[GushShalomBillboard] The fence is not going to deliver + more

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

  //=//=//=//=//=//=//=//=//
   // Gush Shalom Billboard //
     //=//=//=//=//=//=//=//=//

[This billboard begins with some thoughts about the fence, and about a torpedoed 
effort to view it from both sides, written down by Adam Keller. In the end: a stark  
warning by Professor Kimmerling.]

[1] The fence is not going to deliver + report on a bus trip - by Adam Keller 
[2] Tuesday, trial of the three internationals 
[3] Politicide - article of Baruch Kimmerling

*******NB:
We were informed that the refusers' protest at Mount Herzl, is taking place tomorrow, 
June 17 [as we forwarded in the Friday billboard], and NOT today as wrongly 
suggested in the Ha'aretz ad. Contact: orotlevy at yahoo.com

[1] The fence is not going to deliver + report on a bus trip - by Adam Keller 

The main news item in Israel today is the fence, the celebrated "security 
fence" which the army is about to start erecting somehwere around the site of 
the Green Line, Israel's  pre-'67 border, and which was the subject of a stormy 
debate at this morning's session of the Israeli cabinet. The settlers and their 
allies on the extreme right are up in arms about it, regarding erection of the 
fence as harbinger of Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the creation 
of a Palestinian state - their worst nightmare.  
For the same reason, quite a few people who consider themselves supporters 
of peace and opponents of the occupation are supporting the fence - in fact, 
there had been activists intensively lobbying over the past year for such a 
fence to be erected, and quite a few politicians hope to make political capital 
out of it. For such people, today is a time of celebration. Looking 
dispassionately at what Defence Minister Ben-Eliezer is actually launching 
today, with the approval of Prime Minister Sharon, both the doves' euphoria and 
the settlers' alarm seem highly premature and misplaced. 
For one thing, the fence is not exactly following the line of the pre-
'67 border. In many places it departs from it by "a few kilometres here and 
there" - changes which are airily taken by politicians and generals who draw 
lines on a map, but which on the ground mean that in dozens of villages barbed 
wires and minefields will suddenly appear to seperate Palestinian peasants from 
their ancestral lands, peasants already hard-pressed by the events of the past 
two years and for whom these lands are the last remaining source of 
subsistance.
In the area of Jerusalem, the intended line of the fence has nothing whatsoever to do 
with where the 1967 border was. Rather, its aim is to entrench the annexation of 1967, 
with the barbed wire seperating the 200,000 Palestinian inhabitants of East 
Jerusalem from their brethern in Bethlehem to the south, Ramallah to the north, 
and a host of villages and suburbs all around. For a Muslim or Christian 
inhabitant of the West Bank, visiting a Jerusalem shrine of one's faith - at 
present a difficult and risky endeavor, but still possible - would become 
truly impossible, once the fence is complete on all sides. 
Moreover, erection of a fence does not in itself mean that the army is going 
any time soon to withdraw behind that fence, or even to cease its prolonged incursions 
and invasions into Palestinian cities. In fact, Sharon had said quite clearly, over and 
over again, that this is NOT going to happen, that the army is not about to withdraw 
from anywhere, nor is  any settlement going to be dismantled by the present 
government. 
There is, in fact, an obvious precedent: the Gaza Strip is already for many years 
surrounded on all sides by a fence - which makes it a huge prison for hundreds of 
thousands of Palestinians, but it does not prevent Israeli settlers from keeping control 
over a full third of the strip's meager land, with the concomitant result that large military 
forces go on killing and getting killed, day after day, in order to maintain these 
settlements in place. 
Last Thursday soldiers guarding the settlement of Netzarim, shot and killed a nine-
year old Palestinian child, in an incident which found hardly any 
mention on the Israeli or international press; this morning, a Yediot Aharonot 
headline hailed as heroes two soldiers killed last night "in defence of Dugit"  
- Dugit being a place in the north Gaza Strip inhabited by disgruntled 
settlers, who have long since given up and asked the government, repeatedly and 
in vain, to evacuate them.
 
The fate of Gaza seems to be what Sharon has in mind for the West Bank as well - 
with the added complication that in addition to the fence on its outside the 
West Bank is to be divided and sub-divided into smaller and smaller enclaves, a 
process which is already well-advanced. (In a chance conversation with a 
contact in Hebron, we today heard of Beit Anun villagers bombarded with tear 
gas when they tried to get to their fields and vineyards, and of dedicated 
teachers transporting matriculation exam forms to the cut-off villages, on the 
backs of donkeys moving through steep mountain paths.)

An Israeli population which lives under the constant threat of suicide bombings 
finds little room for empathy with the plight of Palestinians under occupation. 
With a complete distrust of the other side and the hope for peace at its lowest, the 
concept of "separation" makes the idea of a "Separation Fence" popular 
among broad parts of the Israeli public. 
Yet without an end to the occupation, "separation" will not bring about security. And 
with a true end to occupation there will be no need for a 'Chinese Wall'.
																			* 
Yesterday (Sat., June 15) Gush Shalom organized a trip to see the fence from two 
sides. A Gush Shalom ad in Ha'aretz on Friday denounced "The Bad Fence" and 
called upon people to join in a trip and "see for themselves the fence and its effects". 
And indeed, on the following day we did get a unique demonstration of what 
"separation" is all about - though, it must be admitted, not exactly as planned.

