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PROFILE: SECURITY BARRIER BEING CONSTRUCTED BY ISRAEL DISRUPTS THE LIVES OF THOUSANDS OF PALESTINIANS
All Things Considered: September 3, 2003
Mideast Wall Part II
ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
MELISSA BLOCK, host:
And I'm Melissa Block.
An elaborate barrier that Israel says enhances the security of its six million citizens is imposing hardship on the daily life of thousands of Palestinians. The intricate path of ditches, trenches, fencing and 26-foot-high concrete walls rolls across the occupied West Bank. It divides farmers from their fields and Palestinian villages from each other. Large chunks of arable land have been taken over, and local businesses are suffering.
SIEGEL: The barrier project has sparked objections that Israel is grabbing land and undermining a future Palestinian state. Yesterday, the first segment in a four-part series examined the barrier from the Israeli side. Today NPR's Julie McCarthy reports on the impact on the Palestinians. She went to the town of Kal Qalqilya, the most seriously affected in the West Bank.
SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC
JULIE McCARTHY reporting:
The mayor of Kal Qalqilya takes the wheel of the municipality's white van and heads west to the Israeli-constructed cordon of metal, concrete and razor wire that encircles the entire city of 41,000.
Mayor MAROUF ZAHRAN (Kal Qalqilya): We are driving to the wall, we are in the many streets of the town, and we are just 500 meters from this wall, which is going all around the town.
McCARTHY: Mayor Marouf Zahran, who frequently takes visitors to this new physical form of division between Israelis and Palestinians, comes to a stop beside a thick wall over two stories high.
Mayor ZAHRAN: And now every 300 meters there is a watchtower. And you know, it's like a prison; it's not more than a prison.
McCARTHY: This wall, already painted with graffiti demanding an end to the separation, stretches nearly two miles. On the other side is Israel. This western side of the city is the only one that actually borders Israel. Yet the wall joins up miles of electronic fencing that ring the other three sides of Kal Qalqilya--to the north, east and south. The mayor says Israel's circle of steel and concrete has separated 4,500 farmers from their land, relatives from one another, and this agricultural city from a third of its wells. The mayor eyes a farmer standing at a crossing controlled by soldiers, hoping to get to his land on the other side of the barrier.
Mayor ZAHRAN: You know, this farmer is waiting here; it's closed. He has to wait for three hours, four hours, until they--unless they come and they allow him to cross. So they ...(unintelligible) he's calling for a soldier; no one is answering him.
McCARTHY: In the shadow of the wall further down, another farmer stoops over his grapes and newly planted palm trees and says three acres of apple orchards on the other side are lost to him for good. The 73-year-old farmer--who does not want his name used--bristles when asked if he could understand Israelis wanting to wall out suicide bombers who have infiltrated Israel from Kal Qalqilya.
Unidentified Farmer: (Through Translator) Fine, fine. Why you are building the wall in my land? Build it in your land.
McCARTHY: The path of construction only roughly follows the international Green Line--the border between Israel and the territory it seized in the 1967 war and has occupied since. At many points the fortified fence, that costs over $2 1/2 million per mile, juts eastward into the occupied Palestinian territory. The looping trajectory envelops a half a dozen Jewish settlements in the area, placing them on the Israeli side of the barrier. Fenced-in Kal Qalqilya raises questions about a future Palestinian state made up of isolated pockets--or some say ghettos. Mayor Zahran says encircling Kal Qalqilya also undermines Israel's own future because, he says, the enclosure is certain to strengthen already growing public support in the town for parties such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, determined foes of Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Mayor ZAHRAN: You have to put a policy how to make this ...(unintelligible). But what happened by Sharon, he is putting a policy--how to make this city strong. By this wall, by making this separation, no communication between people, we lost the trust and we lost respect and we lost dignity. If you lose these three principles, you are moved or you are pushed to be more extremist. You are pushed by Sharon policy.
