No one knows exactly. What kind of future are we preparing for ourselves in this terrible space? On the Israeli side, about 50 young schoolgirls listen as their teachers tell them the story of the biblical matriarch Rachel. Insurmountable challenges.
I ask Soffer, who is 82, how he sees the future of the wall. But there are also those who think that the wall is actually a marker of hope. They point out that some sort of border between Palestinians and Israelis, however fragmented and disputatious, exists nonetheless.
Thus, the area of agreement might be greater than it first appears. The two were students of architecture when the separation project was launched. What began as a graduation project became our career. In our view, together with the change of route, the essence of the wall also has to change, so that it becomes connective and not divisive.
It needs to become a breathing membrane that makes possible an urban fabric with vitality. If the wall remains, but not as it is today, what will it look like?
The two suggest that it be integrated into the municipal infrastructures, and show how this can be done by means of imaging and maps. One idea, for example, is to demarcate a border crossing at a central bus station, so that the security check is done at the entrance to the bus compound and invokes an airport more than a checkpoint. They also propose a transit point in the form of a pedestrian bridge next to the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem. Instead of a wall at some points, they propose a high traffic island that would separate two parts of a street.
We are presenting a solution that sets out above all to transform consciousness. Netta Ahituv Mar. Get email notification for articles from Netta Ahituv Follow. Open gallery view. Attorney Nisreen Alyan. Credit: Noam Revkin Fenton. The separation barrier in the At-Tur neighborhood in Jerusalem. Credit: Lior Mizrahi. The Jerusalem separation barrier, by the numbers.
Children at the Shoafat refugee camp in Jerusalem. Credit: Tali Mayer. Credit: Emil Salman. As of February , UN OCHA had counted obstacles to movement in the West Bank, including fully or partially staffed checkpoints, road blocks of various kinds and gates.
As of , construction of the Wall has been halted. The cost of building the Wall is unclear. Numbers discussed in the Israeli parliament around the same time, the end of , show that Israel had already spent 25 billion NIS 7.
Popular protests are increasing the costs of the Wall. During the trial of Abdallah Abu Rahmah in , documents presented revealed that ammunition used against anti-Wall demonstrations from August — cost 6. In Jayyous village Qalqilya district and Baqa Asharqiyya Tulkarm district Palestinian resistance has as well been able to force a re-routing of the wall, increasing the costs and efforts Israel had to spend on the construction and maintenance of the Wall. The cost of a life under apartheid, deprived of basic human rights and enclosed in ghettos or bantustans simply cannot be calculated.
By 16 June , 69, claim forms for registration of damage and more than 1 million supporting documents had been collected and delivered to the Office of the Register of Damage in Vienna.
UNRoD has the mandate to collect and document damage or loss suffered as a result of the Wall. While the wall, and the land annexation, fragmentation and dispossession is brings with it, systematically destroy any form of livelihood for Palestinians, international institutions have rallied to ensure how dispossessed Palestinian farmers and unemployed Palestinian youth can be exploited in the interest of capital.
Since then, Palestinian and international development plans are consistent with a neoliberal model that brings further stress and suffering upon the Palestinian people and through the drive to individualism undermined the capacity of collective resistance.
The Wall in the West Bank has a precedent: since the Gaza Strip has been surrounded by a barrier that cuts off Palestinians there from the rest of the world. The Gaza Strip, with a population of some 2 million people in km2 is one of the most densely populated places on the globe. It is a prison that has been completely surrounded for years by walls and razor wire. Anyone approaching the buffer zone runs the risk of being shot. The consequences of the buffer zone have been severe.
The agricultural lands in the buffer zone have been desertified as Israeli occupation forces removed the orchards that used to be there. In , the Israeli Defense Ministry has begun the final phase of construction of a foot high galvanized steel fence that will completely surround the Gaza Strip.
