Opinion Editorials, October 2003, www.aljazeerah.info
Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine
Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people
Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
Cities, localities, and tourist attractions
Israel's apartheid wall aims at ethnic cleansing
Mustafa Barghouthi
The Daily Star, 10/26/03
The Israeli construction of the West Bank apartheid wall is clearly a
politically motivated maneuver intent on reshaping the West Bank, rendering
impossible a viable Palestinian state, and with it any lasting peace through
a two state solution.
In reshaping the West Bank and slicing off huge portions of Palestinian land
east of the 1967 border, Israel has also annexed thousands of Palestinians
Palestinians it is now trying to expel through forceful expulsion but also
through destroying any remaining quality of life within this isolated area
of land.
On Oct. 2, the Israeli military released an order declaring all occupied
West Bank land between the “security” wall and Israel’s pre-occupation 1967
border a “closed zone.” The order states that “no person will enter the
(closed zone) and no one will remain there.” Free access to the closed zone
will only be granted to “Israelis.” In this Oct. 2 order, General Moshe
Kaplinski defines “Israelis” as any citizen of the state of Israel, resident
of the state of Israel, and any one eligible to emigrate to Israel in
accordance with the Law of Return, 1950. This means therefore, that while
the 15,300 Palestinian residents in this 115 square kilometer area, or those
in adjoining communities who own agricultural land here (180,000 people)
must now obtain highly unreliable permits to validate their existence, any
Jewish person from anywhere in the world is quite free to come and settle on
this land.
The order stipulates that all crossing into the isolated areas is prohibited
unless a “permit” from the occupation “civil administration” is obtained,
which can only be done by land owners who “prove” that they have land
residing behind the wall or are “officially registered” workers. Farmers and
residents are fearful however that were they to apply for “permits” the
well-grounded reality is that they would be denied on the basis that their
Jordanian land certificates will not be recognized Israeli authorities are
all too aware that the majority of Palestinian certificates are Jordanian
since land registration in the West Bank took place under Jordanian rule
prior to the 1967 occupation.
On the ground this policy is already causing extensive suffering. The
prevention of access to land has meant that many families are losing their
livelihoods farmers prevented access to their crops are forced to watch
their untended crops rot either that or see their produce stolen by
settlers free to wander through Palestinian lands.
The idea of applying for a permit to be on one’s own land is rejected by
Palestinians who have been on these lands for generations. Those few who
have sought permits have been confronted with a haphazard policy of
discrimination which randomly rejects applications for permits citing
various criteria yet at the same time failing to establish any formal set of
guidelines. Many heads of households for instance have already been denied
permits to reside in their villages on the grounds that they were not born
there. Furthermore those who are granted permits are not assured permanent
residency rights the permits are to be renewed from “time to time” as
demanded by the occupation civil administration.
Palestinian efforts to protest this latest stunt in Israel’s ongoing
colonization process have been met with severe punishment. The community of
Jubara for instance lies west of the apartheid wall and is completely
isolated within the de facto annexed area. Jubara has no schools or health
facilities of its own. Residents have always depended on reaching nearby
Kafryat for such services yet residents are doing their utmost to defy the
occupation’s system of expulsion and permits. As a result the village has
remained under closure for more than 16 days no one is allowed in or out
which, considering that all services are only available outside the village,
is having stark consequences for the residents.
The obvious intention of the Israeli government is to see that the reality
of forced poverty and starvation, brought on by the imposition of the wall
and the new “closed zones” become so unbearable for communities in the
northern West Bank that people choose to leave in the hope of finding a
better life. The village of Jubara is just one of many cases being fatally
affected in this latest attempt by Israel and its military to cleanse the
recently seized “closed zone” of all its Palestinian inhabitants and thus
annex the land, and its existing illegal settlers to Israel proper.
Mustafa Barghouthi is director of the Health, Development, Information, and Policy Institute in Ramallah, Palestine (http://www.hdip.org), and the general secretary of the Palestine National Initiative. This is the first of a regular commentary he will write for THE DAILY STAR
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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