-Caveat Lector- The £1m-a-mile wall that divides a town from its own land of plenty
Israel continues its creeping colonisation Chris McGreal in Jayyous Tuesday November 26, 2002 The Guardian The first the people of Jayyous knew of the wall was a piece of paper flapping from an olive tree. "It was a military order," said Sharif Omar, who has come to rue that day. "It informed us we had to meet an Israeli army officer the next week and follow him to see the route of the wall. Hundreds of people turned out. We were shocked, very shocked, when we saw where it was going. People burst into tears. Some fainted." That was in September. Since then, bulldozers have cleared a swath of land 50 metres wide through Jayyous's olive groves and within tens of metres of the western side of the town. In a few more weeks, the concrete foundations of a wall eight metres high will be in place. A trench, barbed wire, floodlights, cameras and electronic detectors will follow. Jayyous does not yet know whether it will also get a military watchtower like neighbouring Qalqilya. But, by the end of next year, the wall severing the town from much of its land will be just one link in a concrete barrier running 250 miles through the West Bank. The Israeli government is spending £1m a mile to build this massive fortification, in the belief that it will keep the suicide bombers at bay. That, too, is what the Israeli public believes. Polls suggest that more than 70% believe that cooperation with the Palestinians has failed, so it is better to build barriers. The government calls it the separation fence; the army, the security obstacle; and the Israeli right, the terror wall. The Palestinians compare it to the Berlin wall, and say it will turn the West Bank into the world's biggest prison. In Jayyous, they are not so much worried about being shut in as shut out. The wall wriggles its way through the heart of Jayyous, leaving marginally more of the town's land on the Israeli side of the barrier. The mayor, Fayez Salim, calculates that the town will lose access to 80% of its 18,000 olive trees and about 50,000 citrus trees. It will be cut off from dozens of large greenhouses and thousands of jobs will be lost during the annual harvest. Crucially, Jayyous will be separated from its seven wells and the Israelis have forbidden the drilling of new ones. "We've told the Israelis about this. They don't reply. They say it's an order of the military. They don't speak to us. They just hung the notice on a tree," Mr Salim said. Among those facing calamity is Mr Omar, one of the wealthiest landowners in Jayyous. He has 20 hectares (49 acres) of olive groves, citrus orchards and two sprawling greenhouses stuffed with tomatoes. The wall will separate him from all but 2.5 hectares. "The green line is more than five kilometres from here," he said. "Why is the wall only 40 metres from our houses? Why do they need to build it so close?" The Palestinians say the wall serves a dual purpose: to cage the West Bank's residents just as the people of Gaza are locked behind security fences; and to lay open yet more of their land to seizure as Israel continues its creeping colonisation through the expansion of Jewish settlements. Although the wall loosely follows the 1967 border - the green line - it deviates considerably in places, such as Jayyous. That is in part because the government says it did not want "the obstacle" to become a de facto border which would be used to weaken its hand in negotiations over a Palestinian state. But some Palestinians believe that the wall will indeed become a border and that everything west of it will fall into Israeli hands. That would include not only valuable fertile land, but an equally precious commodity in a parched region - water. Jayyous and neighbouring towns sit on the western aquifer basin which produces about half of all the water on the West Bank. Most of their wells will fall on the wrong side of the wall for the Palestinians. The wall also winds around a number of the larger Jewish settlements, while encircling Jayyous's neighbouring city of Qalqilya on three sides. The rightwing Jerusalem Post laid out the thinking: "The fence must be built to generously incorporate blocs of Israeli communities_ [This] maximises the amount of territory with which Israel would enter into some future final-status negotiation." But some settler groups and rightwing parties oppose the wall, saying it represents nothing less than the establishment of a Palestinian state by Israel. The barrier is part-fence, part-wall, depending on location. Parts of the wall can already be seen from Jayyous, surrounding Qalqilya, which has been cut off on three sides. Only one access road remains. An Israeli defence company is experimenting with balloons and infrared detectors to extend a no man's land on the Palestinian side. Another company is proposing a radar system able to pick up footsteps long before they reach the wall. In places, concrete watchtowers peer over the barrier. The Israelis deny there will be an order to shoot on sight, but anyone attempting to get over or through the fence will be deemed to be a terrorist. The Israelis say there will be a gate at Jayyous to give the Palestinians access to their land. Mr Omar is suspicious. "They can close a gate any time they don't want us. Look what they do in Nablus or Ramallah. They close off the whole town when they want revenge," he said. Mr Omar fears the government will deny the townspeople of Jayyous access to their land and then use British and Turkish colonial laws to justify its confiscation because it is under-used. He speaks from experience. "The Israelis confiscated my land in 1988 on the grounds it was not fit for agriculture. They wanted to use it to expand a Jewish settlement. I went to the military court and fought it," he said. "I cleared all the rocks and planted wheat at first. Then oranges, walnuts, avocados, pomegranates, figs, cucumbers - and I proved to them it was fit for agriculture. In 1996, the military court restored the land to me." But the battle is much bigger this time. Jayyous has gone to the high court in an attempt to get the wall moved, but the town's lawyers have told the mayor not to hold out much hope. Mr Omar is making other plans. "There is only one thing I can do. I will buy a tent and move with my wife to live the other side of the fence among my trees," he said. "I don't know if the Israelis will let me do it. They certainly won't let me build a house. But perhaps I can live in a tent." Special report on Israel and the Middle East guardian.co.uk/israel Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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