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Saturday, Mar 26, 2005

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Opinion - Leader Page Articles

The great divide

By Jamal Juma'

The Wall being built by Israel in the West Bank has to be seen as a political project. Its fallout for the Palestinians cannot be seen as only a humanitarian issue.

FEBRUARY AND March have seen wide-scale escalation of popular Palestinian resistance all over the West Bank to the ever-intensifying Israeli occupation and apartheid. Particularly in Hebron, Beit Surik, Saffa, Ni'lein and Budrus. The Ramallah demonstration of March 14 was the high point of mobilisation against the Apartheid Wall being constructed across the West Bank. The struggle has escalated against a backdrop of political developments designed to make Palestinians passive subjects to the racist colonisation project that is the Apartheid Wall.

These political developments are: the Sharm al-Sheikh conference; the announcement by the Occupation Forces that they were making "modifications" to the Apartheid Wall; the conference in London; and the attitude of the United Nations, which has chosen to pursue the issue of the Apartheid Wall in "humanitarian" terms. Common to all these is the attempt to stifle Palestinian opposition to the Wall, and to shape its "normalisation" into the demographics of the West Bank.

The issue of the Wall was negated in the Sharm el-Sheikh meetings. It only surfaced in a meek joint statement, which called it a "controversial issue." Further, the conference stressed the need for a "calming" period in Palestinian resistance and activity. This was expected to occur while the Apartheid Wall and the settlements continued to expand. Indeed, the Occupation Forces have used the de facto impasse to pick up the pace of the "third phase" of the Wall, which started in the south in November 2004. Particular fervour has gone into construction of the Apartheid Wall around Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

The rhetoric of "calming down" and "ceasefire," which does not deal with the Apartheid Wall and settlement construction as part of Israeli violence has no meaning. The implementation of the ICJ (International Court of Justice) order — to dismantle the Wall — is not a negotiable or controversial issue but forms the basis of international law.

Undermining the ICJ decision, and consolidating the U.S. and European desires to see a re-routing of the Wall's path, the Occupation Government announced a "modification" plan. Although some changes in the Wall route were made in individual villages, the Wall and its network of Jewish-only settlements and roads and military zones continue as before in the rest of the West Bank, annexing some 47 per cent of it. It will still leave Palestinians in ghettos or semi-ghettos, linked together with tunnels and bridges under Occupation control. What is new in this Wall route is that it is being mooted under the title of a "disengagement plan" approved by the Americans and Europeans who seem to consider it part of the "road map" (to peace).

The Palestinian people were alert to the false impressions the Occupation Forces were attempting to create around their colonial project, which seeks to impose apartheid upon them. They realise how the Wall draws the features of the final settlement even before negotiations begin. They totally reject the notion that isolated ghettos being created across the West Bank refer to any kind of "viable state." That the Wall is a bulldozer and a catalyst of the expansionist Zionist colonial project in Palestine is not hard to discern for the Palestinians, who have experienced decades of colonialism and destruction of livelihood, dignity and communities.

It has now been over a year since the opening session of the ICJ, and more than eight months since its decision that the Wall should be halted and dismantled. While it was expected that Israel would reject the decision (it has never been prepared to abide by international law), it was more surprising that the call for the implementation of the ICJ decision had started to dissipate from the official PA discourse. The Wall has been pushed into the background as if it is just an illusion in the Palestinian consciousness. For the Europeans and Americans, the issue has been the Wall's path and not the Wall itself. Thus the ICJ decision appears to have been annulled by all parties, except by the Palestinian people (the affected people) who are using every possible occasion to call for respect for international law and full implementation of the decision.

The process to normalise the Apartheid Wall — in contempt of international law — has been a discourse increasingly evident in the U.N., which prefers to treat it as a "humanitarian," and not political, issue. On his visit to the West Bank, the U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, reiterated the previous U.N. announcements that a damage register office would be established for those affected by the Wall. This move is highly alarming in a context where U.N. pressure on Israel to stop the Apartheid Wall is completely missing. Is it money instead of respect for international law the U.N. seeks to provide for the Palestinian people? Moreover, the wealth of reports and statements by U.N. officials all emphasise the humanitarian implications, ignoring the real issue of the Wall's existence, thus serving to legitimise the de facto construction of the Apartheid Wall.

The concrete ramifications of the sell-out of the Palestinian people, land and struggle became really evident at the Conference held in London last month. Foreign Ministers, the World Bank and Mr. Annan met with officials of the Palestinian Authority to lecture about "internal reforms," "security matters" and, above all, money. Up to $1.2 billion has been promised to the Palestinian Authority. This was slightly more than the minimum amount ($900 million) calculated by the World Bank in its report of December 2004, which appeared to be a do-it-yourself guide on how to administer an entire people in an open-air prison with detailed analysis of the financial necessities of life behind the Apartheid Wall. The bottleneck of the World Bank feasibility study — the hi-tech gates in the Apartheid Wall — has been solved with the Bank volunteering to stump up the money and it is now competing with a U.S. standing offer of funding the project. However, despite the meticulous calculations of the world's most important finance experts, and the "generosity" of the donor community the Palestinian people are not putting up their land and lives for sale.

The Palestinian popular resistance has responded to these developments with escalating grassroots mobilisation in various locations. In Jerusalem the people of Beit Hanina, Beit Surik, Biddu, Dahya, and Ram struggle against the Wall being built to isolate Jerusalem from the West Bank. Land has been confiscated for settlement expansion and the Judaisation of Jerusalem in a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing.

The third phase of the Wall has led to further construction and land confiscation in Hebron, Yatta, and the Old City, and, in turn catalysed residents into a struggle against the Apartheid Wall. In West Ramallah, and in Safa and Beli'n clashes have emerged on a daily basis with Palestinians shot at, injured, detained and tear gassed.

The demonstration on March 14, organised by the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, was the crowning moment in a "month of continuous struggle." The huge attendance of people in the demonstration, from all areas of the West Bank, reflected the popular movement against the Wall. Slogans and statements revealed the deep anger of the people at the unrelenting construction of the Apartheid Wall, and widespread opposition to political developments designed to demobilise and pacify resistance to the Occupation.

Rejection of the deceitful "modifications to the Wall," were emphasised in calls for the restoration of international law and dismantlement of the Wall. Criticism was also directed at the official PA position and discourse, which has not sought to use the ICJ decision.

However, it was Mr. Annan, and the branches of the U.N. in Palestine, who received the lion's share of the people's anger on March 14. Mr. Annan failed to utter one word about the necessity to respect international law. His focus on the register office suggested the issue is humanitarian and can be solved with a few dollars. Moreover, the recent report of the OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) came to the same conclusion. The inability to treat the Apartheid Wall as a political issue — one that is intrinsic to the Zionist colonial project for the West Bank — is a deeply disturbing development within the United Nations.

What Mr. Annan and the U.N. have stated simply mirrors the rhetoric of the Zionists. They too consider the issue "humanitarian" and show an "understanding" to deal with it! They too act in contempt of the ICJ decision as do Mr. Annan and the U.N. report. We are left to ponder what exactly is the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Is it to adopt the Israeli-American position in relation to U.N. decisions, founded on the basis of double standards? Or is it to facilitate the implementation of international law, and support the Palestinian people in their legitimate struggle for justice, sovereignty and freedom?

(The writer Jamal Juma' is Coordinator of the Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, www.stopthewall.org.)

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