Reply #47: Separating the Palestinians from their Land

[Tinoire]

The "Separation Wall" is not meant to separate Palestinians from Israelis.
(If that were so, it would have been built on the 1967 borders - the "green Line")

It is not even meant to provide security for the Israeli citizens.
(The wall is 3 times longer than needs be)

A World Bank report:[br />The Separation Fence Will Hurt Palestinians Immensely.
An article on the World Bank report.
published in "Ha'aretz" 18/05/03


The Wall is the concrete manifestation of the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and yet another method of carrying out a policy of confiscating more Palestinian land. If Israel would genuinely be interested in the security of its citizens, and in separation from the Palestinian people, it would have erected the wall on the "Green Line"(the border that existed before the 1967 war). But this is not the case. The majority of the planned wall cuts deep into Palestinian territory, incorporating into Israel about 10%-15% of the occupied territories, a huge portion of very fertile land full of olive groves, greenhouses, vegetable fields and water resources. It will cut off villages and towns from their farmland, centres of trade, education and culture. It will intensify the ongoing environmental destruction and degradation taking place in the occupied territories. It is also an attempt to legitimise the Israeli settlement policy. In short, it is intended to be a death blow to any possibility of a viable Palestinian state.
For hundreds of thousands of Palestinian farmers, the wall will represent a prison with no warden
with no means of sustaining their families - to the point that will force many of them to simply leave their homes, and try living elsewhere as refugees.
This is an intention of quiet ethnic cleansing, the sort that cannot be photographed, but is nevertheless as effective and devastating.
for this reason, we have decided to refer to the wall as a transfer wall.

The transfer Wall, therefore, is not about 'security' or just another aspect of the Occupation. The planned expansion of the Wall can provide the outline of Sharon's plan as to the possible borders of a Palestinian 'entity' when the 'road map' is unveiled. It must not be at the negotiating table as the starting point for a 'road map' to peace since it will not bring peace and will destroy any possibility for creating a Palestinian state.

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