Israel's circuitous wall puts chokehold on Palestinians

[Violet_Crumble]

Here is a map that tells a story few Americans know.

Americans have seen photos of Israel's wall in the West Bank. It looks much like the old Berlin Wall, which was built to keep people in. Israel's wall is supposed to keep terrorists out. It is labeled a defensive wall.

Consider the map, a detail of the border along the West Bank. The border is the dotted line. Israel's wall is the black line.

Americans will recognize its shape: It is gerrymandering, the redrawing of boundaries for political gain. Israel drew this new line and, as you might expect, every square inch of the gain is Israel's. The wall does not loop into Israeli territory to favor Palestinian towns. Here it loops into Palestinian territory to favor two Israeli settlements, Zufin and Alfe Menashe. These land claims act as pincers, squeezing Qalqilya into a congested enclave.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002133322_rams29.html

[pelsar]

1. actually....

it you want to really get into it...the wall surrounds several cities effectivly putting them in a prison setting.....

on the good side, it can and will be torn down.

of course in the meantime it makes life extremly hard for the palestenians...but then again it stops the suicide bombers....so it saves israeli lives.

of course it makes life even more bitter for the palestenains who then have the will to make more suicide bombers....

so much for the black and white of it all.....

welcome back violet!

[King Mongo]

4. Walls and crime prevention

Well, the police must chase the criminals so that they will not practice crime.

Collective punishment is a terrible crime and the police must also stop this crime.

Thus, the Israeli police must arrest or kill those individuals who harm civilians while the international community must arrest or kill the Israeli government so that it does not practice collective punishment.

Crime should not go unpunished.


Nevertheless, if we look at the situation from the eyes of an economist rather than the perspective of a cop, then one can only wonder why US tax dollars were wasted on a wall that must be torn down along those parts that do not follow the green line.

[Violet_Crumble]

14. Thanks, Pelsar...

It's good to be back :)

My take on the barrier/fence/wall is basically that I'd have no gripes with it if it had been built along the Green Line. I believe Israel has every right to build a wall in its own territory for security reasons, but I've read that Ariel Sharon totally opposed a barrier along the Green Line when it was first brought up by a previous government. I suspect he's still as strongly opposed to that now as he was then, which accounts for the barrier deviating into the West Bank the way it does....

Happy new year to you and mostly everyone here!

Cheers

Violet...

[eyl]

2. Where's the map, exactly?

[King Mongo]

3. Map

http://gush-shalom.org/thewall/
http://www.ccmep.org/2003_articles/Palestine/050903_the_wall.htm

The nice things about maps is that they make it easy to see why apartheid will eventually be replaced with citizenship and equality for everyone.

[eyl]

7. Those maps are from May 2003

The route has been changed several times since then (e.g., the whole eastern section was dropped, IIRC).

[QueerJustice]

5. It may be an inconveniant (temporary )....

wall ... but it has been proven to save lives.....

[King Mongo]

6. The idea of justice

The idea of justice is not to protect civilians of one cultural group by harming the civilians of another cultural group.

My understanding of justice means protecting all civilians, not just those based on race, culture or religion.

Activities of harming civilians in one group for the purpose of protecting civilians in another group is why both sides are fairly labelled as practicing "terrorism".

A wall should be build to protect the people from the evil in their governments.

[pelsar]

8. our govt...

but the israeli government elected by us, represent us. by calling our govt evil, you are calling us evil as well

that kind of demonization is not acceptable to us...at least not any more, and in someplace we dont have to accept it.

[ashiebr]

9. Ahhhhhhhh..........so now we have it...

...criticising the israeli government is now criticising Israel itself and, according to those who think like you, all Israelis.

Thus with one bound, the Israeli government is exempt from criticism.

Does that also make Israeli critics of the government traitors?

And, factually, the government of Israel at the moment is clearly not the government you elected.

[pelsar]

18. the use of the word EVIL

sorry ashiebr. critisim of the Israeli govt does not equat it with being evil.

the use of the word "evil" has as I understand it a very specific use as saying the "whole 'body" is inherently wrong. The Nazis were an evil regime, where its main existance was to terrorize all of europe and the world...other examples?....all the bad guys in comic books perhaps.

more important, its one of those "words" used to demonize. Strange, i cant recall in any of our wars us actually calling the arabs "evil".

I also dont believe that the present demcratic govts are actually "evil". Where I disagree with much of their policies, saying that the people within those govt are looking to do harm to the world on purpose (that is as how I see the word defined), i find hard to accept.
Nor is the present israeli govt attempting to wipe out the palestenians (that would make the govt/people evil....)

When dealing with a conflict, as in the middle east, we have a whole host of words which trigger our collective memories and asssociations, be they arab or jew, be they real or not. And though it may sound like "homework" understanding which words mean what in this context is part of the overall knowledge.

