CPTnet
February 9, 2004
HEBRON: The Annexation fence and Ezekiel 13:10-11

By Jerry Levin

Israel's leaders may call it a "separation" or "security" fence.

In reality is a gerry-meandering "annexation" fence; and in other places it
is a twenty-five foot high "annexation" concrete barrier/wall that is rarely
being constructed along the boundary established in 1949. Instead, it is
slicing as many as twenty kilometers into the West Bank. In fact, the
annexation process has proceeded at such an insatiable pace that the map of
the "annexation" fence/wall's route on Israel's official web site
(www.securityfence.mod.gov.il/Pages/ENG/route.htm) shows that almost 15%
(about 210,000 acres) of West Bank land is being swallowed up unilaterally.

Such a process, of course, is not conducive toward negotiating into
existence side-by-side viable states.

To cite just two of the most glaring negative effects of the "annexation"
fence/wall, a recent UN report estimates that 400,000 Palestinians living on
its West Bank side will need to cross through a limited number of
checkpoints and gates to get to their farms, jobs, and shopping centers
because those are now on the other side, inside Israel proper. Despite
Israeli assurances that the checkpoints and gates will be open according to
reliable schedules, this critically needed access, for the most part, is
nonexistent.

In addition an even more severe form of statelessness has been created for
113,000 Palestinians who now find themselves cut off from the West Bank by
the "annexation" wall/fence. This is affecting not just individual families
living in the country but entire Palestinian villages lying totally
inside the newly annexed Israeli territory.

The Israeli Army has literally caged these villages
in--ghetto-like--by surrounding them with secondary fences and walls. The
military has created a condition, which, while similar to that of the
Israeli settlements in the West Bank is still menacingly different. Israeli
settlements inside the West Bank have been surrounded for decades by
protective fences designed to keep Palestinians out. The Israeli Army is
putting up fences around these former West Bank villages to keep the
Palestinians living there in.

So, I suppose one could say that what we have is a "separation" fence or
wall, if one thinks of it in terms of quickening the process of separating
Palestinians from their land. And I suppose one could say that what we have
is also a "security" fence or wall, if one thinks in terms of the Israeli
Army tucking lands they recently tore from the West Bank securely on
Israel's side of the "annexation" wall/fence.

Will this annexation process succeed over the long run?

Perhaps the answer can be found in the historic wisdom of Ezekiel 13:10-11.
"In truth, because they have led my people, saying "Peace," when there is no
peace, and because when the people build a wall, these prophets smear
whitewash on it. Say to those who smear whitewash on it that it shall fall."