Our idea was to visit Bethlehem, which had suffered  an invasion and curfew 
more prolonged than any other Palestinian city during Sharon's "Operation 
Defensive Shield" in April, with the suffering and destruction compounded in a 
repeat, week-long invasion in May. To boot, erection of the "separation fence" 
had already begun there two months ago, with no public announcement. When the 
inhabitants were finally able to leave their homes after more than a month of 
curfew they found the northern portion of their city completely transformed. 
Metres long and many kilometres long, rolls of a barbed wire has been spread -  
barbed wire of a new type, not seen before in the Palestinian territories,  
"wire like dozens of razor blades, one on top of the other" as an awed 
inhabitant described it over the phone. The army had not paid much respect to 
property rights, cutting thorugh the long-held lands of old Bethlehem families. 
Seeking to start judicial proceedings against the arbitrary seizure of their 
lands, the Palestinians discovered that the relevant land deeds had been 
removed from the municipal archive, during the month in which Bethlehem's Town 
Hall served as an Israeli military position...

In earlier contacts with the Palestinians, a program was worked out: arrival at 
the Church of the Nativity and meetings with clergy and Christian worshippers; 
visit to the Town Hall - still scarred with some crude racist graffity left by 
a different kind of Israeli "visitors" in April - and a formal meeting with 
Mayor Hana Nasser and other civic leaders as well as mayors from neighboring towns; 
surveying different public and private institutions which were damaged in the April and 
May invasions, and observing the feverish efforts made to repair the damage, despite 
the acute awareness that a new invasion may come at any time; and finally, of course, 
the visit to the site of the new fence, in company with the landowners whose 
lands had become inaccessible.
In preparing for the action, we did not quite keep conspiratorial rules; that 
was not compatible with trying to mobilize the maximum number of Israelis ready 
to see for themselves what had been happening such a short distance - yet so 
far away. Indeed, it was not difficult to fill a bus and several smaller cars with people of 
good will - but in the process, our intentions became known to the police and military, 
who turned out to be highly attentive and interested. 
Already while gathering at the terminal in Tel-Aviv's Arlozorov Street Railway 
Station, traditional rendezvous of the peace movement, we had an unaccustomed 
visit from the police, who asked questions and demanded to see I.D.'s - especially that 
of the bus driver, who happened to be the only Arab on the spot. 
That was the prelude. It was powefully followed up when we tried to use "The 
Tunnel Road" which goes southward from Jerusalem, bypassing Bethlehem, being 
mainly reserved for settler traffic and with Palestinian traffic strickly 
excluded. A side road can take you into Bethlehem - most times 
in the year. But on this particular day, there was a police roadblock waiting. An 
exceptionally large roadblock, with many dozens of police and at least ten 
patrol cars and jeeps. They knew who we were, too, no use to pretend to being 
innocent hikers. "I have been instructed to tell you that Bethlehem and all 
approaches to Bethlehem have been declared closed military zones. We will permit 
absolutely no entry." "We are simply going to see the sights near 
Har Gilo, no further than that". "That's fine, but we will accompany you, just 
to make sure that you don't lose your way". And they did, too - a whole 
cavalcade of patrol cars in front and behind, for kilometres. An outside 
observer would have likely wondered who were the VIP's in that bus. 
We could have gone down on the road and started a vigil with our signs, in 
which case some of us would have probably ended up in police detention - which may 
have helped get publicity. But over the phone we heard that our friends in Bethlehem 
were still waiting and hoping for us to arrive.
So, we decided to go back to Jerusalem and try a different route. In fact, we 
tried three different routes. They were all blocked. Even the very, very long 
and roundabout road, lasting an hour through the scenic mountains, had its own 
roadblock, and there too the police were expecting us. There was not even a 
real pretence of keeping up the "closed military zone" routine. When we pointed to 
a settler car being allowed through, they said openly "it is closed for you, 
not for them. Our instructions mention specifically the bus with these licence plates." 
(A single activist, travelling in a private car which was not recognized as belonging to 
us, did make it into Bethlehem and was enthusiastically received.)

In a way, we should be flattered. The police thought us worth a major, carefully-
planned and executed operation. Preventing a bunch of Israelis from meeting 
peaceably with Palestinians was considered high enough a priority to justify a 
significant expenditure of manpower - and that at a time when (according to the media) 
the police is mobilizing its forces "in an effort to intercept five dangerous 
suicide bombers".  In the eyes of somebody, peace is the most explosive mixture 
of all. 
    
[2] Tuesday, trial of the three internationals 
------- Forwarded message follows -------
From:           	Dorothy Naor <dor_naor at netvision.net.il>
Date sent:      	Sun, 16 Jun 2002 16:23:01 +0200

The trial of the three internationals, arrested at Balata Refugee Camp and facing 
deportation, has been moved up to this Tuesday, June 18, 14:00.  Please come to 
support them at the Administrative Court in Jerusalem, on the third floor of the District 
Court building, Salah A'Din Street opposite the Ministry of Justice.

