The Wall Quandary

By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
February 23, 2004


The International Court has begun the proceedings on the litigious wall issue between the Palestinians and the Israeli government on February 23rd of this year. Israel claims that the wall is for protecting innocent Israeli civilians from the Palestinian suicide bombers, and they gravely point in the direction of last weekend’s bomb blast in Jerusalem.

Their position is understandable. Protecting a nation’s civilians from terrorism does have merit. However, the construction of wall in Israel exposes a stunningly different image than the bureaucrats of Ariel Sharon’s Government wish the world to reckon.

In many cases Israel indicates that the security wall already in place along with other heightened security measures are working, the number of suicide bombings has come down considerably than its previous high average. According to Washington Times editorial: “In the spring of 2002, when Israel began building the West Bank barrier, the country was experiencing more than 15 successful suicide bomb attacks per month and thwarting eight attacks per month. By fall 2003, with the barrier less than 50 percent complete, Israel was experiencing two to three successful attacks per month and intercepting more than 20.” [7]

There is no independent verification of this number, as most of Israel’s “security measures” are covered in secrecy. Only when innocent Palestinian civilians get killed in missile attack or Palestinian boy or girl’s body is shredded with leaded bullets, the world gets some of this news.

More often than not, it is suspected that news of Palestinian deaths and injuries are relegated as less important, tucked in inside pages or buried under other columns in most of the Western nations while the Palestinian suicide bombings get the front-page space. And Israel alleges that the Arab and the Muslim world do the opposite, they ostensibly incite more tensions by highlighting these Palestinian deaths over and over again.

The problem is not with the protection of Israeli civilians. Israel must take all the legal measures in protecting its citizens. But the problem resides in Israel’s adoption of illegal measures, violating human rights in the broad daylight or under the cover of night. Israel has repeatedly violated international laws in handling Palestinian concerns.

And this construction of fence is being used as a “weapon” that Noam Chomsky described in his recent New York Times article as follows: “What this wall is really doing is taking Palestinian lands. It is also — as the Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling has described Israel's war of "politicide" against the Palestinians — helping turn Palestinian communities into dungeons, next to which the Bantustans of South Africa look like symbols of freedom, sovereignty and self-determination.” [5]

Another Bantustan, more hideous than the one the South Africa’s disgraced apartheid government started, this time, the Sharon’s government wants to take the next step in their journey, on the way to the “final solution”, constructing the wall in a complex matrix form that “imprisons thousands of Palestinians in enclaves encircled by 24-foot high walls, electronic fences, and watchtowers manned by armed Israeli soldiers.” [1]

Behind the security and threat pronouncements, there are other motives that Israel does not want the world to know. It is about its unyielding control over the vital water resources, fragmenting the Palestinian communities, forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children living in small enclaves that the wall is purported to achieve. And its eventual design is creating more wretched circumstance for the millions of Palestinians, entrapped by this wall’s conniving zigzag pattern, incising deep into the occupied lands, so that, in years to come, Palestinians are forced to accept their inevitable fate, their complete eviction from their ancestral homes for the purpose of a greater Israel.

Israel’s defiance on the wills of the international communities is nothing new, many previous resolutions either laughed at with impunity, or simply being vetoed by Israel’s staunch supporters, in most cases, United States. “They are American-Israeli policies — made possible by unremitting United States military, economic and diplomatic support of Israel. This has been true since 1971 when, with American support, Israel rejected a full peace offer from Egypt, preferring expansion to security. In 1976, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for a two-state settlement in accord with an overwhelming international consensus. The two-state proposal has the support of a majority of Americans today, and could be enacted immediately if Washington wanted to do so.” [5]

Even though United States’ State Department routinely condemns Israel for its flagrant violation of human rights in the occupied land in its yearly report, it is a case of bewildered contradiction when the same U.S. Government sells billions of dollar worth of tanks, F-16 aircrafts, apache helicopters “with laser-guided missiles” and voluminous artillery, that are being routinely used in suppressing Palestinians, even in the refugee camps, tiptoeing the balance of power where the aspiration of Palestinian dream attaining freedom from oppression remain a remote possibility.

Michael J. Bohnen, who is the Chairman of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, cites the raising of the wall issue in the docket of International court as propagated by Israel’s staunchest foes. He writes in his Boston Globe commentary: “the states pressing this issue onto the agenda of the International Court seek to use The Hague as part of a campaign to delegitimize Israel. The court, by taking on this issue, would set a dangerous precedent as it opens the door to other politicized campaigns. The damage this could do to the peace process is immeasurable, as it serves to undermine the bedrock of the process -- direct negotiations -- and leave both parties without the mechanism, the road map, that they agreed should be the mechanism for resolving their disputes.” [2]

Mr. Bohnen is wrong in this aspect. What can an oppressed, subjugated, shackled nation and its people do when there are no genuine peace process on the table, when the wall is slowly reducing Palestinian lands into pockets of enclaves, making the lives of poverty stricken Palestinians into further desolation? International Court, binding or without binding, is deemed as the place where their cries for help can be answered that had been repeatedly ignored in the past.

