What is the Wall?

In June 2002, Israel began implementing the next stage of its expansionist and repressive program by building a Wall inside the West Bank that would run at least the West Bank’s entire length. Not surprisingly, the path of the ever-winding Wall would follow, consistently, the logic of land confiscation and control, including the annexation of settlements and the caging off of built-up, Palestinian areas. Contrary to worldwide news reports, the Wall (also referred to as the “fence”, “separation barrier”, and particularly deceptively the “security fence”) will not mark the 1967 border, also known as the Green Line. The Wall is in fact a major land grab and a sealing of the fate of the Occupied Territories and of Palestine.Currently, signs of the Wall—and its impact—can be seen in its “first phase” taking place in the Qalqiliya, Tulkarm, and Jenin districts, along with current construction and destruction for the Wall that is taking place in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. In all of these areas, the Wall is nearing completion; Israel announced the completion of 27 kilometers of the Wall in April 2003. In the first phase areas alone, which represent only 1/3 of the Wall (in its shortest form), 65 communities will be affected, including over 200,000 people. So far, massive destruction has been felt by communities including the razing of agricultural land, damage to irrigation networks, isolation of water resources, and the demolition of homes and community infrastructure; all of this atop of the prevention of accessing their land, markets, and traveling for employment and to visit family. The Wall’s first phase draws attention to the affects of the Wall and the expected impacts of its existence and continuation.

 The Wall in its current mapping snakes its way inside the West Bank at points up to 6 kilometers, such as by Jayyus and ‘Isla in Qalqiliya district, effectively confiscating substantial amounts of Palestinian land. Amidst these devastating prospects and “developments,” Israel is nearing the final approval of an expanded Wall plan which will move the Wall even further east, up to 16 km inside the West Bank in order to annex settlements such as Ariel, Immanuel, and Kedumim. At the same time, the Israeli proposal for a second Wall along the Jordan Valley and running somewhat parallel to the first Wall, which was publicly introduced in March 2003, is soon to begin. With the construction of the expanded and second Wall, Israel will isolate—amidst plans of direct control—some 1/2 of the West Bank, as the Wall will run the length of over 650 kilometers!

Today, in Jerusalem, the Wall is furthering the complete isolation of the heart of Palestine. Once the commercial, social, religious, and historical center of the West Bank, and to all of historic Palestine prior to 1948, this city has become inaccessible to the majority of Palestinians under the Israeli closure system that began some ten years ago and which the Wall is now solidifying. In Bethlehem, also a religious and cultural center in Palestine, the Wall is severing the city’s connection with Jerusalem, the rest of the West Bank, and among communities within the area. Moreover, east of the Green Line along the first phase, it is expected that an additional, parallel wall, as well as portions of the Trans-Israel Highway, will be built, further isolating the areas between the Wall and the Green Line and expelling residents from their villages. The Wall is a continuation and magnification of the closure and siege policy and a major “tool” to further shrink the already existing Palestinian ghettos. The impact of the Wall cannot be underrated.

The Wall’s Structure

The Wall takes on a number of physical forms, such as the one in Qalqiliya, which is some 8-meters high made of concrete and lined with watchtowers, as well as other areas where the Wall is a series of fences, some of which are electric, and may include some or all of the following: trenches, roads, barbed wires, cameras, trace paths for footprints, buffer zones, and spanning a width between 70-100 meters. In Bethlehem the Wall consists of both structures: fences (including electric), buffer zones, sensors, trenches, and barbed wires, included of which is a by-pass road for complete isolation of the city from the West Bank, as well as a concrete Wall that is to encircle part of the community. Whatever the structural differences, the affects are the same.

The idea of the Wall is not new, both conceptually and literally. Talk within Israel and its establishment of erecting barriers and further isolating Palestinian communities precedes the start of the Intifada. The majority of the Wall’s projection continues to be kept secret by the Israeli military and government. Maps that exist today of the Wall, the expanded Wall, and the second Wall are based on Israeli military confiscation orders which farmers received and which were accompanied by small maps of their communities, as well as maps produced by the Yesha settlers council with the support of the Israeli Ministry of Defense. In addition, leaks and statements to the Israeli media and the Israeli courts by the military and government, though sporadic, also function as sources of information. The military has officially refused to publish the map of the Wall, and any public acquisition of maps of the first phase of the Wall have been after the destruction begins, and usually indirectly through a map being given to a particular locality or served to an Israeli judge in a court hearing.

Sealing the Fate

The official Israeli rhetoric which states that (dehumanizing) crossing points for people and goods along the Wall will be established is not expected to come into fruition on any practical level, since Israel’s permit system is a notorious pretense for closure and violation of freedom of movement. According to the Israeli Human Rights organization B’Tselem, Israel did not allocate enough money in this year’s budget for such crossings, giving just enough time for much of the lands in the first phase areas to dry out. The spiral of land confiscation and indescribable human suffering in the Occupied Territories is the direct cause of Israel’s relentless ability to act with impunity, accompanied by strategic lip service.

Amidst communities facing Israel’s destructions, there has been insufficient outcry both nationally and internationally. Communities where the Wall is currently being built have been expressing their disappointment with the Palestinian Authority’s lack of support for their suffering; the communities continue to demand that the Authority take a strong position against the Wall and make a precondition for any “negotiations” with Israel to halt all construction of the Wall, return confiscated lands to its rightful owners, and compensate those who had land and property damaged or destroyed. On the international level, the limited exposure and knowledge of the Wall only further highlights the discrepancy between what is presented and what is actually taking place; the need to make the facts known is critical.

The expanded Wall and the Jordan Valley Wall together surface a map of the West Bank sliced on two sides, with two large, disconnected areas in the middle, and within them numerous ghettos of villages and towns with no freedom of movement, surrounded by settlements, military bases, by-pass roads, and checkpoints. If the expanded Wall and second Wall are completed, the West Bank will be divided into three disconnected cantons with movement between nearly impossible. As a façade of negotiations is being brokered over the creation of a Palestinian state, in actuality the Wall—called by the Campaign as the Apartheid Wall--is shaping the future of Palestine as it solidifies the Occupation’s incessant injustices to the Palestinian people.