Walling Off the Future for Palestinians and Israelis
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Mennonite Central Committee Peace Office Publication July–September 2004 Volume 34, Number 3 Walling Off the Future for Palestinians and Israelis IN THIS ISSUE The Iron Wall of Separation 3 A Wall against the Possibility by Alain Epp Weaver of a Palestinian State, by Alain Epp Weaver We must either suspend our settlement and access to water resources; the story of a efforts or continue them without paying Palestinian Christian family in Beit Sahour 5 Israel’s Unilateral Separation attention to the mood of the natives. Settle- practically surrounded by multiple fences; Plan, by Jad Isaac ment can thus develop under the protection reflections by a Palestinian and by an Israeli 7 The Israeli View of the of a force that is not dependent on the local about why this barrier will not contribute population, behind an iron wall that they to peace and reconciliation but will instead Separation Wall, will be powerless to break down. intensify injustice and enmity. by Jeff Halper —ZE’EV JABOTINSKY In order to understand the current separa- 8 A Gated Community? tion wall, however, the wall must be viewed by Ed Nyce armers in Jayyous village unable to in historical context. The construction of Fget their sheep to pasture. Residents of 9 The Palestinian Fear of the “separation wall” under the government Falameh village looking on while their trees of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon can Thirst, by Jad Isaac wither. An owner of a chicken farm in be understood as an extension of the “iron Qalqilya unable to reach his animals for 11 The Wall, by Samia Khoury wall” strategy advocated by Ze’ev Jabotin- three days, and their subsequent death. sky, the early-1900s leader of the revisionist The villagers of Budrus demonstrating non- stream of Zionism, the ideological forerun- violently to prevent Israeli bulldozers from ner of Sharon’s Likud party. A historical uprooting their olive trees. Farmers in Habla perspective also reminds us that the separa- worrying about continued access to water. tion wall is only the latest in a series of legal and physical walls Israel has erected against These are only a handful of examples of the indigenous population. Palestinian communities that are being devas- tated by the complex barrier cutting deep into In reality, the Holy the West Bank that Israel calls a “security A Look at History Land does not need fence” but that the rest of the world names, Jabotinsky’s rhetoric of the “iron wall” must variously, a “separation wall,” an “apartheid walls, but bridges. be understood in the context of the chal- wall,” a “segregation zone.” A complex net- lenges that faced the Zionist movement in —POPE JOHN PAUL II work of fences with features such as elec- the early 20th century. Zionism, a late form tronic sensors, electric fencing, barbed wire, of European nationalism that arose at the patrol roads, and concrete walls that reach end of the 19th century, believed that life for eight or nine meters, the barrier both resem- Jews as minority communities in Europe was bles and—many fear—serves as a de facto untenable and unsustainable (a conviction border. Psychologically and metaphorically, that would be reinforced by the horrific the barrier functions as a very real wall, a genocide inflicted on European Jewry during dividing wall that is both the product of and the 1930s and 1940s). Just as the “French itself engenders enmity (Eph. 2:1–12). nation” had France, so the “Jewish nation” Contributors to this issue of the Peace required a Jewish state. Office Newsletter tackle different dimen- The challenge, for the Zionist movement, sions of the separation wall: its impact on consisted in obtaining territory where a Jew- the Palestinian economy, agricultural sector, ish majority might be secured. The problem lessly bang its head until it acquiesced to the A Viable was, however, that there already was an existence of the Jewish state; once that hap- Palestinian State? indigenous Arab population in that section pened, Jabotinsky continued, the Jewish of the Ottoman Empire known as Palestine. state could negotiate about limited recogni- The Road Map promoted by the If anyone in Europe believed the rhetoric of tion of Arab civil and national rights. United States, the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia “a land without a people for a people with- out a land,” such belief was quickly and nec- As Israeli, Palestinian, and other historians calls for the phased establishment have documented, the war of 1948, which of a viable Palestinian state along- essarily dispelled upon arrival in Palestine: side Israel. The separation wall, the land was not empty, and there were led to the creation of the state of Israel, which cuts deep into West Bank ter- native Palestinian Arab communities involved