Israel's 'Berlin Wall' may lead to massacres
Israeli bulldozers flattened ground Sunday for an electronic fence that is planned to run the entire length of the West Bank -- a disputed project said to be aimed at protecting Israelis from Palestinian bombers. The Jakarta Post contributor Santi W.E. Soekanto talked to Almuzammil Yusuf, director of the Jakarta- based Center for Middle East Studies (COMES) and deputy secretary-general of the Indonesian Committee for Palestinian Solidarity (KISP), on the issue.
Question: The fence eventually will stretch 215 miles, which is the full length of the "Green Line" -- the Israeli border before Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. What are the demographical consequences of the building of the wall?
Answer: As a concept, the building of the fence is not novel to the Israelis -- it does, however, run counter to their concept of "Great Israel" -- which defines their territory as covering the whole Palestinian land. The establishment of this fence is disputed and some, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, have objected to it because it implies that the West Bank and Gaza Strip now belong to the Palestinians.
It is the Israeli's ideology that "this whole land is ours" but reality tells them that their intelligence and military forces are unable to protect them from the Palestinian bombers -- I would not call them "suicide bombers" but "martyr bombers". The building of that fence is a pragmatic step supported by the majority of Israelis -- even the hardliners of Likud.
The fence, however, also represents a defeat to the Israelis -- they are taking this step because of the overwhelming bomber attacks. The Palestinians are, on the other hand, winning a psy- war because no matter how great an oppression they are facing, they still continue their resistance. It is true that the fence would to some extent cause extra difficulty for the Palestinian bombers to operate.
The number of Palestinian bombers is actually bigger than those reported in the media. In fact, the Israeli Defense Force launches arrests of potential and actual bombers every night -- only the actual explosions, however, make the headlines. Israeli military chief Saoul Mouhfaz has described how every night his men arrest suspected bombers.
But the Palestinian fighters have stated that they are not afraid of dying. Their fear is to get arrested and killed before they can carry out their missions. There is in fact a very long queue of Palestinians wishing to become bombers. This is what Israel is afraid of -- they've got nuclear power, Apaches, F16, tanks and are in the process of purchasing 110 fighters. They only come second after North Korea in the military-civilian ratio, namely 1 to 33. They've also got the support of the United States behind them -- and yet the Palestinian "martyr bombers" now frightens them.
One proof is in the number of Jerusalem residents that keeps dwindling over years. Why? Because of the great number of Israelis there have opted to abandon Israel and flee somewhere else.
Q: In a 1982 interview, Sharon stated that the "bonus" of Lebanese war would be that the whole world would hate all Jews forcing them "to come home, fast, to install thick steel doors, to build a strong fence, to have submachine guns positioned at every corner of their fence here and to fight like devils against anyone who dares to make a sound in this region."
A: It is not happening quite like that, is it? Instead, more and more Israelis are abandoning Jerusalem. So, this fence is really a representation of their deepest fear. They are building this because their fear (of the bomber attacks) has reached its peak.
Q: Palestinians maintain the fence will take West Bank land they want for a state. Israelis fear the temporary "security fence" will evolve into a permanent border with a future Palestinian state. If that happened, many of the 200,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank would be left on the Palestinian side. What do you think?
A: It is true that the biggest risk that entails the building of the security fence is the fate of the Jewish settlers. But the Israeli forces in those settlements are really strong. They are actually well fortressed enclaves of settlers that Palestinians find difficult to penetrate. They have checkpoints just about everywhere -- so much that Palestinians wishing to avoid those posts would have to climb mountainous areas to reach their destination.
This "pragmatic step" however, would be followed by more massacres and more oppression of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This looks very much like the Berlin Wall -- where people can be electrocuted and shot at easily.
Q: Sharon once described the killing of 500 Arabs as a "tiny massacre" and asked if that could even be called a massacre. What kind of violence are you referring to?
A: The ideology of Zionism is massacre. Remember that how former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir once remarked that the saddest morning for her would be one when a Palestinian baby was born. The Israelis are people who believe that they are a nation without land who came to a land without a nation. This belief justifies massacres.
In fact, a June 2001 edition of the Jane's Foreign Report revealed a planned major offensive of the Israeli Defense Force -- a planned deployment of 30,000 troops with a projected death toll of 3 percent in the Israeli side, and a projected death toll of 40,000 Palestinians. The plan was somehow botched.
Q: What is the possibility of Israeli acting out that reported plan, when the whole world can now watch something as it is taking place and has the means to respond quickly?
A: Look at Jenin. More than 500 Palestinians were killed in a short time -- children being mutilated, shot, and run through by tractors. Remember the extent of violations in Jenin. What is really unfortunate is the fact that the United Nations, anyone of this world, can't visit Jenin when Sharon says no.
Q: You fear the security fence would be a prelude to more massacres, despite the dispute over it. How soon do you think that could happen?
A: Sharon's policies are ones that are strong in timing. Every chance he's got, he would massacre Palestinians. These could be "tiny", or major such as what happened in Jenin. He takes advantages of momentums of great importance.
When the Sept. 11 attacks on Washington and New York took place, when the whole world was watching the U.S., he went and launched killings of Palestinians. No one paid any attention to what he was doing then.
As for the dispute, the most that it could cause would be a snap election -- the way leadership succession has always been done in Israel. The Israelis might think that Sharon has failed to give them safety, so they could proceed and elect some "softer" leaders like Shimon Peres. And when they are tired of such soft leaders, they would go out and vote for someone like Sharon again.