Barrier Review - Part 1

This is the first of a 2 part review of the book "Barrier – the seam of the Israeli Palestinian conflict"

Last year I read a moving book by Isabel Kershner called “Barrier – the seam of the Israeli Palestinian conflict.” The book takes on the complex task of analysing Israel’s anti-terror barrier which, whilst drastically reducing the number of successful terror attacks from the West Bank, has also caused much pain and hardship for the Palestinians.

The book is filled with mournful anecdotes from both sides who have suffered so much - academics, military fence planners, Israeli victims of terror attacks, kibbutzniks, Palestinian farmers and businessmen, Israeli anti-wall activists and the parents of Palestinian terrorists. The conversations combine to illustrate the tragic reason for the barrier's existence as well as the hardships that it creates. It is a human account of the barrier as seen through the eyes of ordinary Israelis and Palestinians who have been affected by terror and the consequences thereof.

Although highly critical of the barrier, its bureaucratic planning and its route, the book ultimately justifies the existence of the barrier (if not the route in certain places) for one simple reason – it has been successful in thwarting terrorism and has thereby reduced the number of anti-terror raids that Israel has needed to launch in the West Bank. 

The most problematic part of the barrier is the Seam Zone. The barrier has created various pockets in which Palestinian villages have become stuck between the barrier and the green line – a type of no man’s land known as the Seam Zone initially affecting some 10 000 Palestinians. For these Palestinians the barrier is more than a simple inconvenience. It has fundamentally changed their lives.

Palestinians in the Seam Zone need green permits to stay in their houses. They also need other permits in order to cross the barrier to get to agricultural lands that they may own on the eastern side of the fence inside the West Bank.

One such affected hamlet is Khirbat Jubaraa. It houses 3500 Palestinians and sits between Qalqilya and Tulkarem. The kids in Khirbat Jubaraa go to school on the eastern side of the fence and have to wait for the gates to open. In 2003 15 days of school were lost because of terror attacks or alerts of impending attacks. In response to this Israel funded buses to take the kids from their houses to their schools in door-to-door fashion. (In South Africa last year, the number of school days lost was measured in months not days because of a bus-driver strike. This year our school children have lost almost 30 days of school due to the recent public sector strike.) The Israeli Supreme Court however has since ruled that the barrier needs to be moved so that Khirbat Jubaraa is placed on the eastern side of the barrier. I wonder if the bus system will endure.

Kershner interviews Palestinians whose lives have been made better and worse by the barrier. The story is often bizarre because of the special lengths that Israel has gone to improve the situation of the Seam Zone Palestinians. Many of the these Palestinians now enjoy better utilities than they had prior to the construction of the barrier (electricity supply to villages that have never known electricity as well as new roads) but there are still the unfortunate ones whose situations are much worse.

Israel desperately needs to find a solution to the Seam Zone problem. The Supreme Court is dealing with numerous petitions to have the route of the barrier moved (the Supreme Court has already ruled in favour of route changes which should bring the number of Seam Zone Palestinians down to less than 5000.) Innovative thinking will be required but the only enduring solution (offering these Palestinians full Israeli citizenship?) would form part of a broader end of conflict settlement which is very far away.

• Read part 2 of this review detailing how idealist left wing Israelis have come to support the barrier.
  

Comments

[Joel Pollak]

Cool post. The barrier is, on balance, a positive step but its costs are heavy, and heaviest for the people who have to deal with it directly.

[SnoopyTheGoon]

While the costs, indeed, are heavy, in the Jewish (and any other humanitarian) system of values, saving lives comes first, as you mentioned.

Ironically, the barrier saves not only the Jewish lives but the lives of some martyrs-to-be.

[Avabssherill]

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