[Peace-discuss] Israeli policies

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Remarkably enough, the following will appear in the NY Times tomorrow.
Note particularly the conclusion: "It is misleading to call these Israeli
policies. They are American-Israeli policies -- made possible by
unremitting United States military, economic and diplomatic support of
Israel ...  Any real chance for a political settlement -- and for decent
lives for the people of the region -- depends on the United States."
--CGE]

	February 23, 2004
	OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
	A Wall as a Weapon
	By NOAM CHOMSKY

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- It is a virtual reflex for governments to plead
security concerns when they undertake any controversial action, often as a
pretext for something else. Careful scrutiny is always in order. Israel's
so-called security fence, which is the subject of hearings starting today
at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, is a case in point.

Few would question Israel's right to protect its citizens from terrorist
attacks like the one yesterday, even to build a security wall if that were
an appropriate means. It is also clear where such a wall would be built if
security were the guiding concern: inside Israel, within the
internationally recognized border, the Green Line established after the
1948-49 war. The wall could then be as forbidding as the authorities
chose: patrolled by the army on both sides, heavily mined, impenetrable.
Such a wall would maximize security, and there would be no international
protest or violation of international law.

This observation is well understood. While Britain supports America's
opposition to the Hague hearings, its foreign minister, Jack Straw, has
written that the wall is "unlawful." Another ministry official, who
inspected the "security fence," said it should be on the Green Line or
"indeed on the Israeli side of the line." A British parliamentary
investigative commission also called for the wall to be built on Israeli
land, condemning the barrier as part of a "deliberate" Israeli "strategy
of bringing the population to heel."

What this wall is really doing is taking Palestinian lands. It is also --
as the Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling has described Israel's war of
"politicide" against the Palestinians -- helping turn Palestinian
communities into dungeons, next to which the bantustans of South Africa
look like symbols of freedom, sovereignty and self-determination.

Even before construction of the barrier was under way, the United Nations
estimated that Israeli barriers, infrastructure projects and settlements
had created 50 disconnected Palestinian pockets in the West Bank. As the
design of the wall was coming into view, the World Bank estimated that it
might isolate 250,000 to 300,000 Palestinians, more than 10 percent of the
population, and that it might effectively annex up to 10 percent of West
Bank land. And when the government of Ariel Sharon finally published its
proposed map, it became clear the the wall would cut the West Bank into 16
isolated enclaves, confined to just 42 percent of the West Bank land that
Mr. Sharon had previously said could be ceded to a Palestinian state.

The wall has already claimed some of the most fertile lands of the West
Bank. And, crucially, it extends Israel's control of critical water
resources, which Israel and its settlers can appropriate as they choose,
while the indigenous population often lacks water for drinking.

Palestinians in the seam between the wall and the Green Line will be
permitted to apply for the right to live in their own homes; Israelis
automatically have the right to use these lands. "Hiding behind security
rationales and the seemingly neutral bureaucratic language of military
orders is the gateway for expulsion," the Israeli journalist Amira Hass
wrote in the daily Haaretz. "Drop by drop, unseen, not so many that it
would be noticed internationally and shock public opinion." The same is
true of the regular killings, terror and daily brutality and humiliation
of the past 35 years of harsh occupation, while land and resources have
been taken for settlers enticed by ample subsidies.

It also seems likely that Israel will transfer to the occupied West Bank
the 7,500 settlers it said this month it would remove from the Gaza Strip.
These Israelis now enjoy ample land and fresh water, while one million
Palestinians barely survive, their meager water supplies virtually
unusable. Gaza is a cage, and as the city of Rafah in the south is
systematically demolished, residents may be blocked from any contact with
Egypt and blockaded from the sea.

It is misleading to call these Israeli policies. They are American-Israeli
policies -- made possible by unremitting United States military, economic
and diplomatic support of Israel. This has been true since 1971 when, with
American support, Israel rejected a full peace offer from Egypt,
preferring expansion to security. In 1976, the United States vetoed a
Security Council resolution calling for a two-state settlement in accord
with an overwhelming international consensus. The two-state proposal has
the support of a majority of Americans today, and could be enacted
immediately if Washington wanted to do so.

At most, the Hague hearings will end in an advisory ruling that the wall
is illegal. It will change nothing. Any real chance for a political
settlement -- and for decent lives for the people of the region -- depends
on the United States.

Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, is the author of "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for
Global Dominance."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company