I'll give an interesting example. The settlers are now starting a campaign showing that their removal from the westbank is tantamount to the nazis removing the jews. (jew free). We all know that israel creates a howl (and rightly so) when the IDF is compared to the nazis. Well their campaign has backfired, their use of holocaust icons, has stirred such a reaction (in essence they are comparing the Israeli govt to nazis), that they are now "backpeddling".

Certain icons/words simply have meanings beyond what the writer may know of. In this case calling the israeli govt/the IDF evil, is something many of us take quite personally, and since both are a part of me, I dont agree that " i am evil"...nor do I believe that calling me that, has anything to do with reality.

I think whats missing here is the fact that israel is a very small country, our identification with the govt (whether we agree with them or not) remains strong. Part of it is the fact that our various parties are usually part of the actual govt, part of it is that we feel we under a constant threat from outside.

but just to add an interesting note: when polled about respective professions our knesset members are consistency on the bottom of the list. Meaning its not our best and brightest that represent us in our govt (which is probably a good reason we are in the position we are.....). Actually except for a few exceptions they are usually a bunch of morons-and feel free to quote me....

[Forkboy]

10. BS Pelsar

THE ISREALI GOVERNMENT IS EVIL...not all Israelis.

THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT IS EVIL....not all Americans.

See how easy it is too seperate.

Your post is scary,and illustrates how some help evil survive in this world.

[King Mongo]

11. Unacceptable activities

Not everyone votes for the Likud party or other such radical groups. Furthermore, many Palestinians in Eretz Israel are not allowed to vote.

What is unacceptable is the fact that walls and cities are being built in Judea, Samaria and Gaza while the people living there are not allowed to vote or experience equality.

[QueerJustice]

12. The government is a government of...

National unity......the current government of Israel is more representative of the people of Israel ,and Am Yisrael too ,than almost any other democratic government...its not a pure Likud government.....Indeed the vice /deputy PM to be is a Nobel PEACE prize winner.....

[King Mongo]

17. Labor party

I respect Shimon Peres.

The Labor party has also supported the building of cities in Gaza, Judea and Samaria without giving the people living there equality and citizenship. It is my understanding that the Labor party now believes in removing its cities from Gaza because it understands that the cities that it build there require the practice of equality and Peres seems to be in favor of a two-state solution. Now that the Labor party is playing a larger role, I hope that they will remove the walls and cities from Judea, Samaria and Gaza or focus on equality for everyone.

[The Magistrate]

13. You May Have Mis-Spoke A Trifle Here, Mr. Pelsar

But your basic point is sound, and it seems to me more has been read into your statement than is necessary to read into it. It is a generally held view that in a democratic polity, what a government does is in some degree the responsibility of the citizenry, in a way it is not in an autocracy, since the citizens of a democracy possess a routine means of altering their government, that is not available to the citizens of an autocracy. It is not hard to see, therefore, why some might seek to reverse that principle, and hold that an excessive criticism or demonization of a democratic government is tantamount to a general disparagement of the citizenry of the country it rules. And just as formula of "hate the sin, not the sinner" so dear to various fundamentalist Christian crusaders against persons who violoate their moral codes is often mouthed insincerely, to state it mildly, it is possible certainly to use the formula "it's only the government being criticized" in an insincere manner.

But it does not seem to me that criticism of the Likud government currently in power in Israel can be conflated into a criticism of all Israelis. That government does a good deal of wrong.

[Violet_Crumble]

15. But the US govt is *evil*...

So's the Australian govt. While the Israeli and Australian govts are garden-variety *evil*, the US govt is the mega-arch-*evil*-villain and team leader of all the other members of the Club of *Evil*. The US govt makes all comic book villains look like small fry...

Does that mean that I'm calling US citizens evil people? Or doing the same for Australians or Israelis? Of course it doesn't. While there may be some level of collective sense of responsibility for what someone's govt does, I think it's really important to remember that each of those govts I mentioned are skilled at lying to their populations and sometimes carrying things out in their names that wasn't even mentioned in the small print when the govt was elected. Even if we were to believe that something like 52 or so percent of the US population were evil (me, I think most of them were just uninformed and stupid), what about that very large minority that didn't vote for the govt of *evil*?

Violet...

[Igel]

19. Terrorism should involve some sort of terror.

I don't like being picky, but if "terrorism", because it has a greater emotional weight, comes to designate any kind of harm done to a group of people, it loses most of its usefulness.

Sort of like "rape", "discrimination", "racism", "fascism", and a bunch of other emotionally charged words--whenever I see them used, I have to figure out exactly what's meant.

[Violet_Crumble]

16. And it's only Israeli lives that matter, right?

Because if I recall things correctly, there's been Palestinian lives lost because of that wall...

Violet...

[Igel]

20. Yes, they have.

There's still a checkpoint to cross, even if they're pregnant women in labor or ambulances.

Yes, it can be viewed as collective punishment; but that's another word that's overused and which has lost much of its meaning.

edited for stupid grammar mistakes