“Deligitimizing” Israel is not the issue here, but most of the world is resoundingly behind challenging Israel’s illegal legitimization process, the process that envision uprooting Palestinians for the greater purpose of Zionism.

At this point one should be clear that there are millions of peace loving Jewish folks who themselves are against Zionism’s discriminatory steps taken toward the Palestinians. They rightfully feel that the sacred memories of Holocaust victims are disgraced with the ardent attempts of association by the zealous Zionists.

In their deceitful invocation of Holocaust victims’ memories, they have abandoned the lessons that the world had learned from that traumatic experience from the Second World War era, the subjugation, ethnic cleansing and annihilation of millions of people in the name of other eras’ “great causes” propped up by the fascist Hitler and gang.

There are groups from all nations, all academic backgrounds, coming forward in response to Israel’s aggressive executions of this construction of wall. Scholars at the prestigious Oxford University in England, who are experts in international law, laid out their transparent observations that agrees with the world’s opinion: “In its current form, Israel's construction of the separation Barrier in the Occupied Territories violates both international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Israel has not presented any compelling justification on security grounds for the Barrier as it is currently being constructed, and the Barrier imposes unnecessary and disproportionate restrictions on the human rights of the Palestinians." [6]

These scholars opine that Israel is bound by the Hague Regulations and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, in all the Occupied Territories. “The West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem constitute Occupied Territories under international humanitarian law. No derogation is permissible from humanitarian law, even in times of public emergency. The existing and planned route of the Barrier, the operation of the gates, and the adjacent closed military zones (between the Barrier and the 1949 Armistice Line [Green Line], are not necessary or proportionate measures of control and security according to the Fourth Geneva Convention...."the security objectives it seeks to serve ... could be achieved through alternative, less detrimental means.”” [6]

This is the vital point. The security objectives Israel seeks could be achieved through less detrimental means, that would comply all the international laws, abide by Israel’s commitment in maintaining human rights provisions in the occupied lands while protecting its citizens with prudent security measures.

Noam Chomsky, the prolific writer with Jewish background, writes that if the security fence were indeed for the preservation of Israeli lives, it would have been built “inside Israel, within the internationally recognized border, the Green Line established after the 1948-49 war. The wall could then be as forbidding as the authorities chose: patrolled by the army on both sides, heavily mined, impenetrable. Such a wall would maximize security, and there would be no international protest or violation of international law.” [5]

Indeed, in that genuine case of protecting lives of Israeli civilians, there would not be any need for pressing this issue on International Court’s docket, but Ariel Sharon’s plan is quite different from the mere protection of his citizens. His plan is driven by his long time wish of expanding Israeli lands, driving out or starving the Palestinians for the benefits of his orthodox constituencies and quite possibly, as the allegations are abundant, for other concealed design, like expansion into ancient Babylon or beyond.

As the world knows, even if the International Court declares in favor of the Palestinian pleading and against the construction of Israeli apartheid wall, in reality, the hope is faint and weak for attaining any practical resolution for this delicate issue, since, United States is still behind Israel’s arrogance. And with the superpower friend’s blessing, Israel can continue building its wall, without giving a hoot to international opinions or Palestinian agony.

Jeff Halper, who is the coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions in Israel, said the best in his direct address to the American taxpayers: “We are all responsible for what happens everywhere. What made the Berlin Wall so significant for us all? What motivated President Kennedy to declare: "We are all Berliners"? It was the idea that there are certain fundamental rights, certain fundamental conditions of life that, if violated, compromise the very essence of human existence. To the degree that the international community accepts responsibility for the well-being of people everywhere, you as a part of civil society have a responsibility to oppose the wall. To the degree that our tax dollars enable Israeli occupation and violations of human rights such as those represented by the wall, we bear a direct responsibility. If Kennedy were alive, today, he might travel to the besieged, walled-in city of Qalqiliya to pronounce: "We are all Palestinians." [1]


References

1. Jeff Halper, “America is Complicit in Illegal Wall”, Boston Globe, February 21, 2004.

2. Michael J. Bohnen, “A Case Pressed by Israel’s Foe”, Boston Globe, February 21, 2004.

3. Greg Myre, “Israel Says It Will Dismantle Barrier at Palestinian Town”, New York Times, February 22, 2004.

4. Selim Nassar, “Israel Launches the Battle of Anti-Semitism in Response to the Lahaye Battle”, Al-Hayat, February 21, 2004.

5. Noam Chomsky, “A Wall as a Weapon”, New York Times, February 23, 2004.

6. Yuval Yoaz, “Oxford Legal Experts Take Aim at the Fence”, Haaretz, February 24, 2004.

7. “The Fence and Palestinians”, The Washington Times, February 19, 2004.



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Mahbubul Karim (Sohel) is a freelance writer. His email address is: sohelkarim@yahoo.com.

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