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Isabel Maxwell consults for Apax Partners, Israel, and is a member of the Board of Directors of BackWeb Technologies. She is a member of the Board of Governors of the Peres Center for Peace & of the Board of the American Friends of the Soroka Medical Center of the Negev.
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By Isabel Maxwell
February 22, 2004
For a long time now I have been trying to arrange a tour of the infamous "Fence." I finally got my wish.
Back in the early '60s, the long-dead zany American wife of brilliant British Nobel Laureate Sir Robert Robinson used to drawl to my brothers and sisters and I, young children at the time, on her infrequent visits to our home near London with her husband, "Pud"(!): "Awwww, don't ya know? Da Feet went over Da Fence before De Tail!" We never could fathom why she said that. Now, forty years later, I may have found out.
DEFEAT of hopes and dreams, for Israelis and Jews who dreamed of Eretz Israel, stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. Defeat for the Palestinians with their hopes and dreams of the land of Palestine stretching from, yes too, the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. Defeat of dreams and so much hard, hard work for co-existence and peace with each other, sharing the same land peacefully and in dignity, a land without true borders but a land of two equal peoples with equal individual and collective rights.
DEFENSE of Israel against the countries of the Arab world over 55 years since her inception as an independent nation, defensive action that led to 36 years of occupation and settlement of Palestinian lands in contravention of United Nations Resolutions. Actions which spiraled into repeated acts of expansion and often violent, murderous reaction on the part of Palestinians defending "their land" which have ultimately in Israel produced a desperate desire for separation and relief from the suicide bombings that have shattered their society repeatedly over the past three years in particular.
DETAILS of its planned route were available to the public before building commenced, and they show it snaking around Israeli settlements deep inside Palestinian territory. Palestinian and peace groups protested that the route would have enormous negative impact on the civilian population. And now, the reality of it is upon everyone, being erected, foot by painful foot.
It is an "Anti-Terrorism Fence" for the Israelis; an "Apartheid Wall" for the Palestinians. Every day more of "it" goes up, mostly as chain-link fence bristling with electronic listening and detection devices but also as an unceremonious and yes, ugly, very high concrete slab wall. I hear now the Israelis are planning to paint it in pastoral pastels.
My tour of the Fence starts near the 1949 armistice demarcation (the "Green Line") north of Tel Aviv, goes by the Palestinian city Kalkilya, and then back round Jerusalem to the Palestinian neighborhood of Abu Dis.
To the Israel Defense Forces, the reasons for the fence are blindingly simple now. As Brigadier General Eival Gilady, one of our hosts for the tour, stressed, the goal of the fence is to make it as difficult as possible for any would-be terrorist to succeed in getting through to kill Israelis with his/her murderous payload. Period.
Gilady is adamant that since the Palestinian Authority "either cannot or will not for whatever reason, deliver what is necessary to fight terrorism", Israel is utterly entitled to defend herself with such a fence/wall to minimize and dramatically reduce terrorism. Only once this has occurred, he expects, "the overall level of friction for both populations will reduce and there will be the necessary environment to move forward politically."
I learned much anecdotal information from this short tour -- for instance, that Kalkilya now is "clean" of terrorist activity, which has had to move to areas where the fence has not been built. I hear that common criminal acts in Kalkilya have also gone down -- a strange, un-intended bonus for civility, even if never publicly acknowledged. I saw the graffiti on the wall in Abu Dis as our vehicle sped past: "Sharon -- I did it My Way."
The papers are full of analysis and commentary of all kinds about the ramifications of the fence internally and externally. And such articles inevitably include discussion and opinion on the settlements -- the biggest single issue to opposition to the building of the fence. To the Palestinians, the fence confirms Israel's plan to keep settlements in place. Pronouncements by Israeli Minister Ehud Olmert and others that most West Bank settlements will stay, gives me a chilly feeling that the Palestinians are right about this.
Despite the IDF's strong case that the fence is purely anti-terrorist in nature and is "NOT a border", the fence has crucial psychological significance for many Israelis with whom I talk. My friends do not like the fence, but finally, they want it. They want some kind of a border. The fence is creating facts on the ground, if not "good neighbors," a practical if very imperfect way to begin separating from a neighbor many Israelis fear and hate - a fear and hatred that is, alas, reciprocated on the Palestinian side.
Both the Palestinian Authority and Israel have within their midst incipient dangers of civil wars, one with Hamas and the other with its Settlers. The handling of these most difficult elements will decide the fate of Israel and the PA to live alongside each other. The voice of the moderates, such as those of the Geneva Accords, The Peoples' Choice and One Voice, grassroots movements that are growing signs of the desire for peace in both populations, deserve to be heard, not ignored.
The people of Israel deserve to be protected by their government and given security as a country after more than 50 years. They are not going anywhere.
But neither are the Palestinians. They have legitimate aspirations for a viable state of their own. Anything less cannot suffice. The glaring facts of continued occupation led to continued violation of personal and collective civil rights. Yet their horrible and self-defeating strategy of suicide bombing gave birth to the fence.
I ask myself what would have happened if the IDF had actually built the fence further back into Israeli territory, dominating from Israeli hills instead of plowing forward into Palestinian territory. There is still the opportunity to move the fence all kinds of ways for as the Israelis say, it is not a border but merely defensive in nature. If Sharon is betting that the Americans will help pay for the resettlement of Gaza, how much more they should be willing to pay for the fence to be moved back to or beyond the Green Line?!
As one who is struggling to understand all the ramifications and stormy history of this beautiful but so troubled land, I realize that I too have no easy answers. I am still struggling.
I went for a wonderful long walk along the beach this morning and found many beautiful stones. I drove to the Israeli settlement city of Ariel this afternoon. I have been invited to tour Palestinian Kalkilya 'from the inside' as soon as "arrangements can be made." And I will go there too.
The phone rings. It's my son from America -- "Hey mom, how are things?" How are they, indeed?! I hope that someday I will be able to answer him in a sentence, not twelve hundred words.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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