. Fstill has a clear view of the small Palestinian expansionism. “That’s always been a way to stymie progress village of Jablun, nestled over the pre-1967 Green Supporters of unilateral withdrawal portray on the fence,” he says. “So long as it is Line. themselves as far-thinking individuals caught contiguous, that is okay by me.” But the earthmoving machines are at work. And between an odd coalition of leftists and rightists. While Dayan is the public face for the what looks like the beginnings of a winding, “Yossi Beilin [who opposes the fence] is one of Committee for Building the Security Fence, the country road will eventually sprout into another those who believe in negotiations at all cost...,” group was hammered together by Herzliya lawyer section of the controversial security fence - an says Maj.-Gen. (res.) Danny Rothschild. “And the Ilan Tzion, a scrappy veteran of the cause. eight-meter-high concrete barrier reinforced by settlers oppose the fence because it puts some of In July 2001, Tzion formed his own Fence for electronic sensors and a gravel trace path to detect them outside the border.” Life organization after a suicide bomber from trespassers. Prior cites a number of Labor party high-rollers, Kalkilya detonated himself right outside a disco in Beyond the work in the field, which some see as such as MK’s Haim Ramon, Binyamin Ben- Tel Av i v ’s Dolphinarium complex, killing 21 hectic and others as lethargic, lurks a debate that Eliezer, and Amram Mitzna as fellow travelers. young people. A year later, Tzion unsuccessfully ignores political identities, reflects the terror war’s Yet Hipardut has been eclipsed by backers of a petitioned the High Court of Justice to force the damage, and encapsulates the ideological more modest fence concept. government to begin work on the security fence. perplexity that it brought in its wake. Prior says it is all a game of big tent politics. The Committee for Building the Security Fence Despite recent speculation in the press, there is Many who espouse a security fence also support has attracted support from Hebrew University no evidence of a strategy in the offing to slice up unilateral withdrawal, but believe they can political scientist Shlomo Avineri and Maj.-Gen. the West Bank into isolated Palestinian cantons. If preempt right-wing opposition with a low-key (res.) Ilan Biran, and is building a Knesset lobby anything, despite his denials, Prime Minister Ariel approach. including Shinui, Shas, Labor and even some Sharon has been downright sluggish in building “But we believe that it is a mistake to say that Likud members. the fence. any old fence will do,” he says. “Look at the fence Municipal officials from towns like Shoham The construction project only began last June. near Kalkilya: It is shaped like a jellyfish. It’s not and Omer, which have been plagued by One-third of the fence - a 220-kilometer arc defendable.” Palestinian car theft, have also jumped on board. running from Elkana in the west to Mehola in the A few scattered cement blocks are all that But Tzion has kept groups that advocate east - is scheduled to be completed by December. separate the Palestinian village of Rantis from the unilateral withdrawal at arm’s length. No one knows when the rest will be built. olive groves that lead the way into Israel. There is “Their views are not realistic,” he says. However, pressure is building from below to a closure on the West Bank, but that will not Is it realistic to spend a proposed NIS 3 to 4 quickly complete the fence - even if supporters dissuade the group of Palestinian men waiting at a billion on a fence when the Defense Ministry is cannot agree on its purpose. Some see it as a safe distance. facing budget cuts? political border set down by Israel. Others insist it Once the four Border Police jeeps parked here Tel Aviv University economist Danny Ben- is a temporary security precaution that will boost leave, the Palestinians will walk by foot or get David, a member of the new committee, cites a Israeli confidence in the peace process. transported by car into Israeli towns along the study by colleagues that estimates the financial Whatever the spin, support for the fence reflects Green Line. The men are probably day laborers cost of terrorism within the Green Line at NIS 14 a belief that neither peace negotiations nor IDF just trying to eke out a living for their families. to 19 billion a year. military operations will stop suicide bombers. Then, again, one of them could be a suicide The fence, Ben-David says, will pay for itself “The IDF failed to defeat terror, and the Oslo bomber. after a few months, but there is no time to delay. process exploded in our faces,” says Yehiam Prior, In a field a short drive up Route 465 from “Our GDP per capita is freefalling at a rate of 3 a physicist at Rehovot’s Weizmann Institute of Rantis, a group of local municipal officials and percent per year,” he warns. Science. “We’ve got to the point where there is no public personalities wearing red suede gloves Tzion blames all this on one man: the prime more trust left in the PA to support negotiations.” unwind a symbolic roll of barbed wire for the minister. P r i o r’s answer to the seemingly intractable security fence they want erected. They do not “Sharon is a settler at heart,” he says. “If he Palestinian-Israeli conflict is Hipardut (Hebrew want to wait for a cabinet decision on the fence’s were really interested in building the security for ‘separation’), a group he founded in 2001 that planned route. They do not want to wait for a fence, it could have been done a year and a half supports unilateral withdrawal from 90 percent of protracted evacuation of isolated settlements. ago. The whole project can be completed within a the West Bank. Israel would annex most of the They want a security fence - now. year.” settlements. At the same time, unilateral “In the last few months, we lost 77 Israelis to According to Yisrael Harel, a former Yesha withdrawal would close off the country to illegal terrorism,” says Maj.-Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan, Council chairman and founder of the settlers’ Arab immigrants, 150,000 of whom are living in ex-chairman of the National Security Council, and periodical Nekuda, settlers are split on how to deal Israel, he says. head of the Committee for Building the Security with the popular push for the fence. “We are talking about a political border, not just Fence, a new pro-fence umbrella group. “That’s One faction, he says, has taken a pragmatic line, a fence,” he says. more than we lost in a whole year in southern contending it would be too politically damaging to Its implication goes way beyond a cement-and- Lebanon.” play spoiler. Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman, who barbed wire barricade designed to keep out Dayan says that, until it is completed, all the once decried the fence as a “mistake,” suicide bombers. Indeed, novelist A.B. Yehoshua fence does is funnel terrorists and car thieves into successfully lobbied the Sharon government to frames unilateral withdrawal as no less than the Israeli areas not yet sealed off. include his town of 17,000 within its line. belated fulfillment of the Zionist dream. It does not have to be that way. He says - as have A handful of settlers have even become “Borders are like doors in a house which claim others - that not a single suicide bomber came enthusiastic supporters of the idea. everything inside as the responsibility of the from the Gaza Strip, which is hemmed in by a “Even if the fence would provide communities master,” he says. Everything beyond those doors barrier easier to padd [sic] than the one being built within the Green Line with only 50 percent Kassam rockets, but one day, the Palestinians will disputed Har Dov region on the Lebanese s e c u r i t y,” says Elyakim Haetzni, a prominent learn how to make them more effective.” border],” he says. Beilin spearheaded the hard-right lawyer from Kiryat Arba, “it would be Or they will tunnel underneath. campaign for unilateral withdrawal from southern immoral to deny them it.” This past Tuesday night, two snipers from Lebanon. So long as their communities are not uprooted, Kalkilya crawled through a drainage ditch beneath “Unilateral annexation is illegal under the settlers would willingly play garrison on the the fence and fatally shot seven-year-old Noam international law,” says Yehezkel Lein, a other side of the wall. Leibowitz as she was riding with her parents on researcher for the B’tselem human rights group. It “The fence is a cage for the Palestinians,” says the Trans-Israel Highway. is a position seconded by lobby Peace Now. Haetzni, “and we will be the zookeepers.” Most settlers are joined in their opposition to the Lein cites a 2002 state comptroller’s report that But Harel is quick to note that most settlers are fence by members of the Left, who also believe states most terrorists cross into Israel proper via not so accommodating.