Israeli Separation Wall around N

Israeli Separation Wall around Northwestern Jerusalem

Another Colonialist Expansion

December 2003

Introduction:

It has always been the case that Jerusalem was, and still is, a dilemma in any vision for a possible political solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As such, Israel has always designed plans aimed at annexing the Holy City and Judaize it in a total and final manner. To reach its goals, successive Israeli governments used a number of methods such as land confiscation, colonial expansion in addition to other schemes last of which is the Israeli Separation Wall. The establishment of the Wall began when the Israeli Military Commander of the Middle Command issued a far-reaching military order on the 24^th of September, 2001 that declared huge areas of the West Bank to be “closed military areas.” In April 2002 the Israeli occupation government decided to erect the Wall. Within less than a month, the Israeli Defense Minister put his approval initials on the Wall’s first stage, a length of which is 360 kilometers of a total of 650 kilometers which is the total length of the Wall.

Facts and Figures:

Despite the false names and attributes Israel tries to pin on the Wall, it just do not change the fact that it is separatist and racist in nature; it isolates the Palestinian Territories occupied in 1967 from each other as it corners 15 villages, in which more than 13,000 Palestinians live, between the Wall and the 1948 border ( the Green Line). Moreover, it separates 30,000 Palestinian farmers from their lands located in the east and west of the West Bank and Jerusalem. Finally, it will cause a great deal of damage in a multitude of levels to more than 250,000 Palestinians living in more than 70 towns, villages and refugee camps.

The separation wall will re-configure the remaining Palestinian lands into three separate-and-isolated ghettos that include the following:

An eastern ghetto in the Jordan Valley which constitutes 21.9% of the total area of the West Bank. This area contains 40 Israeli colonies.
A western ghetto that runs along the Green Line constitutes 23.4% of the total Palestinian area
An additional large ghetto which constitutes 54.7% of the total Palestinian area and includes the major Palestinian cities. Such ghetto will be subdivided to 8 smaller areas as the Wall will go inside Palestinian lands as deep as 6 to 8 kilometers to ensure the annexation of the colony of Ariel into Israel.

The idea of the Wall is an idea thought of, designed and implemented by both the Likud and Labor parties. It is an aggressive, expansionist and pre-emptive war that aims at forcing a one-sided solution that is not based on the decisions of international legitimacy and that does not take into consideration any past agreements with the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

The Wall in Jerusalem: A Practical Implementation of the “Greater Jerusalem” Israeli Scheme:

As stated above, Jerusalem is a major dilemma in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As such, the delay of any discussion in its regard in the Madrid and Oslo Agreements was considered to be a strategic error due to Jerusalem’s spiritual, religious, historical and geographical importance to Palestinians.

Preventing Palestinian Jerusalemites from using 86% of their lands, building more than 16 illegal Israeli colonies and tens of mini-colonies creating in the process a large Jewish contingency of 200,000 settlers in the city, in addition to declaring Jerusalem to be the "eternal capital of the State of Israel," all this was not enough for Israeli policy makers. The establishment of the separation Wall in the city of Jerusalem came to ensure the total and final annexation of the city in a one-sided Israeli action that is U.S-supported.

The practical launching of the Wall in Jerusalem began as a result of a Military Order issued on 15/8/2003 that called for the establishment of "a security barrier in northern Jerusalem in accordance with the Emergency Laws issued in 1949." This Order depended, also, on a testimony issued by Yussi Segal, head officer of the so-called Absentee Property Guardian, on 19/6/2003 in which he declared northern Jerusalem to be "State Lands."

