The Gush Etzion settlement bloc just south of Bethlehem is the location of one of the biggest gaps in the wall in Israel-Palestine. Dozens of miles of the planned route of this project, launched ten years ago following the rise in suicide attacks in Israeli cities, remain unbuilt with construction at a full halt for nearly five years. The lack of construction is due to the pause in hostilities, insufficient funds, and a political clash between government aspirations of annexation, settler pressures against the “insufficient” annexation, and U.S. (and possibly High Court) resistance to the extreme route.

Planned route of the fence in Gush Etzion. The purple and dotted red represent the section that has yet to be built. (source: B’Tselem)

However, a couple of months ago, the Ministry of Defense announced that it would resume construction in both the significant gaps in the wall’s route: Gush Etzion, and Mishor Adumim (around the controversial E1 area and Ma’ale Adumim). Alongside Palestinian and international resistance to this route, deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice, construction plans also had settlers gathering their forces for a fight.

Gush Etzion settlers, led by head of their regional council, Davidi Pearl, petitioned, demonstrated and met with Prime Miniser Netanyahu, claiming that the current route would leave parts of the Gush outside the fence (including Nokdim, home of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman). According to them, this would delegitimize their “inherent” belonging to Israel, damage local ecosystems, limit expansion of settlements, damper relations with local Palestinian villagers, and is generally no longer necessary as terror attacks in the West Bank have virtually stopped.

Anti-wall Christmas demonstration in Ma’asara, south of Bethlehem, 2008 (Haggai Matar)

Last week the settlers’ pressure bore fruit. The right-wing oriented newspaper Makor Rishon and other settler media outlets report that Pearl received a letter from Major General Yair Nave, promising that construction will not resume before the entire route is reevaluated by the government. The announcement comes after two weeks of intensive military presence on the planned route, reported by Palestinian residents of the area, who themselves have been demonstrating for more than six years now against the annexing fence. “We know that the threat has not been fully lifted, but for the time being we have successfully led to a halt,” Pearl told Makor Rishon. “When a new government is sworn in we will bring the matter to them and resume handling of the situation.”

Read also:

Special coverage: The wall, 10 years on

Project photography: Oren Ziv / Activestills

This was supposed to be a four part mini-project for the week of Passover. However, as work progressed, interview followed interview, and the tours along the wall’s route unraveled new stories, and as the gap between the magnitude of the project and the lack of in-depth writing about it in mainstream media became clear – the series grew longer, only to reach its end now.

But before we conclude, some recent important developments must be shared. In the first and eleventh chapters, I mentioned the massive gaps in the wall: dozens of unbuilt miles of the route in the eastern part of Gush Etzion and the Adumim plains near Jerusalem. About four years ago, the state stopped construction in these parts due to the pause in hostilities, insufficient funds, and a fear that U.S. pressure and High Court intervention would make it harder to complete the approved route which effectively annexes huge swaths of Palestinian West Bank lands.

This pause in construction is now coming to an end. A recent statement made in court by the head of the wall project, Colonel Ofer Hindi, indicates that Israel is getting ready to resume construction in these two parts. The statement was confirmed this week by the Ministry of Defense in reply to an inquiry by +972. The confirmation stated that the ministry is currently “conducting evaluations and examining beginning construction of the Gush Etzion route, pending judicial approval. The route in the Adumim plains will be reevaluated over the course of 2013.”

This is big news. Alongside the resumption of deliberation of two petitions pending in the High Court, this could also prompt a revival of the popular Palestinian struggle in the villages south of Bethlehem, possible resistance by settlers in the Gush area, and perhaps even a renewed international interest in the route deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice. In fact, Hindi’s statement has already led foreign diplomats stationed in Tel Aviv who read this series to invite me to share thoughts on the renewed construction for a report to their government.

And two more short updates: in a discussion on the wall’s effects on natural surroundings, I mentioned attempts made by the village of Battir to gain World Heritage Site status from UNESCO in order to stop the wall. Apparently due to internal conflicts within the Palestinian delegation, the UNESCO annual convention has since decided to recognize another local site, the Church of the Nativity and its surroundings, leaving Battir’s ancient terraces in harm’s way.

Discussing the misfortunes brought upon the village of Walajah, I wrote that the wall is planned to surround it in all directions. In recent weeks, however, villagers received a new map of the route, which indicates a possible opening in the wall to the southwest. Activists mention that there are not yet any guarantees for this, and that even if this part is left open, the village would still lose most of its lands and be detached from the urban center of Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank. “Our most minimal demand is to maintain free passage to Beit Jala,” tells me Sheerin al Araj, a prominent activist in the village. “This we have not yet accomplished.”

The new route around Walajah. Open to the southwest (The Civil Administration)

The wall and the occupation

Throughout this series I tried to focus on the wall itself and its implications, without broadening the argument to the entire system of occupation and settlement. But as I move toward the end, it is crucial to remember how the wall is but one piece in the puzzle of the military regime ruling over the lives of millions, with its two separate legal systems, its home demolitions, its siege on Gaza, and much more. As Haaretz’s Amira Hass always reminds readers, the story of the wall cannot be detached from the permit system put in place in 1991, which has since continuously expanded in extreme ways.

“Many people, including judges we face in court, don’t understand the meaning of occupation’s bureaucracy,” says attorney Shira Hertzanu from Yadin Elam’s law firm, which deals with countless cases revolving around the seam zone on behalf of Hamoked. “Take farmers who want to reach their lands beyond the fence: they might not get an answer for their request for months, then not get it in writing, and procedures keep changing and growing harder all the time. Even when someone is summoned for a hearing at the DCO [District Coordination Office], they might find themselves waiting for hours only to be informed that the officer in charge just isn’t around.

“So people despair. Farmers give up on their trees. People living in the seam zone loose touch with life in the West Bank and consider leaving home and crossing to the ‘Palestinian’ side of the wall. The wall is still new, in many parts less than ten years old, but it’s frightening to see the process of annexation happening in front of your eyes.”

Women on their way to Jerusalem from Ramallah on Ramadan (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

This rationale of the permit system does not only apply to the seam zone, and ones much like it can also be found in the Jordan Valley, and the “special security zones” around South Hebron Hills settlements, and with time in more and more locations across the West Bank. “The notion that a Palestinian would need a permit to get to his land started with agricultural areas that got stuck behind settlement fences, widened dramatically with the wall, and the most recent development is how this is reasoning is duplicated to areas where there is no fence at all,” says attorney Michael Sfard, who is representing villagers from Beit Furik in a petition against the state’s decision to seal off parts of their land in order to protect the settlement of Itamar and its illegal satellite settlements.

“Now the state tells the court that permits can be arranged to enter the zone whenever farmers wish, but knowing the seam way of thinking I’m positive that after the petition is over and done with we’ll hear the army say ‘there’s no reason to farm the land during winter’ or something, and people will lose touch with their land. This is how Israel divides and rules Palestinians and creates apartheid through legal and physical means.”

As recently mentioned here in a different context, and as Noam Sheizaf excellently put it, all these tools of oppression will go on serving Israel for as long as the status quo remains its most rational choice. As long as Palestinian popular resistance and international pressure don’t grow significantly, Israel will not be the one to voluntarily end the stagnation in negotiations, and peace initiatives such as the Arab League’s will remain unanswered. Until such a time of change, the occupation and apartheid are here to stay. And so is The Wall.

Here to stay. The wall around Jerusalem (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

The fate of walls and empires

The story sounds so odd that it might actually be true: Scattered reports by activists in Jayous, a single line in a Wikipedia page, and several long posts in a site that went offline sometime after work on this series started all claim that the Scottish town of Falkirk has signed a twinning contract with the Palestinian village of Jayous. A short Youtube clip confirms that even if this initiative is not given official status, there are surely some town people pushing for it.