McCARTHY: A worsening economy is deepening resentment. The barrier surrounding Kal Qalqilya has sealed all but one entrance into and out of the city. The manned, military gateway has disrupted the flow of goods and services and trapped merchants and their products inside. Kal Qalqilya's close proximity to Israel, once an economic asset, is now a liability. The encirclement of the city comes on top of a three-year-old Palestinian uprising that has closed 600 businesses, doubled the unemployment rate and put 80 percent of the city's families on assistance from aid agencies, including the UN and Red Cross.
SOUNDBITE OF CONSTRUCTION
McCARTHY: At the Almanar(ph) car-seat cover plant annual sales have plummeted from $1 million to $150,000. The original factory in the city's center burned down last summer, and this temporary plant on the edge of town houses production today. Manager Hassan Zaide(ph) says the land for a new factory was seized to build the barrier that now encloses Kal Qalqilya. Zaide says he lost the chance to regain his livelihood.
Mr. HASSAN ZAIDE (Almanar): And we lost the hope to make peace. We like to make peace; we like peace. Who didn't like peace?
SOUNDBITE OF LIVESTOCK
McCARTHY: In the nearby West Bank village of Jayuce(ph), farmers say they want peace too, but they hunker down in their fields and makeshift tents as if preparing for a drawn-out siege. Such is the fear and defiance the massive barrier has brought to this village of 3,000. The fortified fence slices through this agricultural breadbasket putting villagers on one side and their land on the other. Fifty-seven-year-old Abu Sofeean(ph) camps with his wife in a cardboard shack under the canopy of what farmers here call a thousand-star hotel. He says Israeli soldiers routinely deny farmers access to their land, and so he plans to stay on his permanently.
Mr. ABU SOFEEAN: (Foreign language spoken)
McCARTHY: `Israelis are greedy for the land,' he says, `and greedy for the water.' He says security is just an excuse and adds, `We will never leave.'
Mr. SOFEEAN: (Foreign language spoken)
McCARTHY: Hydrologist Abdul Lateef Haleed(ph) says this is some of the most fertile land in the West Bank, producing 37 million pounds of produce a year. Many of the region's greenhouses in the path of the barrier were dismantled or abandoned as the project rolled across the West Bank. Haleed says the fence trajectory has also put the West Bank's richest ground water resources on the other side of the barrier. He predicts the ritual summer water rationing, which affects blocks of the village, will get worse.
Mr. ABDUL LATEEF HALEED (Hydrologist): All our ground water resource is now located behind the wall. The houses in the community here receive water two hours every three days. Two hours every three days. This is not natural obstruction; this is a human obstruction.
McCARTHY: Israel says it has laid pipes near the barrier fence to improve water delivery. A Defense Ministry spokesman said, quote, "The Palestinians have not lost one cubic centimeter of water." He says the army is also working on better access to farmland.
SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC
McCARTHY: But the damage goes far beyond that. UN agencies say more than 2,800 acres of private land have been seized in the project to date. Environmental NGOs say more than 100,000 trees have been destroyed. Israel says it replanted over 63,000. Hydrologist Abdul Lateef Haleed says pollution from the construction is choking what remains in this valley. Below in the distance the earth movers continue their work. Haleed stands on the balcony of the Jayuce municipality and points to the shroud of dust that has turned green olive groves chalky white.
Mr. HALEED: Many, many of these trees are 500 years old. When you go there, if you touch the tree, all your body will be covered with dust. This has destroyed totally the olives itself.
McCARTHY: Israel calls one of the biggest civil engineering projects in its history, with its guard towers and pyramids of razor wire, a fence. Whatever the name, it's been etched on the landscape and in the minds of Palestinians. Many say what Israel has erected is not a security barrier but a barrier to peace. Again, the mayor of Kal Qalqilya.
Mayor ZAHRAN: We say that, `What about walls they are constructing here?' If we are not healthy, if we are not feeling secured, we are not secured. They have to care so much about our lives, they have to care so much about our economy, they have to care so much about education. If we are not educated, if we are not civilized, we will affect them. We will act against them. So they are harming us, but they are harming themselves also. So they have to think of it.
McCARTHY: Kal Qalqilya Mayor Marouf Zahran. Julie McCarthy, NPR News.
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