The separation Wall separates Jerusalem from its immediate environs in the West Bank:

Israeli occupation forces are almost done with establishing the northern section of the separation Wall which was started on 22/8/2002. This section started next to Beitonia Camp and reached as far east as Rafat and Kufr Aqab. This section of the Wall is about 8 kilometers in length and between 30 to 100 meters wide and it devoured 500 dunums of agricultural lands in addition to about 300 dunums that are considered inaccessible to Palestinian owners. Other towns affected by the Wall in northern Jerusalem include Rafat, Al Masyoun, Kufr Aqab, Qalandia, Al Ram in addition to Khillat Al Sheikh. It is, also, believed that the establishment of the Wall will make the lives of more than 20,000 Palestinian Jerusalemites who carry the blue ID cards even harder as Israeli laws will force them to move out of the area due to the lack of services despite the fact that they pay all type of taxes to the Municipality and the different apparatuses of the occupation.

The Wall has devoured 75% of the lands of the village of Rafat as it surrounded it from three directions; east, west and south. In the near past more than 300 dunums of land were expropriated to open a by-pass road between Rafat and Qalandia in the south and Ramallah in the north. Moreover, 800 dunums were also expropriated from the villages' lands located to the east and south of the Bietonia detention camp. All told, Rafat is left with nothing but 329 dunums out of an original area of 4583 dunums. As a result of a wave of expropriation orders, more than 650 Roman olive trees were uprooted and usually re-planted in Israeli colonies.

As for Qalandia, the Wall will annex its airport to Jerusalem Municipality which is a violation of the Oslo Agreement as it stated that the Qalandia Airport is to be under Palestinian control. Moreover, the Israeli checkpoint at the entrance of the Qalandia Camp will be turned into an official border crossing point. Steps have already been taken to implement this transformation as electronic gates were installed in August 2003 which led to tighter Israeli control to and from Ramallah and its immediate environs.

The separation Wall Devours 7000 Dunums of the Villages of Northwestren Jerusalem;

On the 29^th of June 2003 Palestinian residents of the above-mentioned villages knew in an indirect and unofficial way that their lands were declared "State Lands." They came to face this reality when they saw signs pinned on their lands by Mikha, the Israeli Land official in Biet El. These signs, essentially, prevented land owners from accessing their legally-owned lands as they were posted in Khirbat Umm Al Lahem, Beit Iksa and Beit Sureek.

The manner in which the residents discovered this new reality was through an ad from the so-called Israeli Civil Administration declairting that the area of the confiscated lands is 1,628 dunums while the letter issued by the Palestinian activities in that area (Qatanna, Biet Sureek, Biet Anan, Beddo, Khirbat Umm Al Lahem, Biet Iksa and Al Qabeeba) dated on the 1^st of July 2003 stated that the actual confiscated area totals 7,000 dunums.

On the ground, Israeli forces took the following concrete steps in preparation for the Wall:

· It issued demolishing orders for the houses of Mr. Abdul Hadi Qindeel of Beit Sureek and another demolishing order for the family of Zayed of Beit Iksa. Moreover, seven such orders where issued for houses in the village of Qattana (please refer back to a study issued by the Land Research Center titled "House Demolishing in the Village of Qatanna – Jerusalem", Nov.2003). In addition, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of Israeli patrols in the threatened villages as Israeli engineers surveyed the area and put HF marks and numbers from the village of Beit Anan all the way to the village of Beit Iksa.

· It placed marks around 300 dunums belonging to the village of Beit Anan despite the fact that these lands are officially registered in the name of their owners who hold official deeds for the land. The pretext used by the Israelis in this case was that the borders of the targeted lands lie within the 1952 Truce Line.

· It uprooted and cut thousands of trees throughout the years in preparation for the Wall. The number of olive trees uprooted exceeds 50,000 trees and tens of thousands of fruit-bearing trees. It is worth mentioning that these forces in 1985 uprooted all the olive trees in Umm Al Lahem and re-planted them in the colonies of Nattaf and Radar.

· It scanned and photographed all houses located close to the 1952 Truce Line in the village of Beit Sureek. Moreover, it issued a house demolishing order for a house in the village despite the fact that it is built inside a B-classified area according to a Palestinian licenses. In addition to that, Israel has expropriated 2500 dunums from the village in the past and annexed it to the colony of Motza under the pretext it laid in the No Man's Zone. An additional 500 dunums were expropriated and annexed to the colony of Radar despite the fact that its original owners used to plant it. Israeli forces prevented the owners from accessing the lands as it wrote on signs pinned there "Land of the State of Israel. Do Not Enter."

