Israeli Wall Around W Bank Hot Spots a Last Resort

by Ferry Biedermann

The massive grey supports will come up along a two-kilometer stretch around the town. In the end this will be just a small part of the 130-kilometer barrier under construction to separate Israel from the West Bank.

Work on the separation wall began last month after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reluctantly agreed to the proposal. This is the latest Israeli effort to keep Palestinian bombers out of Israeli territory. The first section of the wall to the north is expected to be ready early next year.

Qalqiliya, a town of about 80,000, juts sharply into Israel's narrow waist. Here, as at many places, the line that the wall takes has become controversial.

Many right-wing Israeli politicians oppose the barrier on ideological grounds. The fence and wall will demarcate more or less the old border between the West Bank and Israel, they say, thus highlighting that they are two separate entities.

Palestinians say the wall will further curtail their already restricted freedom of movement. They say chunks of Palestinian land will be included on the Israeli side. Many see it as an attempt by Israel to perpetuate occupation.

"Sometimes I talk to the Palestinian farmers in the field," says Erez Rubinstein, project manager for the stretch around Qalqiliya. "They complain that they will not be able to see the sunset any more because of the wall."

But this is more than about a sunset view. Like many Israelis Rubinstein wishes the wall was not necessary, but sees it as the only option left. "When I talk to the people on the other side I don't detect any willingness to stop the terror attacks, so we don't have a choice," he says. "For now there is no other solution but at some point I hope I can tear the thing down again."

Thirty kilometers north of Qalqiliya is the village of Barta'a, one part Arab-Israeli and the larger part Palestinian. Ahmed Ibrahim Kabha, chairman of the local council on the Arab-Israeli side, says he struggled to keep Barta'a united and sought inclusion of fields and houses on the Palestinian side on the Israeli side of the fence. That is what happened.

Ahmed Ibrahim is aware of the sensitivity of his story. "I asked some important people on the other side what they wanted and they all said they preferred to be on the Israeli side," he said. "But none of them was prepared to speak out in public or write a letter because they were afraid that they would be regarded as traitors."

Hassan Kabha, chairman of the council of Barta'a on the Palestinian side, ridicules the notion that his counterpart had any say in deciding the path of the barrier. "The Israelis always wanted to use the fence to steal our land," he said. "You don't think they seriously listened to a few Arabs?"

Kabha also wants Barta'a to stay united, but under Palestinian rule. "We belong to the Palestinian Authority and we hope one day to belong to a Palestinian state, the barrier will not deter us," he said.

But even without the security barrier, the Israelis have made contact between Barta'a and the rest of the West Bank more difficult. The road to nearby Jenin, the major city in the northern West Bank, has been cut. Kabha, who is a teacher in Jenin, says "the trip used to take 30 minutes, now it takes two hours if I'm lucky." He has no idea what arrangements, if any, will be made after the barrier is completed.

Most Palestinians are worried about what will happen to people on the other side on the West Bank. Many have jobs and family on the Israeli side. The situation is already grim. "People are desperate, they don't have money for food or anything," says Mustafa Barghouti, a human rights activist based in Ramallah.

"They will do very dangerous things to try and feed their families, including crossing the fence," he says. "It is already dangerous to go to Israel and many people still try."

Some counter-terrorism experts do not agree the wall is necessary as a security measure. Yoni Fieghel from the Interdisciplinary Center for Terrorism Research in Herzliya says "a barrier means that we will be passive, that we will wait behind our walls for the next terrorist attack." Counter-terrorism has to be pro-active, he says.

The fence is not a long-term solution, says Fieghel. "It will increase resentment, both because of our presence there and because of the humanitarian situation," he says. He advocates quick in-and-out, intelligence-driven, pinpoint incursions.

On the other hand, the Jewish settlement of Sal'it juts out three kilometers into the West Bank, between the Palestinian towns of Tulkarem and Qalqiliya. Miriam Geppner, an old resident of the cooperative village that was founded in 1979, says she does not care whether her hilltop oasis of green lawns and trees in a barren, rocky landscape gets included on the Israeli side or not. But it has been. Some high-ranking Israeli army officers live in the settlement.

"I just hope that the neighboring Arab residents will not be inconvenienced by the wall," says Geppner. She says she has always felt safe, and worries that the fence will increase resentment between the local Palestinian population and the settlers.