The wall will extend 65 kilometers around the enclave and sit atop the subterranean concrete wall. The above-ground wall costs NIS 1. In three areas, the barrier extends beyond the municipal boundaries, de facto annexing undeveloped land, settlements and their environs to Jerusalem.
The route of the Separation Barrier extends into the West Bank, thereby fragmenting the West Bank, separating neighboring communities from each other and cutting them off from their land. The strain this puts on their survival, coupled with the blocked potential for sustainable development, serves to further entrench the annexation of the areas west of the barrier to Israel.
In some of these areas — and the resultant enclaves — the number of Palestinians has dwindled as a result. The barrier has also impinged on longstanding trade ties forged over the years between Palestinian communities near the Green Line and Israeli citizens. Their rulings facilitated the violation of the rights of tens of thousands of Palestinians, in breach of international law. In two major rulings — one in the Beit Surik case in June , and the other in the Alfei Menashe case in September — the Court clarified its position that erecting the barrier within occupied territory is lawful and raises no issues of authority.
Most of the petitions in this matter were denied and, as a rule, the justices sanctioned the planned route, after establishing that the harm caused to the Palestinians was not excessive. Only in the case of several petitions did the Court order that certain alterations be made to the planned route. In conclusion, the Court found that Israel must cease construction of the barrier, dismantle the parts of the barrier that were built inside the West Bank, and compensate the Palestinians who suffered losses as a result of the barrier.
The construction of the barrier within the West Bank has violated multiple human rights of the Palestinians who live on either side of it. Among other things, it curtails their freedom of movement, consequently impinging upon their rights to work, education, medical care, family life, earning a living and an adequate standard of living.
From the field. Share: Facebook share Twitter WhatsApp. In constructing the Separation Barrier, Israel broke up contiguous Palestinian urban and rural blocs and severed inter-community ties that had been forged and cemented over the course of many generations; it imposed an arbitrary reconfiguration of space based on settlement boundaries and for the convenience of Israeli security forces. A PowerPoint presentation from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in explained the purpose of construction of a "security fence" as such:.
The areas you're most likely to see the concrete style of barrier are in cities like Jerusalem and Qalqilya, which are situated directly along the dividing line between Israel and the West Bank. Israel says the reason for this is preventing snipers. The justification for the wall in general is safety — the Israeli government reported that deaths from suicide bombings decreased sharply over time as areas of the wall were completed.
Instead, the Israel army maintains an array of checkpoints that inspect people and vehicles entering Israel, a daily fact of life for Palestinians that most find dehumanizing. While this is true, a meeting between Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during which both men declared a halt to hostilities is widely considered the end of the Second Intifada.
At first, we couldn't find the wall. My wife and I were driving around Jerusalem, seemingly in circles, attempting to understand where Israeli Jerusalem ends and Palestinian Jerusalem begins. After a pause to recalibrate ourselves, we near-instantly went from, "How are we not seeing a massive wall?! As we approached, the neighborhood provided the first indication we were getting close: it transformed from upscale tourist destination to ramshackle in just a few blocks.
The moment quickly transitioned from confusion to concern, then to utter sadness as the dense neighborhood dissolved into a wide-open space between the homes and a massive, ominous wall.
I parked down the road, near a security gate, and snapped a photo. Even though I was doing nothing wrong, the context transformed my otherwise totally normal act into something nerve-wracking. Israel is a beautiful country with incredible weather, metropolitan cities, world-class food, and incredible places to visit. It's also a relatively tiny country situated directly in the middle of a massive, unstable region of the world.
While strolling to get a bureka pastry one morning in Tel Aviv a few weeks ago, a young soldier ran past me in an attempt to reach a bus in time. Seeing soldiers was a regular occurrence during my time in Israel — the military presence is constant. For the Israelis I spoke with, this made them feel safe. Growing up in a time where suicide bombings were a common occurrence across Israel, they said seeing the military was a reminder that the government was keeping life secure.
If something happens, there are soldiers at the ready.
0コメント