the dispossession of hundreds of ritory, diverging significantly from throughout the land, from the Galilee in the thousands of Palestinians. Over 700,000 the 1949 Armistice Line (the Green north down to the Negev desert in the south. Palestinians were expelled by Israeli troops Line), places this vision in jeopardy, or fled in fear during the fighting, ending up as does the “disengagement plan” Establishing a Jewish state in Palestine, as refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the promoted by Israeli Prime Minister Zionist leaders came to understand, would Gaza Strip, and the West Bank: Israel barred Ariel Sharon, which envisions the necessarily mean a violent imposition on the these refugees from returning. dismantling of settlements in the native population. Creating a Jewish state in Gaza Strip, along with a minimal some or all of the portion of the Ottoman Tens of thousands of Palestinians who number in the West Bank, in remained in Israel were classified by the new exchange for U.S. recognition that Empire that came under British control (“Mandate Palestine”) would have to mean Jewish state as “present absentees,” their large Israeli settlement blocs in the lands turned over, along with the lands of occupied territories will become part the displacement of at least some of the of Israel in any final status agree- native population; otherwise, Jews would the Palestinian refugees outside Israel, to the ment. These developments call into not be a majority in the “Jewish state” and Israeli “Custodian for Absentee Property.” question the fate of a two-state would simply be replicating the minority Through force, a Jewish state had been cre- solution based on the Green Line, existence of the Diaspora. ated, and an “iron wall” of military might for the wall and the proposed disen- and discriminatory legislation kept Palestini- gagement plan are creating de facto Zionist leaders from the left and the right ans separated from their lands. borders for discontiguous cantons spoke of the need to “transfer” some or all that will lack meaningful social, of the native Arab population. The leading While Israel’s victory in the 1967 war gained political, or economic viability. labor Zionist Berl Katznelson in the late territory—East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and Many Palestinians believe that the 1930s explained his support for forcibly minimal requirements for the via- uprooting Palestinian Arabs by arguing that the Sinai from Egypt, the Golan Heights bility of a future Palestinian state “A distant neighbor is better than a close from Syria—it also brought with it a diffi- include the land area of the West enemy. They will not suffer through the cult dilemma. The left and the right of the Bank (including East Jerusalem) and transfer, and we most certainly will not.” Israeli political spectrum (not the far left) Gaza Strip, which constitutes only The “leftist” Zionist Aharon Zisling, for his favored Israeli control over all of the “land 22 percent of historic Palestine; a part, insisted on the “moral right” to “pro- of Israel” (Eretz Yisrael), with the religious freely accessible seaport in the Gaza pose population transfer. There is no moral right viewing “Judea and Samaria” (the Strip; unfettered air access to air- southern and northern West Bank) as the ports in the Gaza Strip and the West flaw to a proposal aimed at concentrating the development of national life; the con- biblical heartland and the secular left and Bank; and a secure land crossing right considering the Jordan Valley, the (analogous to the current secure trary is true—in a new world order it can highways between settlement blocs and should be a noble human vision.” aquifers of the northern West Bank, and in the West Bank) to link the West large areas around Jerusalem and the west- Bank with the Gaza Strip. While those on the left of the Zionist move- ern edge of the West Bank to be strategic ment talked about “voluntary transfer,” military assets. Annexation of the West Palestinians point out that a prece- imagining that Palestinian Arabs would vol- Bank and the Gaza Strip, however, was not dent for full Israeli withdrawal from untarily leave their lands, those on the right an option, as annexation would mean that the West Bank and Gaza Strip in more clearly—some would say more hon- the Palestinians in the territories would exchange for peace is provided by the earlier withdrawal of Israeli estly—recognized that achieving the Zionist become Israeli citizens, endangering the troops and settlements from the aim of a Jewish state would require the use Jewish demographic majority in the state. entire territory of Sinai in exchange of violent force. In his 1923 article “The for a peace treaty with Egypt. Iron Wall,” Jabotinsky outlined the chal- The Israeli dilemma since 1967 can be seen lenges facing the Zionist movement.