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Al-Aqsa 1
ContentsVOLUME 9 NUMBER 1 AUTUMN 2006
SHAWWAL 1427
Editorial 3
The Muslim Fascination with Jerusalem:The Case of the Sufis 5SHAMSUDDIN AL-KILANI
The Israeli/Palestinian Struggle Over Water Resources:
Gender, Ideology and Resources 11SARAH IRVING
My War with Zionism 19ALAN HART
Israel Seperation Wall: Apartheid, IllicitLigtimate Self-Defence 25JAMES BARRETT
BOOK REVIEW 35
Jerusalem: Constructing the Study of Islamic Art, Vol. IVby Oleg GrabarRVIEWED BY ABU HUZAYFA
Dining with Terrorists: Meetings with theWorld’s most wanted Militants
by Phil ReesRVIEWED BY DR. ANTHONY MCROY
The West Bank Wall: Unmaking Palestineby Ray DolphinREVIEWED BY DR. MARIA HOLT
Politicide – Ariel Sharon’s War against the Palestinianby Barugh KimmerlingREVIEWED BY HASAN LOONAT
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2 Al-Aqsa
Al-Aqsa 3
2
E D I T O R I A L
Surely they who recite the Book of Allah and keep
up prayer and spend out of what We have given
them secretly and openly, hope for a gain which will
not perish. That He may pay them back fully their rewards
and give them more out of His grace: surely He is Forgiving,
Multiplier of rewards.
May Allahs blessing be upon all His Prophets from
Adam to His final Messenger, Muhammad (saw).
At a time when violence in the Middle East has
intensified, the Zionist-Anglo-American Alliance
has made no secrets of its aims of destabilising and
destroying the Hamas led Palestinian government
in favour of a more moderate and pliable Fatah
leadership. This ideal has translated itself on the
ground in the form of severe oppression and Israeli
tyranny against the Palestinians on a scale that
possibly outweighs the worst of the intifada.
The Israeli led drive to ‘starve’ the Palestinian
Authority of both finances and international ties
has persisted for the majority of 2006. It was
intended to compel the Palestinian President to call
a new election but this has thus far failed to
materialise. While the pressures brought to bear
on the democratically elected Hamas are
unprecedented, their popular support and refusal
to compromise their rights continue. However, in
the face of continuing economic pressures and
international boycott, the change and reform
promised by Hamas has not materialised. In its
stead, Palestinians are facing fresh crisis’ every day
and a new level of paralysis in their daily lives. The
only factor that seems to make this endurable is
the decades of suffering and poverty that has
preceded it and which these people had to bear and
thus have become hardened by.
Through the conflict with Lebanon, while eyes
were turned away, hundreds of Palestinians died in
Gaza due to the Israeli incursions, the majority of
which went unreported. Testimonies of greater
brutality across the West Bank were also reported;
telling a story of millions of besieged and
devastated people. The impact of sanctions against
Hamas on the Palestinian economy is unrivalled by
any other stage of this long conflict, due to total
Anglo-American complicity. The Alliance will
maintain this condition until either one of two
scenarios transpires: Hamas surrenders Palestinian
rights and recognize Israel; or the Palestinians call
another election in which the Zionist-Anglo-
American cast the deciding vote.
Unsurprisingly, it is little reported that Hamas
has indeed renounced violence and has maintained
a 20 month cease fire despite repeated Israeli
offensives in Gaza and the deaths of hundreds of
Palestinians. Hamas’ continued truce unfortunately
seems to have been a green card for Israel to commit
more and more atrocities, no doubt with the aim of
provoking a violent response from Palestinians.
It seems clear that in the short term at least,
Hamas are here to stay. The latest political
manoeuvre has been to promote the formation of a
new government of national unity, bringing Hamas
into coalition with Mahmoud Abass’ Fatah. This is
likely to be accepted by the Palestinians, and will
pull the rug from under the feet of the Zionist-
Anglo-American Alliance as it would create a
government that most of the international
community would resume ties with; most notably
Europe. This would cause a split in the international
approach to the Palestinian Government, and thus
provide it with some viability.
In any event, while the politicians continue to
play their games, it is clear that, once again, the
civilian population is bearing the brunt through yet
more misery and devastation.
�
4 Al-Aqsa
A YOUTH EXCHANGE PROGRAMME WITH
AN NAJAH NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, NABLUS, PALESTINE
Al-Aqsa 5
Shamsuddin Al-Kilani*
The Muslim Fascination with Jerusalem:
The Case of the Sufis (Part I)
I asked
About Muhammed within your wallsI begged newsOf Jesus in your streets
O Jerusalem!Swiftest path between heaven and earth!
Nizar Qabbani
From the early beginnings of Sufism,devotees have been passionately drawn to
Jerusalem; the city has held a profoundlysanctified place in the Islamic social imaginationand consciousness, and this has led Sufis to travel
there to seek blessing from its sites and veneratedsymbols. While Sufis have not been alone in thislonging for Jerusalem, they have bestowed special
traits on the longing. This is reflected in thedistinctive way they have conceived the sense ofholiness embodied in the Muslim faith vis-à-vis
Jerusalem. This is also evident from the devotionshown in their ribats (hospices) to the Muslim holyplaces in Jerusalem, particularly to the Holy Rock
from which it is assumed the Prophet Muhammad(peace be on him) ascended to the UppermostLote-tree. These Sufis, in fact, gave new
connotations to the panoply of Muslim sacredgeography that has Jerusalem at its heart,enhancing the sacred Islamic implications of the
city and adding creative meanings and symbolsto these according to their particular aim ofrevelation and connection through sublimation.
Thus they saw in Jerusalem, in the Aqsa Mosque,and especially in the Holy Rock, the causewayconnecting them to heaven.
Quite apart from these special connotationsand attendant practices of the Sufis, there hasbeen a general background of intimations shared
by all Muslims. This background has comprisedpart of their Islamic religious consciousness,leading them all to yearn for Jerusalem and seek
closeness to it so as to derive blessings from itsholy sites. This is why the Companions of theProphet, the Successors and other pious Muslims,
and indeed the Muslim rank and file as well,
have come one after the other to visitJerusalem. Yaqut al-Hamawi (d. 626/1229)has provided a graphic illustration of the place
Jerusalem occupies in Muslim religiousconsciousness. “The word muqaddas”, he says,“means ‘purified’ ... the meaning of ‘glorify
Your Holy Name’ is that we purify ourselvesfor You ... Hence comes the name bayt al-
maqdis, that is, the purified home, through
which people purify themselves of their sins”1
The merits of Jerusalem are many, andsome of these should be mentioned here for
the purpose of general information. Accordingto Muqatil ibn Sulayman (d. 150/767), amajor scholar in the field of Qur’anic exegesis:
“When Almighty God says: ‘But We deliveredhim [i.e., Abraham] and [his nephew] Lût [anddirected them] to the land which We have
blessed for all beings’ (21: 71), He meansJerusalem. When He says: ‘And We made aCovenant with you on the right side of Mount
[Sinai]’ . . . (20: 80), He means Jerusalem.When He says: ‘And We made the son of Maryand his mother as a sign: We gave them both
shelter and high ground, affording rest andsecurity, and furnished with water springs’(23:50), it is Jerusalem. When He says: ‘Glory
to (God) