Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians with guns and fences, the Daily Star aljazeerah.info

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Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians with guns and fences

The Daily Star, 3/25/03

The Israeli government did not wait very long after the start of the Anglo-American attack on Iraq to launch its own attack against the Palestinians. The Sharon government announced Sunday that it wanted to move the “separation fence” it is building between Israeli and Palestinian lands further to the east. In view of the fence’s unofficial role as demarcator of the future frontier between Israel and an independent Palestinian state, the eastwards shift of the fence would absorb more Israeli settlements into Israel and take away more land from the Palestinians.
This flagrant Israeli act of unilaterally grabbing more occupied Palestinian lands will get less attention than it normally would, in view of the world’s focus on the current events in Iraq. The theft-by-expropriation of more Palestinian land for the fence will certainly result in Palestinian families leaving or being forced out of their ancestral lands and homes. This continues a vicious drama that we have watched with anger for most of the past six decades or so Israel’s steady, deliberate expulsion of Palestinians in order to make room for Israelis. Every time it happens, Israelis have an excuse for it, and, in recent decades, the United States finds a reason to accept it as a fait accompli, and the Arab governments find excuses not to do anything more than issue indignant statements.
The fence that Israel is moving further into Palestinian lands is an affront to the Palestinians, but also to the United States, the EU, Russia, and the United Nations, who form the Quartet that has produced a “road map” to a permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. The world’s attention on Iraq must not detract from the worsening situation in Palestine, which remains one of the strongest reasons for political tensions within the region, and between the Arab region and the United States. However tall or low Washington emerges from its adventure in Iraq, it will have to re-focus on the Palestine issue if it hopes to achieve progress on core issues that concern it in this region, including anti-terror campaigns, economic transformation, and political modernization.
The Arab states are no better off in this respect. The Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo have proven themselves unable to impact on events in either Palestine or Iraq, to the continuing dismay of their fellow Arab citizens. The fence that Israel is building provides a practical, focused issue that both the Arabs and the United States could address if they really wanted to show that they are working for a just and comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace. The blatant illegality of Israel’s actions, according to Geneva Convention prohibitions on changing the status of an occupied land, provide Arabs and Americans with ample scope to use their political and economic muscle to stop Israel’s continuing dispersal of Palestinians from their traditional homes and lands. Israel is showing the world that you can do ethnic cleansing with a gun, and you can also do it with a fence. If nobody in response does anything to stop it, people should not be surprised that this region is full of so many enraged people.

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