[A vivid description of the earlier session and about what these internationals stand for 
in Tom Segev's "Three Volunteers in Limbo" of last Friday - appearing in today's 
Ha'aretz online among "features":
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=176264&contrassID=2&
subContrassID=5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y ]

[3] Politicide - article of Baruch Kimmerling
------- Forwarded message follows -------
From:           	"yitzhak laor" <yitshac at post.tau.ac.il>

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/KimmerlingPoliticide.htm 

The Politicide of the Palestinian People

by Baruch Kimmerling
June 11, 2002 

Because Ariel Sharon's latest, more moderate incarnation has been so warmly 
received by the Bush administration, the US media, and the American public, it is 
crucial to understand both the context of his transformation and the actual behavior of 
the Israeli government toward the Palestinian people. The general context is that the 
primary goal of the present government is the destruction of the Palestinian Authority 
and the dismantling of the Oslo Accords. This can only be defined as the politicide of 
the Palestinian people, a gradual but systematic attempt to cause their annihilation as 
an independent political and social entity. For this reason, Ariel Sharon has skillfully 
used the brutal and indiscriminant forms of Palestinian resistance - especially the 
suicide bombers - to create a chain of mutually escalating responses in order to 
induce both the Israeli and international community to accept his goal. Using the fight 
against terrorism as a pretext, he aims to divide the Gaza Strip and West Bank into 
tiny enclaves ruled by local strongmen while claiming he is supporting the 
"reformation" and "democratization" of the Palestinian authority. The final aim is to 
continue the Jewish colonization of the so-called "Greater Land of Israel" until Israel's 
exclusive and non-reversible control of the territories has been attained. Some analysts 
suspect or hope that one outcome of this project is to make daily life so miserable for 
Palestinians that large numbers will emigrate from the territories, something that has, 
in fact, occurred during the last few years. Sharon learned from the Lebanon fiasco 
that, while such policies must be implemented militarily, they must cause minimal 
casualties. Otherwise, both international agencies and public opinion could turn 
against them. To minimize Jewish casualties, it is necessary to deploy large, heavily 
armed forces and to use cruel techniques like razing whole neighborhoods. Resistance 
is met with heavy fire power, as was the case in Jenin.
The immediate aim of "Operation Defensive Shield" was to disarm "bases of terrorism" 
by capturing weapons and explosives and to "liquidate" or capture those involved in
Palestinian armed resistance. In other words, the goal was to dismantle any 
Palestinian security forces, not only to hamper their ability to fight Israel, but to 
dissolve the internal authority of Arafat's regime as well. For the same reason, Israel 
security forces also assaulted most of the national and public infrastructure and 
institutions and even destroyed databases like the one used by the Palestinian Bureau 
of Statistic. Additional goals of the incursions, sieges, and extra-judicial executions 
were to demonstrate Israeli military might and its willingness to use it and to prove to 
the Palestinians that there were defenseless against any wanton action. The Arab 
states barely paid lip service to the Palestinian cause, denouncing Israeli actions just 
enough to avoid internal unrest, apparently because they feared Israel was looking for 
a regional war. Such a war could distract the Israeli public from the severe economic 
and social crisis within Israel (such as a high unemployment rate and the beginnings 
of hyperinflation) and serve as a cover for uprooting large numbers of Palestinians from 
the land, as happened during the 1948 war. However, the international community, 
including the United States, will soon recognize that in an era during which every 
nation (including the Jewish and Palestinian nations) has the right to self-
determination, politicide is a crime against humanity that is very close in its severity to 
genocide. 

Baruch Kimmerling is a professor of sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 
Among his recent books are The Invention and Decline of Israelieness (University of 
California Press) and with Joel S. Migdal Palestinians: The Making of a People (The 
Free Press and Harvard University Press).

NB: The campaign to free Marwan Barghouti is getting organized - go to
http://www.freebarghouti.org/

	----
    Full transcript of the war crimes panel available on the Gush site
    For Hebrew   http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/forum.html
    For English  http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/forum_eng.html
    French available at request 
           
Also on the site:
    photo's - of action or otherwise informative 
    the weekly Gush Shalom ad - in Hebrew and English 
    the columns of Uri Avnery - in Hebrew, Arab and English	
    (and a lot more) 
		http://www.gush-shalom.org
 
In order to receive our Hebrew statements [WORD documents - not always same as 
English] mailto: gush-shalom-heb-request at mailman.gush-shalom.org + write 
subscribe in the subject line

If you want to support Gush Shalom's activities you can send a cheque or 
cash, wrapped well in an extra piece of paper, to: 

     Gush Shalom pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033

or ask us for charities in your country which receive donations on behalf of Gush 
Shalom

(Please, add your email address where to send our confirmation of receipt. 
 More official receipts at request only.)

For more about Gush Shalom  you are invited to visit our renewed website:
               http://www.gush-shalom.org/ 
              -\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-