MIDEAST: Across the Fence, Both Sides Are Right

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Peter Hirschberg

JERUSALEM, Sep 2 2003 (IPS) - An army jeep meanders along a dirt road next to a fence that scythes through the olive groves in the wadi down below, forming a brown snake-like scar on the landscape. This is the controversial separation fence being built by Israel between itself and the West Bank.

Standing at Kibbutz Metzer inside Israel, and looking down into the wadi at the West Bank village of Kafin on the other side of the fence, the arguments Palestinians make against the separation fence, and those offered by Israelis in favour, both seem compelling.

For the residents of Kafin, the fence represents the loss of livelihood. They have been cut off from almost half of the olive trees they harvest, and which are now on the Israeli side of the fence. To get to their trees, they now have to travel three kilometers up the fence to one of the ”agricultural gates” Israel is building for Palestinian farmers cut off from their land. They hope that the soldiers who man the gates will actually be there to open them.

They then have to walk another three kilometers back down the other side of the fence to reach the groves that only months ago were a few metres walk from their homes.

Last year, a Palestinian from the West Bank city of Tul Karm walked into Kibbutz Metzer with a gun and shot dead five people, including a mother and her two children as she tried to shield them in the bedroom of their home. If the separation fence, which is ultimately meant to run along the entire 365 km border between Israel and the West Bank had been in place at the time, the attacker almost certainly would not have reached Metzer.

In the eyes of many Israelis, the attack at a kibbutz whose members are among the country’s most zealous advocates of Jewish-Arab coexistence, was confirmation that peace with the Palestinians is unattainable for now. The only remaining option, they say, is to build a big fence to keep the gunmen and the suicide bombers out.

”The fence is a very efficient way to block suicide bombers,” says a former high-ranking official in the Israeli defence establishment who is taking a group of diplomats and reporters on a tour of the fence. ”There is a much more primitive fence around Gaza and not a single attack has emanated from there during the Intifadah.”

So far, some 120 kilometres of fence has been built along the northern section of the West Bank, at a cost of 10 million shekels (2.25 million dollars) per kilometre. Many of the Jewish settlements built since Israel conquered the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war will remain on the eastern side of the fence, in the territories. This is one of the main reasons the army will continue to operate on both sides of the fence.

The former security official, who prefers not to be named, says the section of the fence that has been built is already proving effective. Palestinian militants trying to infiltrate Israel, he says, have had to move further south to areas where there is still no fence.

Up close, the fence is imposing. The entire separation barrier covers a 50-metre wide swathe of land. On each side, at the outer limits, there are two rolls of barbed wire fencing. On the West Bank side there is a deep ditch to stop militants from driving explosive-laden vehicles up to the fence and detonating them.

There is also a patrol road and a strip of land for detecting footprints. In the middle is the main fence, fitted with sensitive electronic sensors that alert soldiers in control rooms if pressure is applied to one of its thin strands. Watchtowers are also being built along the fence, and cameras will be placed in particularly sensitive areas.

Construction of the fence, however, is being held up as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon finds himself sandwiched between conflicting political pressures. Instead of running along the border between Israel and the West Bank, the planned route of the fence has crept eastward, deeper and deeper into Palestinian territory. This is largely because of demands by Jewish settlers living in the occupied territories that they be included on the Israeli side of the fence.

But after hearing Palestinian criticism of the fence several weeks ago – they say it is gobbling up West Bank land on which they hope to build a future state – President George Bush called the barrier ”a problem.”

Caught between U.S. criticism, settler demands, and the desire of a majority of Israelis for the fence go up as quickly as possible, Sharon appears to have unofficially put construction on hold as he dithers over the route of the fence.

One Israeli newspaper recently quoted military officials who likened the situation in which only a part of the fence is being built, to constructing one-third of a dam in order to prevent a flood.

But is the fence really a security panacea as Israeli security experts contend? Once fenced in, what guarantee is there that Palestinian militants in the West Bank, unable to infiltrate Israel, will not adopt the tactics of their comrades in Gaza, and begin firing makeshift rockets into Israel? Such a move that could be much more deadly since the West Bank is located close to the most densely populated areas in Israel.

The former defence official argues that 600 of the 800 Israelis killed since the start of the Intifadah ”have died in suicide bomb attacks, while not a single Israeli has been killed by the dozens of rockets that have been fired from Gaza into Israel.”

The fence, he argues, could even help the peace process. It will reduce the numbers of attacks, he says, making for an improved security climate which in turn will allow for progress on the diplomatic front.

”One bombing is enough to destroy an agreement,” he says. ”When there’s an attack the Israeli public becomes more hardline, the military responds to the attack, and you have an escalating situation.” But there are others who believe the fence itself is making the situation worse.