The reasoning for this move was offered in the now-unavailable site and can still be seen in the clip. Falkirk sits on the old route of the Antonine Wall, built by the Romans to safeguard their northern border in the British Isle. The wall and all its fortifications lasted just twenty years before the empire retreated to its previous more southern border.

The people of Falkirk and Jayous thought that there would be a legitimate symbolism in linking their histories, and thus somehow encouraging the Palestinian village’s popular struggle against the wall built on their lands. The link was also meant as a reminder of the temporary nature of all walls and empires. It is with this reminder to all of us as well that I wish to end.

All things must pass. The Antonine Wall in Falkirk (Kim Traynor)

——

The Wall Project could not have been made possible were it not for the assistance of countless dedicated Palestinian and Israeli activists, extremely patient interviewees, the support of the +972 editors, and of course – my good friend and excellent photographer Oren Ziv of the Activestills collective. All of these I wish to thank deeply.

——

Previous chapters in this series:

Part 1: The great Israeli project
Part 2: Wall and Peace
Part 3: An acre here and an acre there
Part 4: Trapped on the wrong side
Part 5: A new way of resistance
Part 6: What has the struggle achieved?
Part 7: A village turned prison
Part 8: A working class under siege
Part 9: Dividing land – water, fauna, flora
Part 10: My encounters with the wall in space
Part 11: Security for Israel?

And the supplement podcast: +972 bloggers explore Israeli walls and borders

Project photography: Oren Ziv / Activestills

Standing on the cemetery mount in Budrus, at first sight the separation fence seems to make perfect sense. Over the clouds of tear gas rising from the field below where the village youth and the army youth are exchanging stones for grenades, beyond the fence which is now almost on the Green Line after the famed local popular struggle led the army to change the route of the fence and give back 95 percent of the village’s lands, and through the brownish fog of car smoke that sits on top of the heart of the land – one can clearly see the Tel Aviv skyline. Only twenty kilometers away, one can actually recognize some famous buildings that seem surprisingly close.

Standing here, one can easily understand why Israel wants this fence to be here. As mentioned in the first chapter of this series, it was the wave of suicide attacks on Israeli cities that created public pressure on the government to build the wall, and this fence here that prevents Palestinians from accessing the biggest metropolis in the country freely and quickly seems to be just the solution.

View from Budrus cemetery mount to Tel Aviv (Photo and infographics: Ruth Edmonds)

Yet a second glance is also needed here. Taking one’s eyes away from the city’s skyline, one can also see the demonstration dispersing, the gate in the fence opening, the army jeeps storming in, the cannon installed on one of them shooting some 20 tear gas canisters into the village, the soldiers attempting to make arrests and the families trying to seal their doors and windows in face of the gas.

This second glance can also be a reminder that some 100 dunams of land are still caught on the other side of the fence, that the army (like any Israeli) can still freely enter this place and do as it pleases, that had it not been for the struggle the fence was due to annex twenty times more land, costing farmers their livelihoods, and that in most places there was no such struggle, or no such success in it. It also reminds one that the current state of affairs is still unacceptable to the millions living under military regime, and that they will go on fighting it one way or another until independence. This makes things a little more complicated.

“There is no doubt that the route endangers troops”

“Ask the average Israeli what he thinks of the wall and he’ll say ‘look, I’m saving my skin here, so hell yeah – let them stand the extra two hours in a checkpoint, because he’d think the question is whether to build a wall or not,” says Colonel (res.) Shaul Arieli, a member of the Council for Peace and Security and co-author of The Wall of Folly (“Khoma U’Mekhdal”). “In such a case I think he’d be totally right, because life always supersedes anything else. But that’s just the bluff – as there is no real argument on the question of whether Israel has the right to build a wall. The entire world says we can use a fence, a wall, a river filled with alligators, just as long as it’s on the Green Line. This is where Israel is in disagreement, and where the government willingly chose to endanger its citizens for the benefit of other interests, such as settlements.”

“A long and winding wall.” The wall near Jerusalem (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

As mentioned earlier in the series, the length of the zig-zagging barrier is more than twice that of the Green Line and is thus clearly harder to protect. But it’s not just the route as a whole that offers less than the best defense possible, it’s also certain specific fragments of it. In 2005 the High Court of Justice repealed its own ruling, and shifted the fence built near the settlement of Tzufin. Justice Aharon Barak ruled that the state lied to the court by hiding the fact that this section of the route was planned for the benefit of future settlement expansion – and not solely for security reasons. It was a ruling that would cost the fence planner and the settler Colonel (res.) Danny Tirza his job – but not to worry: the same Tirza has recently been hired by Prime Minister Netanyahu to sketch a future border for Israel to present in negotiations.

In a different case, that of the village of Bil’in, the court found that not only was the route planned with the expansion of the Matityahu East settlement in mind, but that it was actually tactically inferior. “There is no doubt that the route endangers patrolling troops,” wrote former Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch. “Considering previous cases in which we were told of the importance of keeping the fence in dominant topographical positions the current route raises some questions.”

While it is possible to argue that cases such as these prove the security value of the wall, as the system appears to be able to mend its own errors where the route requires it, I wish to add some skepticism to the equation: for who is to say that the local Palestinian community even bothered going to court in all places where planners chose an annexing route? Who’s to say that evidence such as that hidden by the army and revealed by the petitioners in the cases of Jayous and Bil’in could have been revealed elsewhere? And what about the long term security implications of the High Court’s own consistent choice to accept the state’s odd claim that the wall is “temporary” and may thus be allowed to engulf and protect major settlements?

Splitting the countryside. The fence near Ariel (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

The Palestinian choice

Even if we choose to ignore the long and winding route or the instances in which wall planners lied about their true motives – we cannot ignore the security implications of four parts of the wall not yet being built. In three of these (Adomim Plains, Gush Etzion and the Judean Desert) construction is not even planned to resume anytime soon, and even in the fourth – southwest of of Jerusalem– one can still see the capital’s skyline from neighboring Palestinian villages and unlike in Budrus, one can simply cross over.

“These gaps allow infiltrators, drugs and weapons to pour in, as well as murderers,” says Arieli. “Yet they are not sealed off only because the government wants to annex large chunks of land and it knows the court would not allow it – so it forfeits our security.” “There’s no problem crossing the gaps in the fence and tens of thousands of illegal workers cross it back and forth every day, and there should be no problem getting suicide bombers through with them” stresses Ilan Tsi’on, co-founder of “A Fence for Life.” “So why don’t they? Because that’s the Palestinians’ choice. They know that if the fence is complete they will be faced with more facts on the ground, and will take away their option of influencing us. So in fact, our security is really an illusion.”

“Tens of thousands go though the gaps daily”. A deserted construcion site (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Arieli and Tsi’on’s answers highlight a new attitude to the security question: While the number of suicide attacks in Israeli cities has dropped significantly since construction of the wall began and while the wall did have its effect on this goal, it was not the only cause. Brutal oppression of the Second Intifada, reoccupation of Palestinian cities, mass arrests, pressure applied on civilian populations, and the work of the General Security Service all had their effects – as did the Palestinians’ choice to turn to a course of unarmed popular resistance, of encouraging economic, academic and cultural boycott, and of diplomatic work on the international level. “Yes, we have a barrier with armed patrols and that gives something to security, but does it bring calm? Of course not,” says Arieli. “The proof of that is that would-be terrorists are not captured around the wall as they used to be in Gaza before we started shooting anything that comes close to the wall there. If nobody is captured – it means that the wall itself is not what’s stopping people.”

The wrong question

IDF commander of the Paratroopers Brigade, Col. Amir Baram, recently told Ha’aretz that “Before the fence there was no efficient defense. The General Security Services (GSS) would warn that a suicide bomber was on the way, and I knew there wasn’t much we could do other than place soldiers on the road and hope for the best.” Yet even this combatant knows that the barrier cannot be a solution in the long run. A fence can be cut, a wall climbed over, and of course missiles can fly above anything. As Ilana Hammerman recently wrote in an op-ed, “no historic circumstance has been invented in which such a-symmetry (between occupier and occupied) would guarantee a life of calm and security.” These words were echoed in Sheerin Al-Araj’s grim prophecy earlier in the series in which she said: “It might take 10 or 15 years, but things will change, and when they do Israel will most likely not only have to deal with Palestinians but with the entire Arab world. I really hope Israelis understand this now and find a solution that won’t lead us to killing each other.”

“A wall can alway be climbed over.” The wall in al-Walajah, near Jerusalem. (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Most countries in the world, the ICJ, the Palestinian leadership and most the activists struggling against the wall in their villages and cities (aside from supporters of the one-state solution) would agree to Israel’s building a security wall on its recognized border, the Green Line. Yet as long as 85 percent of it is built beyond that on Palestinian land, as long as it is transparent to Israelis, as long as it harms farmers and workers the way it does, and as long as the occupation continues – no solution and no barrier can truly offer Israelis security.

The question, therefore, is not whether or not a wall, any wall, offers security (which it probably does to some extent) – but rather whether this specific wall with this specific route offers true and lasting security more than other existing alternatives. The answer to that is almost certainly: No.

(As mentioned in previous chapters, despite my repeated requests, the Ministry of Defense refused to grant an interview with any official regarding the planning or construction of the wall for this series.)

Does the wall offer securtiy? A wall turned fence (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Previous chapters in this series:

Part 1: The great Israeli project
Part 2: Wall and Peace
Part 3: An acre here and an acre there
Part 4: Trapped on the wrong side
Part 5: A new way of resistance
Part 6: What has the struggle achieved?
Part 7: A village turned prison
Part 8: A working class under siege
Part 9: Dividing land – water, fauna, flora
Part 10: My encounters with the wall in space

Next and final chapter:
Part 12: Where do we go from here?

Project photography: Oren Ziv / Activestills

With all due respect to this seemingly omniscient software giant, there are some things that Google simply doesn’t tell you about the world. A few months back, I was leaving a demonstration in the West Bank, planning to travel home to Tel Aviv after dropping off a friend on one of the main settler highways – Route 5. Although I knew more or less how to get there, I agreed to be guided by Google Maps on her smartphone.

The first thing Google didn’t tell us about was the differences between three types of roads which all looked the same on the map. On the ground, however, you have your settler roads, extremely well maintained, then your roads leading only to Palestinian villages, filled with holes and bumps, and then Palestinian roads sponsored by the EU, the Japanese government or USAID – new, well kept, lacking the safety barriers and street lights of the settler roads, but otherwise quite a treat. Were it not for the sponsorship signs with the funding states’ flags on them scattered along the roads, one could easily forget the troubles of occupation, and the extent to which the Palestinian Authority and people (and thus the occupation as well) are completely dependent on foreign funds to survive.

One other thing you couldn’t see on the map was the separation between these roads, which had us traveling on a Palestinian USAID-funded road overlooking the parallel and detached settler road. At one junction with a deserted checkpoint, the signs encouraged us to take a right for Route 5, declaring that going straight is illegal for Israelis. “The map says that if we just go straight we’ll be at the road in no time, while taking a right would just be a detour,” said my friend, and, somewhat unconvinced, I drove onward. Five minutes later we reached Route 5, only to find that it had been cut off from this Palestinian road by fences, and that the road only leads us under the settler highway.

Israel’s central toll highway, road 6, and a mount of earth hiding the Tul Karem wall (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

“Well, if we stick to this road it’ll eventually take us into a settlement, which in turn will get us back to Route 5,” she said. One road connecting both a village and a settlement? Unlikely, I thought, so we made a bet and followed the map to the road’s abrupt end, where a massive wall cut it off. It was the wall between Mes’ha and Elkana, exactly where Israeli activist Gil Na’amati was shot by the IDF nine years ago. We parked the car, gazing in awe and dread once more at the concrete monster, and eventually turned back. After dropping her off I easily crossed the checkpoint back into Israel. It was the same one described in the first chapter of this series, and once again it felt invisible to me, like the nearby wall in Mes’ha is invisible to the Israeli eyes, and invisible to Google Maps.

[More on the wall's invisibility can be found in the +972 podcast in which Yuval Ben Ami and I discussed Israel's borders]

Decorating and hiding the wall

Although most Israelis most likely not only support the wall but also support its current invasive route, it seems that the barrier’s planners felt it necessary to hide it from them, or at least to make it as pleasant to the eye as possible. Along Route 60, for example, in the section between the tunnel checkpoint and the village of El-Khader, the wall looks almost friendly. It is only three meters high, and instead of naked concrete, drivers enjoy a view of bright colored stones in white and pink. On the other side, facing Bethlehem, the wall is taller, thanks to the cliff it was built on, and is as grey and miserable as it is anywhere else.

The other side of the Tul Karem wall. No attempts to hide the brutality of it (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Just before entering Jerusalem from the northeast, the wall creates a corridor on both sides of Route 443. Here, paintings have been drawn on the concrete slabs, showing delicate arches and a “view” of green and plain hills with a blue sky and no sign of the villages and towns that are actually on the other side – where of course there are no parallel paintings.

The most interesting encounter between Israelis and the wall takes place daily on Israel’s only toll highway, Route 6, where the wall (and the Green Line) touch the road twice: near Qalqilia and near Tul Karem (see the pictures above). Near the former, a row of eucalyptus trees has been planted, diverting the eye from the concrete behind the trees, while near the latter, a huge mound of earth has been raised and shrubs planted – hiding the wall completely from passing drivers’ eyes.

Meanwhile on the other side of the Tul Karem border, no one tries to hide the eight-meter-high wall, surrounding recycling plants, a cemetery for water boilers, mounds of construction waste, and several ill-looking stray dogs. This is the “Nitzaney Shalom” industrial zone, one of several “economic peace” compounds, where hard laboring Palestinians are cramped together in order to work hard for little money, and handle Israeli garbage – all hidden and tucked away by concrete from Israeli view.

Graffiti in Bethlehem (Anne Paq / Activestills)

Of course, attempts also take place on the Palestinian side to make the wall easier on the eye. Here, initiative is not taken by Israel, which at one point even considered covering it with special anti-graffiti paint, but rather by Palestinian, Israeli and international artists including as Banksy, a collection of whose wall art can be found here. In the same site, it is also mentioned that an old Palestinian man told the famous street artist that making the wall look better is wrong – as it should really be taken down.

Why exactly was it so important for the planners of the wall to hide it from view or decorate for a public that supports it wholeheartedly? This is one question I will leave open for readers to answer.

Construction site

And then there are those places where the wall has not yet been built, or where initial construction has started and stopped. The unbuilt wall is, naturally, even more invisible to Israeli eyes than the constructed wall, but for Palestinians – who know exactly where it is supposed to run through and how it will effect their lives – it often feels like a ghost wall, a wall that is never there except in the potential of its future appearance in might and concrete and steel.

Only in the village of Walajah does construction take place these days, while everywhere else gaps in the barrier are left unattended. Occasional visits to the village show the wall’s progression, slab by slab, and serve as a strong realization of the actual meaning of tearing trees, roads, houses and people apart. With every visit, one can see the wall taking another small step towards surrounding the village entirely, simply cutting it out of the land around it. The understanding of this is quite horrid.

The wall in Walajah and me (Haggai Matar)

But does all this – the wall, the fence, the construction, the gaps, the uprooting of trees, the denial of income sources, the scarring of the landscape, the maltreatment of laborers and all other effects mentioned in this series – does all this actually help achieve the wall’s stated goal of offering Israelis security? The answers to that question will be discussed in the next chapter.

Previous chapters in this series:

Part 1: The great Israeli project
Part 2: Wall and Peace
Part 3: An acre here and an acre there
Part 4: Trapped on the wrong side
Part 5: A new way of resistance
Part 6: What has the struggle achieved?
Part 7: A village turned prison
Part 8: A working class under siege

Part 9:  Dividing land – water, fauna, flora

Next:

Part 11: Security for Israel?

Project photography: Oren Ziv / Activestills

An event of somewhat historic proportions is about to take place in Saint Petersburg in the coming days: for the first time ever, the annual UNESCO convention is to discuss a request to recognize a world heritage site that was put forward by the Palestinian Authority, which itself was accepted as a full member of the international agency last October despite Israeli and American protest. If the request is accepted, the ancient agricultural terraces of Battir will become the first site to earn this international prestige in the whole of West Bank and Gaza Strip, not including the Old City of Jerusalem. It would also mean that Israel would likely be forced to change the planned route of the wall in the last section where construction is still ongoing, which the Ministry of Defense considers “a dangerous gap” allowing “free entrance to Jerusalem by terrorists,” as a spokesperson recently told Ma’ariv.

“The villages of Wadi Fukin and Battir are threatened by the construction of 13 kilometers of a barrier, which would gravely harm agricultural terraces and natural springs that have been serving man for some 3,000 years,” explains Gidon Bromberg, Israeli director of Friends of the Earth – Middle East. “In Battir alone, there are about half a million stones laid down by people over the course of thousands of years, taken care of and rearranged every winter due to natural erosion. The result is a unique cultural landscape, the most perfectly preserved in all of Israel and Palestine, and the only one to be used consecutively throughout the ages.”

A farmer and a natural spring in Wadi Fukin. Background: Betar Illit (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

A long 70-meter wide strip of concrete

The separation wall is not the only threat to the two villages’ agriculture, but it is definitely the central one. In Wadi Fukin, surrounded in three directions by the rapidly expanding settlement of Betar Illit, hydrologists hired by both NGOs and the army say that construction of the wall in the last remaining clear territory around the village is likely to prevent water from seeping into the underground basin that fills the 11 springs on which local agriculture has been based for decades. Along with Friends of the Earth and Israeli residents of the nearby Tzur Hadasa, villagers are trying to stop the wall, and demand Israel use cameras and other technical systems instead in this section of the barrier. A petition against the route of the wall was filed with the Civil Administration several years ago, and construction cannot commence before it is rejected.

In nearby Battir, Israel sees a more pressing need to erect the wall, but a petition against it is still pending a High Court of Justice decision, and villagers are hoping that UNESCO recognition of their terraces’ historic value will tip the scales for the better. The petition and the request, which were filed using a special emergency procedure after some deliberation by the PA and was supported by the UNESCO delegation to Ramallah, claim that not only would construction damage the complex water system – it would also destroy the ancient terraces themselves. “For thousands of years locals knew how to build houses in a way that would not stop the water from seeping, but the wall leaves no such option,” says Bromberg. “The problem is that with either a fence or a wall you still have a long 70-meter wide strip with a road on each side and concrete buried underground to strengthen it and prevent digging under it. This would quite surely cause irreversible damage of the water springs.”

Similar risks are also likely to affect the neighboring village of Walajah, whose case was described in depth earlier in this series, and Bromberg estimates that had that village also used the environmental argument in its petitions to the courts – it would have been more likely to stop the wall which is now being built all around it.

A farmer in the fertile lands of Wadi Fukin. Background: Betar Illit (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

The fight for the desert

The plight of Battir and Wadi Fukin may well make headlines in coming days due to the UNESCO convention. But the wall has many more damaging effects on local eco-systems, the others being severe harm to fauna and flora, the mass uprooting of trees to make room for the wall, the forced neglect of fruit-bearing trees on the “Israeli” side of the wall, and the scarring of miles of natural landscape in the country and the desert.

In a story published in 2006, Ha’aretz correspondent for environmental affairs Zafrir Rinat mentioned that construction of the wall signifies the first time in history that this land is completely divided as a geo-ecological unit (as opposed to political, economic and other divisions, which do not exist, as Yuval Ben-Ami and I mentioned in our joint podcast on borders). “The wall makes me frustrated and depressed,” Rinat was told by Society for Protection of Nature’s Avraham Shaked at the time (Hebrew only). “In addition to the dramatic injury to the landscape, this means a complete stopping of movement for some animals, which is essential to the survival of several species, and is the foundation of nature preservation.”

In another piece, Rinat notes that it took environmentalists in Israel a very long time to realize the effects of the wall. While this delayed start made it too late to change anything in the northern part of the route – the south was and still is relevant for a struggle. In recent years, NGOs have aimed their criticism mainly at the route in Wadi Qelt (the part of the wall engulfing the Adomim Plain, where construction has been stopped for political reasons), and at the route in the Judean Desert, the southeastern most part of the wall. In 2007, then Minister of Defense Amir Peretz ordered construction of that part be stopped, promising to consider suggestions for using the difficult terrain combined with electronic detection devices as an alternative to the wall. Construction has not resumed there since.

A gap in the wall near Jerusalem. A meeting point of two eco-systems (Oren Ziv / Activstills)

The environmentalists’ arguments on these two sections of the wall focus on the disruption of migration routes of deer, mountain goats, hyenas, wolves and leopards, the latter being endangered in Israel. Side effects would also limit plant seed distribution, due to the  animals that carry them, and a risk of extinction for the Bonelli’s Eagle in our parts – all of this in a region considered unique due the meeting point of desert and irrigated mountains and fields. Around the northern parts of the wall reports are already mounting on its actual harmful effects on wildlife and plants, although in certain places west of the wall animals have been said to be better protected now from Palestinian farmers.

An important political issue worthy of mentioning in this context is settlers’ involvement in environmental struggles in the West Bank, linking “green” rhetoric with opposition to a wall that leaves parts of the “promised land” outside Israeli boundaries. In one case the Kfar Etzion Field School petitioned the High Court in order to change the route of the wall where it would have led to the partial uprooting of a forest. Once accepted by the state, the petition led to a new route being drawn – one which uproots more Palestinian agricultural fields (Hebrew).

UNRWA: Severe impacts on farmer communities

More ecological effects of the wall, ones which also harm Palestinian communities, are described in a special report published by UNRWA about two week ago. The report mentions the uprooting of thousands of trees along the route of the wall (12,000 near Qalqilia alone), and a decline in productivity of those that remain on its western side – a result of farmers being denied access to their lands (as described earlier in this series). UNRWA also elaborates on the damage caused to water wells, springs and cisterns, and the flooding of neighborhoods adjacent to the wall caused by rain being unable to flow freely as it used to. In one instance in Beit Hanina in the winter of 2012, the water rose several meters high.

In a Jerusalem press conference for the publication of the report, its authors called upon the world to intervene and make Israel abide by the ICJ ruling on the wall and stop all construction within the territories. However, at least as far as nature goes, building the wall on the green line might have some minor positive effects – but won’t counter most of the damage.

Uprooted trees outside the Qalqilia wall. 12,000 have been uprooted for its construction in this area alone (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Previous chapters in this series:

Part 1: The great Israeli project
Part 2: Wall and Peace
Part 3: An acre here and an acre there
Part 4: Trapped on the wrong side
Part 5: A new way of resistance
Part 6: What has the struggle achieved?
Part 7: A village turned prison
Part 8: A working class under siege

Next:

Part 10: My encounters with the wall in space

Project photography: Oren Ziv / Activestills

We arrive at Eyal checkpoint at 4:30 a.m. The sky is pitch black yet minivans packed with laborers are already passing us in the opposite direction on their way to work. We park outside the massive checkpoint compound, and wander amongst the hundreds of people who are talking quietly, drinking tea, praying or sleeping on the ground. All are waiting. All are expecting to work.

Dozens of “service” taxis are spread all around. Drivers yell out names of Israeli cities: “Kfar Saba!” – “Netanya!” – “Herzliya!” Workers whose employers do not arrange for transportation board the taxis, while others wait to be picked up. At around 5:30, the employers start showing up with trucks labeled with names of construction, engineering, carpentry and metal work companies.

Workers passing through the Eyal checkpoint (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

The local taxi company is run by Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. At first they fear that we are tax inspectors, but when they pull out a phone and quickly check out my caricature and stories from +972, they start chatting freely about the hardships the workers suffer, about the difficulties caused by the wall, and especially about the x-ray machine used in the checkpoint – which all the workers believe causes cancer and impotence.

The story of the machine reminds me of my last visit to this checkpoint on the outskirts of Qalqilya, when three years ago the workers went on a unique strike, all refusing to pass through the checkpoint due to what they defined as its humiliating conditions. The place had recently been privatized, and was now run by the “Modi’in Ezrahi” company. A director from the company came to negotiate with the spontaneous leadership that had sprung up. The workers won. Almost all of their demands were met: a separate route for women with female inspectors, a new area slated for prayer outside the checkpoint, sheds for shelter from the rain, and speedier and more dignified treatment by the staff. Only that machine was left unchanged.

Three years have passed, and things have changed. The checkpoint has grown considerably, and now looks like a giant factory, manufacturing human beings at a pace of two or three per second. At least 2,000 people appear to go through here on a regular day, and even more on Sundays. The area where people wait now has a place for prayer, a small coffee shop, and a shed – in and around which many people sleep until their employers arrive.

Following a strike, the workers gained an area for morning prayers (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Outside the shed a group of workers is sitting around a fire with a big pot of tea. “I’ve been working in Israel for years in construction, and although it pays okay, things have deteriorated a lot since the wall,” says Sabber (alias). He’s 54 years old and has been working in Israel consistently since the age of 13, but only speaks Arabic. “Once, you could go to work any way you wanted to. Now you have to go only through this bottleneck of a checkpoint. It means getting up at 3 a.m., standing for hours in line, and then waiting here until the sun is up. You get back home after the sun sets, you sleep a little, then off again to work. It’s like leaving and returning to prison every day, but we don’t have a choice.”

Beatings, accidents, injuries and exploitation

It’s hard to say exactly how many Palestinians work in Israel on a regular basis. Estimates range from between 60 and 80 thousand – half legally, half not. A 2007 B’Tselem report on the violence of security forces against workers without permits stresses that a fundamental provision in international law requires an occupying power to guarantee the well-being of people under its military rule. In 1983, then vice president of the Israeli Supreme Court, Meir Shamgar, ruled that this duty implies that Israel cannot detach its own economy from that of the occupied Palestinian territories. “Any detachment of the economies is liable to have immediate ruinous effects on the economy of the territories and on the welfare of the population living there,” wrote Shamgar.

The report also elaborates on how Israel purposefully under-developed the Palestinian economy, leading to its dependence on workers traveling to work for Israelis in settlements and in Israel itself. The blockades, the permit regime and the wall – which came as security measures – created an economic crisis and a drastic rise in unemployment. These were just partial effects the wall had on Palestinian society.

Eyal checkpoint. In the background: Qalqilya (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

“More and more workers are now forced to sneak through parts of the wall still unbuilt, climb over it, or pay a lot of money for truck drivers to hide them in their cargo,” says Ahmad Sub-Laban of the organization Ir Amim, which focuses on the political future of Jerusalem. “They have to get up very early to dodge army patrols, while people who have permits must get up earlier for the long lines at the checkpoint – so that everybody starts their day at around 2 or 3 a.m. Due to the effort and high costs of the journey, more people choose to stay at their place of work throughout the week, causing a disconnect from the family and extra costs for a bed and food, which get subtracted from their pay checks. At the same time, workers get paid less and less, as those without permits are more desperate, and those with permits depend on their employer to renew their permits every three months – so they have to accept his terms.”

Several NGOs have also documented a growth in work related injuries and deaths of Palestinian workers due to the wall. Some report that employers save money on safety equipment on construction sites, and others stress the many accidents caused by climbing the wall. “People break bones falling off the wall, or get run over by cars in the highways near the wall, in addition to accidents at work,” says Abed Dari of Kav La’oved, a workers rights NGO. “The employers’ solution to this is almost always to send them back to their villages, or drop them off at a checkpoint, just to save money on healthcare.”

“Nine to Five”

Sabber and his friends who hold permits get up early in the morning to go through the checkpoint and try to make a living at Israeli construction sites. Anyone can see them, every day, at the special designated checkpoints along the wall – checkpoints which separate two territories that are both controlled by Israel, through which Israelis and Jews can cross freely both ways.

It is those workers without permits that it is harder to see. Harder – but not impossible. In 2009, Israeli director Daniel Gal accompanied a group of such workers as they sneak illegally into Jerusalem, and documented them in a short film called “Nine to Five,” produced for Ir Amim.

The film shows a group of men of different ages as they carry their small parcels in the dead of night, avoid patrols, call scouts who inform them of dangers on the way,  climb a series of walls, crawl under barbed wire, dash across a highway, and disappear into the city for another day of building houses in the Israeli capital.

“For us, going to work is like going to war,” says Nidal Kawasba in the film. He is 31, and has worked in Israel since the age of 15. He has no permit to enter Israel. “Like when preparing for war, you have to take into account that you can get hurt, get killed or be arrested. When we leave our home we say goodbye to our children because we may not return. There is no work in the West Bank. I support my seven children, my wife, my home and my mother too. So I have to work and bring food to my children. We don’t go working for a different country. We work for Israel, building their homes. All I can hope for is that my children have a better future than mine.”

Workers waiting outside Eyal checkpoint (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Previous chapters in this series:

Part 1: The great Israeli project
Part 2: Wall and Peace
Part 3: An acre here and an acre there
Part 4: Trapped on the wrong side
Part 5: A new way of resistance
Part 6: What has the struggle achieved?

Part 7: A village turned prison

Next:
Part 9: Dividing land – water, fauna, flora

See more pictures from a Bethlehem checkpoint here:

Photo Essay: Rush hour at Bethlehem Checkpoint

Project photography: Oren Ziv / Activestills

The last time I visited Walajah I left only in the late afternoon, around dusk. It was a Friday, and the car was going downhill towards the checkpoint into Jerusalem, a breathtaking view all around, when suddenly I saw tens of Palestinians carrying bags and walking in the opposite direction. At first I thought these might be workers returning home from the city, or a demonstration I had not been informed of, but I soon realized that this was a whole different matter: a little ways before the checkpoint I noticed an area on the hill slopes to my right, where tens of families were picnicking between old ruins and several lively fountains. The people I had seen walking up the road were simply families returning home from a day outdoors.

Seeing the families relaxing, the children jumping into the fountains and the parents looking at Jerusalem stretching on the other side of the valley I remembered how within just a few months time – none of these people would be able to kick back in this little piece of heaven. Walajah is to be encircled by 360 degrees of the separation wall, and the slopes of this hill are to become a leisure park for residents of our capital city. Losing this pleasant place for family picnics might not be the worst result of the village turning into a massive prison, but something in that beautiful spring afternoon turned this appealingly minor effect into something much more horrid.

The wall closing in on Walajah’s houses (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

The court approved, the monastery will be split, the village – encircled

The route of the wall around Walajah is most likely the worst it gets anywhere in the West Bank. Israel does promise that an underground tunnel will connect the village to neighboring Beit Jala and that farmers will still be able to reach their lands – yet the village will still be encircled from all sides by a concrete wall two to eight meters high, and villagers will lose free access to their land, as well as any chance for expanding and the unique view their homes now offer. The picnic grounds will serve people of a different nature.

The original village of Walajah, dating back to at least the 16^th century, once stood several miles to the north-west of its current location. In 1949 its residents fled the Israeli army, crossed the Emek Refa’im valley, and rebuilt their village on their own agricultural lands – then in Jordan. Their original village now stands in ruin under a KKL (JNF) forest and Kibutz Aminadav. In 1967 part of the (new) village was annexed to Jerusalem, part of its lands served to build the settlements of Gilo and Har Gilo, yet the villagers were not given Israeli IDs (as was the norm in parts of Jerusalem that were annexed in full).

The red and purple “heart” around Walajah is the wall (map by B’Tselem)

Only in 2006-7 did Israeli authorities finalize the details and approve the route of the wall in Walajah the way we now know it, and ever since 2007 the village has been locked in a court struggle against it. Other than the encircling the entire village, the route also cuts a monastery in two, separating the monks and the nuns, and leaves one house on the wrong side of the wall – requiring a special fence that will encircle that house, and another underground tunnel to connect it to the village. The High Court at first stopped construction of the wall, but in 2011 allowed the state to proceed with construction even though a final ruling on the route has not been given. Since then bulldozers have returned to the village, and residents are trying to fight the wall, the park, and a new settlement planned on its lands.

In between court sessions a small group of villagers is trying to lead a popular struggle against the wall. In several instances Israeli and international activists helped in stopping construction for  awhile until arrested. However, on the whole, the village was unable to stick to regular demonstrations like those in Jayous, Budrus, Bil’in and Ma’asara.

Demonstration in Walajah (Anne Paq / Activestills)

On occasion the villagers have a music or theater show on the route of the wall, or organize some other form of creative and artistic protest. Just last months members of the Jenin Freedom Theater preformed with a play-back acting technique outside the lone house outside the wall. Police tried to prevent supporters from coming, but most were able to break through the blockade and reach the show. It was after this event that I saw the picnicking families.

‘A microcosm of Palestine’

When I first came to a demonstration in Walajah in 2007 I was extremely happy to find out that one of the local leaders of the struggle was Sheerin Al-Araj. Al-Araj was a guide of mine in the Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian “Nir” summer school I attended in the late nineties, and she has since been working as a freelance human rights activist, and was amongst other things sent by the UN on humanitarian missions to Sudan, Lebanon, Ethiopia and Iraq. While resting at home, she tries to defend her own human rights, and those of her neighbors.

The Walajah wall and a view of Jerusalem (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

“The truth is we’re not that good with demonstrations around here,” Al-Araj confesses, laughing. “But we do other things. We see that we’ll be soon be surrounded from all sides, and so we start helping people, mainly women, prepare for life under the new restrictions we’ll be facing once the wall is complete. Meanwhile we also turn to journalists and diplomats, we had representatives of the EU and the US at our court sessions, but I don’t think any of this will stop the construction now, and we will probably lose our lands.

Sheerin Al-Araj with EU Parliment Member Luisa Morgantini (Haggai Matar)

“It’s because it’s so extreme here that I feel this is like a microcosm of Palestine. Nobody is holding Israel accountable for its actions, it has the full support of the superpowers, and as long as this is the case it will go on with its crimes. However, I’m sure that this will change one day. It might take 10 or 15 years, but things will change, and when they do Israeli will most likely not only have to deal with Palestinians but with the entire Arab world. I really hope Israelis understand this now and find a solution that won’t lead us to killing each other – but I don’t see them trying to change that destiny.”

As Al-Araj speaks I see the parts of the wall already in place, the route where the rest is going to be built, and in the background – Jerusalem. It takes five minutes by car, including going through the checkpoint, to get to Jerusalem’s main football stadium (“Teddy”). I try to imagine how life in the village will look like with only one underground connection to the rest of the world, what would happen if the tunnel collapses or get flooded, or simply how it is possible to live with a wall all around you. The question reminds me of my days in prison, and how sometimes my only consolation would be to look for the last piece of open nature a prisoner has left for him. I look up to the sky and see them turning dark, the clouds in burning sunset red. Al-Araj’s prophecy of rage seems desperately realistic.

Previous chapters in this series:

Part 1: The great Israeli project
Part 2: Wall and Peace
Part 3: An acre here and an acre there
Part 4: Trapped on the wrong side
Part 5: A new way of resistance
Part 6: What has the struggle achieved?

Next:

Part 8: A working class under siege

Project photography: Oren Ziv / Activestills

The first and most obvious answer to this is simple: in many places, villages involved in the uprising were able to change the route of the wall and gain part of their land back, either due to the security apparatus’ decision or due to a court ruling. But when one asks prominent Palestinian activists what they think they achieved, one finds that their answers to be much more principled.

Some mention the creation of an unarmed alternative to the entire Palestinian struggle, and others stress the importance of links between Israelis and Palestinians forged in struggle and shaking the core of the political separation the wall meant to create. Some also speak of the international sympathy the demonstrations have earned for the Palestinian cause. Although those demonstrations have been going on for a decade – none of the activists ponder switching to armed resistance.

Farmers overlooking construction work in Wadi a-Rasha (Activestills)

‘Showing the world that we are not the terrorists – but the victims of terror’

“Ever since our struggle started, the army’s response was brutal: many sheep and chickens died from tear gas shot into court yards, people were injured and arrested, the price was too high – and so I decided to stop demonstrating,” says Sharif Khaled, one of the prominent activists in the Jayous protest. That protest lasted from September 2002 until 2004, and was revived for a brief period in 2008, when Israel moved the fence, retuning part but not all of the village’s lands. “Demonstrations were, first and foremost, a tool to give voice to people’s feelings. They also got us in touch with Israeli and foreign activists, but the army ignored us altogether – which is why we couldn’t go on.

“However, I still think that it was and is the best way of sending Israel a message. Thanks to our demonstrations, even though they’re finished, we still meet Israelis, we can go to court with more support and we get interviewed by journalists all over the world just like you. All these things too are non-violent resistance, and they too help send our message forth.”

Women at the front line of an anti-wall protest (Activestills)

“The idea of accepting and camping with Israeli and internationals in 2003, the peak of the second intifada, was very challenging, yet it is a great story of success, based on mutual respect and understanding of the needs of each side,” adds Raad Amer, one of the founders of the Mes’ha protest tent in 2003. “You can add to that the gaining of international attention at the time of war in Iraq, the support of the International Court of Justice and the achievement of promoting non-violence against the occupation.”

Um-Hassan Bierjieh (Haggai Matar)

In the village of Ma’asara, residents have been protesting against the wall every week for more than five years now. In the beginning, demonstrations mainly included women carrying out direct actions such as stopping bulldozers, but over time construction of the fence in this region has stopped, and demonstrations now focus mainly on long tri-lingual speeches directed both at activists and at the soldiers present. Organizers here are extremely committed to non-violence, and stones are not thrown at the soldiers even if they attack the demonstrators.

“The thing we cherish most about the struggle is the chance to make our voices heard in the world, and stressing that we are not the terrorists – but rather the victims of terror,” says Um-Hassan Beirjieh, one of the leading female activists in the village. “After five years of demonstrations, we see the growing support we gain in the world, and see how time after time the Israeli army is presented as the one creating the violence – not us. This is a message we shall keep on sending out through our demonstration as long as there are settlers on our land, preventing us from forming an independent state.”

Football over the Bil’in fence

Of all the villages that have taken up the call against the wall, one has gained international fame and today symbolizes the popular struggle more than any other: the village of Bil’in. What makes Bil’in so central to the struggle? It may be its commitment, with over seven years of weekly demonstrations, or perhaps the award-winning film made about it – “Bil’in Habibti” (Bil’in My Love), or the two relatives who were killed by the army while non-violently demonstrating )Bassem and Jawaher Abu-Rahme) and maybe it’s the unmatched creativity used in protest throughout the years.

A short list of Bil’in’s unique measures of struggle must include attempts to play football with soldiers across the fence during the world cup games as a mock response to a commercial by Israeli cellular company Cellcom; Avatar-style costumes to link the struggle to the popular film (see above clip); locking activists in cages attached to the ground where bulldozers work; kite contests; building a massive model of a ship after the flotilla; going on a night march with candles in response to army night raids; hosting a Holocaust survivor playing the piano on the route of the wall; holding a yearly convention on non-violence, and hosting many internationally known figures, including  Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter of the ”The Elders,” and others. Demonstrations in Bil’in take place weekly to this day, even after the court returned some of Bil’in’s lands.

It should be pointed out, however, that as opposed to Ma’asara, most demonstrations in Bil’in end with stones being hurled at soldiers, after the latter attack the non-violent demonstration with tear gas. As was recently proven in court, when Palestinians avoid throwing stones, undercover Israeli security forces throw stones at soldiers themselves.

Mohammad Khatib, Bil’in (Haggai Matar)

“There are many reasons that keep us going,” says Muhammed Khatib, one of the heads of the local popular committee. “It’s the victories we had that brought us hope, the support we get in the village, the cooperation with Israelis and internationals, and the effect we had on the entire Palestinian struggle which is now adapting to our strategy.

“Another reason is that Bil’in is now a national symbol that needs maintaining. But the struggle mainly goes on because we have not yet reached our goals: not only is there land on the other side of the wall, but also the army does not allow us to build anything on the lands we got back and anything built gets immediately demolished. So it’s a struggle against the occupation as a whole – and the occupation is far from being over.”

“Our dream is that one day we can create a park on these lands, which will hold an academic center for non-violent struggle and peace studies, and which will also be a nice place for families to vacation with beautiful scenery and animals all around. We’re hopeful that we can have our own free state, and that our children will not live the life that we have so far lived under occupation. Is this not reason enough to continue?”

A display of weapons used against demonstrations in Bil’in (Haggai Matar)

Previous chapters in this series:

Part 1: The great Israeli project
Part 2: Wall and Peace
Part 3: An acre here and an acre there
Part 4: Trapped on the wrong side
Part 5: A new way of resistance

Next:

Part 7: A village turned prison

Project photography: Oren Ziv / Activestills

I guess it’s no coincidence that whenever I think of the beginning of the popular struggle against the wall I think of Gil Na’amati. The story of Na’amati, who was just out of the army after three years of serving as a combatant when he was shot in the knee by soldiers while trying to break open a gate in the fence in December 2003, was what drew my attention to the struggle. I was still in prison at the time, for my own refusal to enlist, and it was this story that led me to start reading about the new struggle I was missing on the outside.

I guess it’s no coincidence, as even after having been involved in joint activism against the occupation before prison – something of the racism of Israeli political discourse stayed within me too. Like the demonstrators who yelled at the soldiers “don’t shoot – we’re Israelis,” like the soldiers themselves who usually use less violence towards Israelis and white solidarity activists, like the local media which is more easily shocked when a Jew is hurt during a demonstration (especially a former combatant and son of the head of a regional council in the western Negev like Na’amati) – so was my attention drawn to the story of a young person, of my people, who was shot by one of my peers, more than it was by the stories of Palestinians killed in nonviolent demonstrations. But the struggle, in fact, had started long before Na’amati was shot.

(The shooting of Gil Na’amati, broken down and narrated)

‘There was no plan – people just went to protect their trees’

In fact, the whole struggle began quite spontaneously. The year 2002 was the bloodiest of the second intifada, with 47 suicide attacks killing 225 Israelis, and 989 Palestinian casualties (421 of them did not take part in hostilities, according to B’Tselem). In September alone, eight Israelis were killed in three suicide attacks (one them in central Tel Aviv), and 51 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces, 19 of them non-combatants. As mentioned in the first chapter of this series, suicide attacks were what led to the beginning of the construction of the wall in April of 2002, while political pressures and Israeli expansionist aspirations drew the route of the wall so that it would run through the heart of the West Bank and de facto annex large tracks of land.

It was in this deadly month of September that bulldozers arrived in Jayous. The original route in this area would later engulf most of the village’s agricultural lands, also leaving one house on the wrong side of the fence. The villagers, whose income depended on agriculture, saw the bulldozers and ran to their groves to protect their tress. They stopped construction work, hugged the trees, got beaten and dispersed, some were arrested – yet the next day they came out again. Almost two years after Israel crushed the popular demonstrations at the dawn of the second intifada and Palestinians turned to arms – nonviolent popular resistance was making its initial comeback.

“We didn’t have a plan – people just saw the trees being shaved down and ran to protect them,” says Sharif Khaled, a farmer and leader of the Jayous actions. “There were men and women, people from all families and parties, and we went to stay on our land. It took several weeks before we were joined by Israelis and the ISM [International Solidarity Movement], and started holding meetings before demonstrations in order to plan better. We were also joined by people from neighboring villages, and that’s how the concept began to spread.”

And spread it did. Similar demonstrations started taking place in other locations along the route of the wall, and as 2003 began, a central struggle tent was erected in the village of Mes’ha. Raad Amer was just 23 when he helped erect the tent in the path of the wall, and started organizing multi-lingual workshops on nonviolence and demonstrations in the same spirit. The tent stood for four months near the settlement of Elkana, founded in 1977, and was de-facto annexed by the wall. Eventually the tent was demolished by the army.

Women’s demonstrations in Ni’lin (Activestills)

“The primary and only tool for that struggle was nonviolent protest in all forms,” says Amer, who now lives with his wife in the United States. “People maintained a presence in the camp 24/7, protests where people marched through the village toward the confiscated lands and direct action against the wall like the one in which Gil Na’amati was shot – all these are diverse nonviolent tools of resistance.”

Spreading out

Over the years the popular demonstrations spread further, and as suicide attacks subsided, it became the central and leading tool in the Palestinian struggle for independence. Demonstrations started in Bidu, Budrus, Beit Likiya, Qafin, Azun, Bil’in, Nil’in, Beit Sira, Walaje, Beit Jala, Ertas, Ma’asara, Wad-Rachal, Beit Umar and many other villages – some of them still active to this day. Gradually, villages not directly affected by the wall started using the same tools in their own struggles against settlements and land grabs, and some of these – like Nabi Saleh and Qadum – are also still very active in their resistance.

With time, the struggle became partly institutionalized with popular committees operating in each of the uprising villages and determining the local demands and tactics. In most (if not all) villages the main demand is that Israel move the wall to its internationally recognized border, alongside calls to dismantle settlements and end the occupation in full.

Bil’in, October 2005 (Activestills)

The pattern of action varied from one place to another and from time to time, some focusing on direct action, some on slogans and dialogue with soldiers, and some on creative protest using music, theater, costumes and more. Almost all invited Israelis and foreigners to join the struggle, either as a safety tool, by forcing soldiers to be less violent; as a political statement of joint resistance and belief in equality and peace; or as a mixture of both. Most Israelis in the weekly demonstrations are activists in Anarchists Against the Wall (like myself), but others join as well. In some villages, the first phase of demonstrations, shared by all, is utterly nonviolent, making way for a second phase of stone-throwing by local youth (usually after the army attacks) and in some, the nonviolent approach lasts until the end.

But whatever the tactics, the army always responds with varying degrees of violence, having killed a total of 21 demonstrators (10 of them minors) in  demonstrations against the wall, and 275 in all popular demonstrations (figures taken from Jonathan Pollak, spokesperson of the Popular Resistance Coordination Committee). Hundreds have been severely injured, hundreds arrested, trees have been burned and farm animals killed by tear gas.

Tear gas in Bil’in’s sky (Activestills)

As for the other side – over the years, one soldier lost an eye after being hit by a stone, and others were less severely injured. Another effect demonstrations had on the army is a financial one: according to one army officer, who testified in the trial of a Bil’in activist, over the period between August 2008 and December 2009, the army spent NIS 6.5 million on weapons against demonstrators in Bil’in and Ni’lin alone, an extra NIS 423 thousand on repairing damages caused to the fence in these villages and NIS 8.5 million on building a second wall to protect the fence in Nil’in. Multiply that by a decade of protest in tens of villages – and you’ll get an astounding figure.

And yet, after 10 years of demonstrations, casualties, injuries, arrests and trials, pain and joy and one wall still standing – what did the popular, joint and unarmed struggle against the wall actually achieve? This we shall see in the next chapter.

Tearing down the fence in a direct action (Activestills)

Previous chapters in this series:

Part 1: The great Israeli project
Part 2: Wall and Peace
Part 3: An acre here and an acre there
Part 4: Trapped on the wrong side

Project Photography: Oren Ziv / Activestills

March 2009. Residents of the small village Wadi a-Rasha in the Qalqiliya district have mixed feelings. On the one hand – their High Court victory is as precedent in the history of the wall – for the first time ever, construction crews are here to build a new route for the fence and to demolish the old one. The news fence frees them from a life they felt was paramount to prison – engulfed in the Alfei Menashe enclave and detached from the rest of the West Bank. On the other hand – the new route leads to the uprooting of more olive trees, and most of the village lands are trapped on the “Israeli” side of the fence.

The villagers decide to fight the new route as well, demanding that the fence be moved to the Green Line, just two kilometers to the west. Small non-violent demonstrations take place almost on a daily basis: Israeli and international activists block the bulldozers, get beaten and arrested, are banned from the district (I myself was subject to the pleasure) and constriction continues. As time goes by, the fence is erected, and like so many other places, the legal battle for permits to cross it begins. This is yet another example of the reality of the gradual detachment of people from their lands, described in chapter three.

Villager overlooking Wadi a-Rasha lands and new route, 2009 (Haggai Matar)

March 2012. I decide to return to Wadi a-Rasha as part of my work on this project. I see how hard it is to get to the village, the road now going through a long detour and various checkpoints, taking at least three times as long as before. However, I notice an even tinier village that is apparently still on the western side of the fence, and decide to look into it. Apparently, the Wadi a-Rasha petition to the court was joined by four other villages – Ras Atiya, Habla, Arab Abu-Farda and Arab a-Ramadin – and while the first three partially received what they had asked for, the latter two were to remain inside the thin strip between the fence and the Israeli border. Some 1,000 people live in the two villages, and they are all doomed to be disconnected from their wider community for the foreseeable future.

Two kilos of tomatoes – no more

“We live in something that is part jail, part hell,” Qasab Sha’ur says bitterly. Sha’ur is a resident of Arab a-Ramadin, and has to go through the fence at least once or twice a day. “Our village is small, just 500 people, and it had no hospital or clinic, no school, no big shops or workplaces, so everything requires crossing the checkpoint. But going through can take an hour, at best. Coming by car, you have to empty your vehicle completely, send every little thing through an X-ray machine. Then the car is checked manually, then a dog takes a sniff around, and then any fluid you have has to be sampled and examined at a laboratory they have there – this includes water and olive oil. This is what my daily ride home looks like.”

Strange as it may seem, this actually describes a best-case scenario, in which the content of the car and the passenger are ultimately allowed through. In many other cases, the villagers have to deal with strange limitations on what may or may not be brought from the other side. For example, retuning home from shopping with more than two kilograms of tomatoes leads to a short investigation, ultimately requiring a special permit from the army’s District Coordination Office. Meat and eggs require a permit from the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture. Friends, doctors, ambulances, servicepersons and relatives cannot go through at all.

“Since the checkpoint, the Eyal Terminal, as they call it, is the last buffer before entering Israel, the authorities consider it a proper border crossing, even though it is not on the Green Line and there are both Jewish settlers and Palestinians on the other side,” says attorney Michael Sfard, who represented the villages in court. “Now we’ve finally reached a status quo that allows people to bring groceries through for personal consumption – but the definition of that term is negotiable. It’s hard to begin to explain the implications of this on people’s lives, as one would have to break down every single part of a person’s life to see how harsh the fence is on it.”

The Alfei Menashe enclave. The wall is in red, the old route in dotted brown. Arab a-Ramadin is in the center (Map: B’Tselem)

As mentioned before, Arab a-Ramadin is trapped in the same enclave as the settlement of Alfei Menashe – but the fence running around them both is the only thing these two places have in common. The village, founded in the late 50s by Bedouins who were forced out of the Negev, has no proper roads, no running water and no electricity (“even though the pipes and power cables go under and above their heads to Alfei Mensashe,” stresses Sfard), and there are standing demolition orders against of its houses. Villagers can physically walk or ride into Israel unchecked, but if caught, they can go to prison. There is separation even in the checkpoint, as settlers go through a fast lane with no questions asked, and Palestinians go through the process described above. “I try to tell the army that all residents of the enclave should at least share the same lane at the checkpoint, but I know the mere thought of Israelis and Palestinians being treated equally is totally foreign to the army’s way of thought,” says Sfard.

A bleak future

Arab a-Ramadin and Arab Abu-Farda are not alone. To the north, there is also Bart’a – recently visited by Yuval Ben-Ami’s in his Round Trip - also trapped in a fence enclave. Looking south, one encounters the villages of Hussan, Wadi Fukin, Nahalin, Batir and Al-Jab’a, which are to be surrounded by the Gush Etzion fence from the east and another one to the west. Further south, the West Bank village of A-Seefer is caged by the fence of the South Hebron Hills. According to B’Tselem, 35,000 Palestinians are either already trapped on the wrong side of the wall, or will be if and when its construction ends. This does not include residents of East Jerusalem. “The Palestinians will never allow for even a single village to be annexed to Israel,” determines Colonel (res.) Shaul Arieli, a member of the Council for Peace and Security. “I have no idea why they would build a fence on such a route that would clearly have to be changed and rebuilt – at least because of these villages”.

The new fence near Wadi a-Rasha (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Meanwhile in Arab a-Ramadin, the villagers see nothing but a bleak future ahead of them. “You know, most of us had to change our way of making a living,” tells me Sha’ur. “Once, most people had sheep, the village was full of them, but now we only have 10 percent of our pasture lands left, and you can’t get the sheep across the fence. So the livestock had to be sold, and now we work for the PA. or as simple workers elsewhere around the West Bank, and have to cross the checkpoint every day.

“Three years ago, the Civil Administration contacted us, and offered us a transfer into the West Bank. Ever since, they keep on offering. The land we sit on belongs to us, and they offered us to exchange lands on the other side of the fence. But the West Bank is under occupation, and I am no settler who will take someone else’s land while backed by the Israeli Civil Administration. A Palestinian can’t just do that, nor is there any reason for us to move. It’s the fence that has to move to the Green Line.”

Link to part 5 – on the popular resistance to the wall.

Previous chapters in this series:

Part 1: The great Israeli project

Part 2: Wall and Peace

Part 3: An acre here and an acre there