Does Israel play loose with occupied territory?
By Reece Jones.
The Israeli wall in the West Bank gained final approval ten years ago on 16
June 2002 and construction began a few days later. The route for the planned
490-mile barrier was drawn without any agreement with the Palestinian Authority
about where the official border was or should be. Over 80% is constructed beyond
the pre-1967 armistice line, known as the Green Line, which marks the familiar
edges of the West Bank on a map. By 2007 Israel had finished over two-thirds of
the planned barrier, but the pace of construction has since slowed. Although it
is incomplete, the wall’s cost of over $1 billion still makes it the most
expensive and largest Israeli government construction project in the past
decade, and its seeming permanence confers a political reality that should have
been negotiated.
Originally, the Israeli government justified the wall in the very narrow
sense as a temporary barrier against terrorist attacks. An Israeli Ministry of
Defense website currently states “The sole purpose of the Security Fence … is to
provide security. The Security Fence is a central component in Israel’s response
to the horrific wave of terrorism emanating from the West Bank, resulting in
suicide bombers who enter into Israel with the sole intention of killing
innocent people.” The UN charter recognizes the right of every member state to
defend itself and its citizens from attack. Under that standard, the sections of
the barrier built on the Israeli side of the Green Line are legal.
Critics contend that most of the wall is built on occupied territory. In
2003, the UN General Assembly voted 144 – 4 to condemn the barrier (the US
vetoed the Security Council resolution). A 2004 International Court of Justice
advisory opinion called the wall “contrary to international law” and said the
sections in the West Bank should be removed and reparations paid to those whose
land was confiscated or whose property was destroyed to build it.
The Israeli government dismisses these arguments and asserts instead that the
West Bank is historically Jewish land and is not occupied territory because it
was never previously an independent, recognized sovereign state. Palestine was
part of the Ottoman Empire from the 1500s through the end of World War I, and
then a British protectorate from 1920 until World War II. After the creation of
Israel in 1949, the West Bank was administered by Jordan until the Israeli
military occupied it during the Six-Day War in 1967. Today the Israeli argument
that Palestine is not a sovereign state territory is increasingly undermined by
the sheer number of countries around the world that formally recognize a
Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders. Although the US, with its
Security Council veto power, remains opposed to formal recognition at the UN,
fully two thirds (126/193) of the UN member states already formally recognize a
Palestinian state.
Despite the official Israeli position that the wall is a temporary barrier
against terrorism, its political consequences cannot be ignored. The wall
extends around several large Israeli settlements in the West Bank and situates
them firmly on the Israeli side. The wall encloses important aquifers and cuts
Palestinian farmers off from their fields. Arguably the most significant
consequence is that the wall physically separates Jerusalem and its important
religious sites from the rest of the West Bank. Not only does it place both West
and East Jerusalem on the Israeli side, but it also goes deep into the West Bank
in order to include new Israeli settlements, which effectively creates a buffer
around the city.
In January 2012, Palestinian officials reported that in closed door talks
Israeli negotiators abandoned the position that the wall was temporary and
proposed the wall route itself as the final political border between Israel and
a new Palestinian state. In late May, Israeli Defense Secretary Ehud Barak
stated publically that Israel should consider unilaterally establishing a border
between the two states. If the wall does become the final border, it will
substantially expand the territory of Israel at the expense of longstanding
Palestinian property rights and religious connections to the land. It will also
demonstrate the power of walls to crystallize and formalize claims to territory
by physically excluding other people from the land. Finally, it will undermine
the international consensus against the annexation of territory gained through
expansionary wars.
Rather than setting this dangerous precedent, ten years after construction
began the United States and the international community should reaffirm that the
Green Line, rather than the route of the wall, as the starting point for any
future talks about a border between Israel and Palestine. The territorial
conflict should be resolved through a negotiation that respects the rights and
concerns of both Israelis and Palestinians, not through the unilateral
construction of a separation wall.
Reece Jones is an Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of
Hawaii at Manoa and the author of Border Walls: Security and the War on Terror
in the United States, India, and Israel. He is a member of the American
Geographical Society’s Writers Circle.
Original article posted on The Real News, The Ozarks Sentinal, Veterans Today and Salem-News.
Also check out Border Walls by Reece Jones published by Zed Books.
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