Building barriers — Israel is 'dancing alone' By Omar Karmi

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OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — “If this wall is built, East Jerusalem is lost.” Mohammad Dahle is not a man to mince his words. An Arab-Israeli lawyer, he has been preoccupied lately with cases of Jerusalemites who have had land appropriated for the building of Israel's separation barrier — to Israelis a “security fence” and to Palestinians variously “the wall”, the “separation wall” or the “apartheid separation wall” — in the city.

In Jerusalem, the barrier will mostly run along the city's municipal borders as defined by Israel after it occupied the eastern part of Jerusalem in 1967 and unilaterally annexed the city. It will separate the mostly Palestinian population of East Jerusalem from the West Bank, and neighbouring villages and towns that rely on access to Jerusalem for trade and a host of other benefits. In places, the barrier will even separate parts of Jerusalem as defined by Israel, and an estimated 70,000 Palestinians with Jerusalem IDs could find themselves on the “wrong” side of the barrier.

“The wall affects our social, economic, educational and religious rights,” says Palestinian Legislative Council member Ziad Abu Zayyad. “The wall will separate families, it will separate children from their schools and workers from their workplaces. Around Jerusalem many people depend completely on access to Jerusalem. The only Arab hospital, Al Maqased, is in East Jerusalem, and 75,000 people in many neighbourhoods will be unable to get to it. There'll also be no access to the holy places for both Christians and Muslims.”

While recent talk of unilateral action in Israeli political circles, notably from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his deputy, Ehud Olmert, has commanded many column inches in newspapers across the world, Palestinians believe the barrier is clear evidence that such unilateral action is already being taken.

“Israel says this is a temporary step and that the wall will be removed as soon as there are no more attacks,” says Abu Zayyad. “But if you look at what is happening on the ground, it doesn't give you the impression that this is temporary. They are spending millions of dollars on the wall, and the infrastructure looks permanent. It's not just a wall, it's also a road. The whole area is some 40 metres wide, and that road looks like it could be a highway. This is, in my opinion, a unilateral action to create borders.”

Dahle concurs. He sees the barrier as a way of taking land gradually without admitting as much. The Israeli government is using a 1949 emergency law, the Seizure of Lands Law, which gives it the power in times of emergency to temporarily seize lands for security purposes. This way, while the government takes over control of the land and whatever is on it, it does not legally confiscate the land and pays no compensation to the owners. The law, however, allows government use of the land only for a non-renewable period of three years, whence the land should either revert to its owners or be confiscated permanently. It is in this way that the Israeli government has justified its measure in Israeli courts and maintains that the measure is a temporary one.

“They say it's not confiscation, just seizure for a limited period of time. We are doing this in self-defence, they say, and if the reality changes, we'll see what happens. We know it won't change. We don't see Israel destroying all this investment after two or three years. They are using this only to convince the court, to defend this measure, in public opinion, and vis-?-vis international opinion, as temporary. In three years who the hell will remember? We'll be busy with the occupation of Damascus, who knows?”

Adding to Palestinian suspicions are publicly stated Israeli fears over the “demographic factor” that with higher birthrates Palestinians will eventually constitute a majority. Olmert was quite candid about unilateral Israeli moves ensuring “maximum Jews and minimum Palestinians” in a November interview with the Israeli daily Haaretz, and on Dec. 9, Jerusalem's Israeli Mayor Uri Lupolianski expressed his own concerns and said he had urged Sharon to “take action” in Jerusalem over the demographic factor. According to Israeli estimates, by 2040, Palestinians may constitute a majority in the city.

With the route of the barrier in Jerusalem designed to leave populous Palestinian areas, such as the Shu'fat and Anata refugee camps and the Salam neighbourhood, on the “wrong” side, the conclusion is clear to many: the route of the barrier, says Abu Zayyad “has nothing to do with Jerusalem municipal borders, and everything to do with excluding as many Palestinians as possible.”

While the Jerusalem municipality maintains that it will continue to work for all its citizens, and that “as long as they are within municipal borders they have rights, and we will do our best to serve them”, a spokesperson also conceded that existing military checkpoints had already made it harder and more costly to provide services to affected neighbourhoods, and that the barrier would only exacerbate these problems. The municipality, the spokesperson said, was in ongoing negotiations with the Israeli army to ensure that Jerusalem residents would be as little affected as possible.

“It's not an ideal situation,” the spokesperson said, “but we can only try our best.”

The problem, however, is not only about access to the city or services to its residents. Dahle sees the barrier as being an attempt to preempt any possibility of East Jerusalem becoming the capital of a future Palestinian state. “The wall is built so that East Jerusalem is cut off from the West Bank. There's no way that you can think of a solution by which East Jerusalem is the Palestinian capital.”

Similarly, Abu Zayyad sees the barrier as an indication that “Israel is just not interested in negotiations”. The barrier will only serve to “destroy confidence” on the Palestinians' side “and is really an incitement to violence”.

“There are still people on the Palestinian side who wishfully think that there is a chance for negotiations. Recently, we've witnessed the Geneva Accords. But honestly, Israel is dancing alone. It wants to do what's good for it with no consideration for how it affects others.”