· An objection on behalf of the residents and village councils were submitted to the so-called Civil Administration through the lawyer Mohammad Dahla claiming that Israeli measures are based on the illegal Emergency Laws of 1949 due to the absence of the state of war. Israeli officers in Beit Eil did their best to put obstacles in the face of this objection. A final response is still pending.

Israeli Goals Behind such Actions:

· Cutting off the land tongue (in the form of the village of Khillat Al Lahem) which extends inside of the Green Line, or at least to control its security.

· Realizing the dream of connecting the colony of Mibsert (established on lands expropriated from the Palestinian village of Qaloonia), the colony of Ramot (established on lands expropriated from the Palestinians villages of Lifta, Beit Iksa and Beit Hanina), the village of Nabi Sameul and West Jerusalem. The LRC suspects that this is one of Israels' goals as all the mentioned villages are located on the border with the Green Line.

· Reducing the area of the villages to about one-seventh of its original area.

Finally, it is expected that Israel will establish an alleyway through the villages of Beit Liqia, Deir Bezeia', Khirbatha and Beit Siera as to cut off any possible traffic from these villages to the colonies of Givat Ze'ev and Ramot.

"I Lived and Will Die in this Land Without Giving Up One Ounce of it"

The strategic location of these border villages (Beit Sureek, Beit Nuba, Imwas and Khirbat Umm Al Lahem) has made them a constant target for Israeli expansionist policies.

In 1986 a group of Israeli Border Police accompanied by the Green Patrols uprooted hundreds of olive trees owned by the now-85-year-old Mr. Yousef Mustafa Al Faqeeh. Instead of giving up to this attempt, Mr. Al Faqeeh replanted small olive trees instead of those uprooted with the help of peace activists. Yet, the Border Police patrols came back and uprooted them and took a number of these activists to jail. Mr. Al Faqeeh was not ready to give up as of yet as he went to court through hiring the lawyer Jonathan Kottab. As usual, the role of the court was to add legitimacy to the policies of the occupation as it declared that the land of Al Faqeeh became a part of the State of Israel after the 1967 War. As such, this land was confiscated and turned over to be administered by the Absentee Property Guardian which, in turn, submitted the land to the Israeli Land Authority. The Authority, then, declared the confiscated lands as a Green Area in which no building in it is allowed and the owners of the land are not allowed to enter it despite the fact that they have ownership deeds.

That was not the end of the tale as Israel re-attacked the olive groves of Mr. Al Faqeeh over and again between the years 1994 and 1996. The total number of uprooted olive trees is about 1800 located in two different sites west of Khirbat Umm Al Lahim. Mr. Al Faqeeh commented on the decision of the court and the settlers' attacks against his lands by saying:

“ Lived and Will Die in this Land Without Giving Up One Ounce of it"

Mr. Khaled Al Faqeeh, one of the sons of Mr. Yousef Al Faqeeh, inherited the love of the land and how to take good care of it from his dad. He said that:

“ We planted olive shrubberies instead of those uprooted. Border Police patrols came and uprooted it again and took us to court for entering the land – our land- under the pretext that it is Israeli lands. That is despite the fact that our house is built on part of the land. I remember once that the Israeli Army confiscated my ID Card for two months for entering my land. A couple of days ago Israelis came to the village and put signs at its entrance which made the 400 residents of the village extremely mad. What we have left is our house and one dunum of land surrounding it. This is the case with the rest of the villagers here”.

It is worth mentioning that the village of Umm Al Lahem pays its taxes on regular basis despite the fact that there are no water or sewage networks. The electricity reached the villages only last year as Israeli police confiscated lands and sheep grazing over it and turned the residents of the village into temporary workers in Israeli markets.