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Mr. Netanyahu, Tear Down This Wall
Nov 10, 2009
On the 20th anniversary of the
fall of the Berlin Wall, Western leaders are full of
self-congratulation. But their paeans to universal freedom ring hollow,
when they bear large responsibility for another wall constricting human
freedom: the apartheid wall dividing the Palestinian West Bank.
Israeli authorities refer to it as a "separation barrier," but
that's misleading. The wall doesn't separate pre-1967 Israel from the
West Bank. If that's all it did, it would be an entirely different
political object. Instead, the wall cuts deep into the Palestinian West
Bank, separating Palestinians from each other and from their land, and
signaling to the Palestinians that Israel intends to annex territory
that Palestinians want for an independent Palestinian state. The fact
that Western countries that support the Israeli government - above all
the United States - say nothing about the West Bank wall signals to
Palestinians that Western support for Palestinian statehood is merely
rhetorical.
Today, AFP reports, Palestinians tore down a chunk of the wall near Ramallah.
AFP notes that 85 percent of the planned wall is inside the
West Bank, and it would leave 9.5 percent of the West Bank and 35,000
West Bank Palestinians between the barrier and the Green Line that
marks the 1967 border with Israel.
The World Court issued a resolution in 2004 calling for those parts
of the barrier that are inside the West Bank to be torn down and for
further construction in the territory to cease. Israel and Western
countries have ignored the World Court resolution.
Two years ago Israel's own High Court ruled against the route of the
wall near the Palestinian village of Bilin, but the Israeli government ignored the ruling of its own highest court.
Today, the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" and the Palestinian Authority are at the brink of collapse, the New York Times reports.
We've reached this point in large measure because of the
unwillingness of the Obama Administration to put real pressure on the
Israeli government to implement past agreements - in particular, to
implement a freeze on the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West
Bank. When the first President Bush demanded a settlement freeze, he
backed up his demand with real pressure - holding up loan guarantees to
Israel. The Obama Administration never indicated that there was any "or
else" associated with its demand for a settlement freeze, leading the
Netanyahu government to conclude that it could just wait the Obama
Administration out - a conclusion that appears to have been borne out
by events.
This would be an especially opportune time for U.S. officials to
indicate that they intend to meaningfully oppose the ongoing
construction of "facts on the ground" that are constricting the lives
of Palestinians in the West Bank and undermining their hopes for
national independence - facts on the ground like the apartheid wall.
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Robert Naiman
Robert Naiman is Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy. Naiman has worked as a policy analyst and researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. He has masters degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Illinois and has studied and worked in the Middle East.
On the 20th anniversary of the
fall of the Berlin Wall, Western leaders are full of
self-congratulation. But their paeans to universal freedom ring hollow,
when they bear large responsibility for another wall constricting human
freedom: the apartheid wall dividing the Palestinian West Bank.
Israeli authorities refer to it as a "separation barrier," but
that's misleading. The wall doesn't separate pre-1967 Israel from the
West Bank. If that's all it did, it would be an entirely different
political object. Instead, the wall cuts deep into the Palestinian West
Bank, separating Palestinians from each other and from their land, and
signaling to the Palestinians that Israel intends to annex territory
that Palestinians want for an independent Palestinian state. The fact
that Western countries that support the Israeli government - above all
the United States - say nothing about the West Bank wall signals to
Palestinians that Western support for Palestinian statehood is merely
rhetorical.
Today, AFP reports, Palestinians tore down a chunk of the wall near Ramallah.
AFP notes that 85 percent of the planned wall is inside the
West Bank, and it would leave 9.5 percent of the West Bank and 35,000
West Bank Palestinians between the barrier and the Green Line that
marks the 1967 border with Israel.
The World Court issued a resolution in 2004 calling for those parts
of the barrier that are inside the West Bank to be torn down and for
further construction in the territory to cease. Israel and Western
countries have ignored the World Court resolution.
Two years ago Israel's own High Court ruled against the route of the
wall near the Palestinian village of Bilin, but the Israeli government ignored the ruling of its own highest court.
Today, the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" and the Palestinian Authority are at the brink of collapse, the New York Times reports.
We've reached this point in large measure because of the
unwillingness of the Obama Administration to put real pressure on the
Israeli government to implement past agreements - in particular, to
implement a freeze on the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West
Bank. When the first President Bush demanded a settlement freeze, he
backed up his demand with real pressure - holding up loan guarantees to
Israel. The Obama Administration never indicated that there was any "or
else" associated with its demand for a settlement freeze, leading the
Netanyahu government to conclude that it could just wait the Obama
Administration out - a conclusion that appears to have been borne out
by events.
This would be an especially opportune time for U.S. officials to
indicate that they intend to meaningfully oppose the ongoing
construction of "facts on the ground" that are constricting the lives
of Palestinians in the West Bank and undermining their hopes for
national independence - facts on the ground like the apartheid wall.
Robert Naiman
Robert Naiman is Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy. Naiman has worked as a policy analyst and researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. He has masters degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Illinois and has studied and worked in the Middle East.
On the 20th anniversary of the
fall of the Berlin Wall, Western leaders are full of
self-congratulation. But their paeans to universal freedom ring hollow,
when they bear large responsibility for another wall constricting human
freedom: the apartheid wall dividing the Palestinian West Bank.
Israeli authorities refer to it as a "separation barrier," but
that's misleading. The wall doesn't separate pre-1967 Israel from the
West Bank. If that's all it did, it would be an entirely different
political object. Instead, the wall cuts deep into the Palestinian West
Bank, separating Palestinians from each other and from their land, and
signaling to the Palestinians that Israel intends to annex territory
that Palestinians want for an independent Palestinian state. The fact
that Western countries that support the Israeli government - above all
the United States - say nothing about the West Bank wall signals to
Palestinians that Western support for Palestinian statehood is merely
rhetorical.
Today, AFP reports, Palestinians tore down a chunk of the wall near Ramallah.
AFP notes that 85 percent of the planned wall is inside the
West Bank, and it would leave 9.5 percent of the West Bank and 35,000
West Bank Palestinians between the barrier and the Green Line that
marks the 1967 border with Israel.
The World Court issued a resolution in 2004 calling for those parts
of the barrier that are inside the West Bank to be torn down and for
further construction in the territory to cease. Israel and Western
countries have ignored the World Court resolution.
Two years ago Israel's own High Court ruled against the route of the
wall near the Palestinian village of Bilin, but the Israeli government ignored the ruling of its own highest court.
Today, the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" and the Palestinian Authority are at the brink of collapse, the New York Times reports.
We've reached this point in large measure because of the
unwillingness of the Obama Administration to put real pressure on the
Israeli government to implement past agreements - in particular, to
implement a freeze on the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West
Bank. When the first President Bush demanded a settlement freeze, he
backed up his demand with real pressure - holding up loan guarantees to
Israel. The Obama Administration never indicated that there was any "or
else" associated with its demand for a settlement freeze, leading the
Netanyahu government to conclude that it could just wait the Obama
Administration out - a conclusion that appears to have been borne out
by events.
This would be an especially opportune time for U.S. officials to
indicate that they intend to meaningfully oppose the ongoing
construction of "facts on the ground" that are constricting the lives
of Palestinians in the West Bank and undermining their hopes for
national independence - facts on the ground like the apartheid wall.
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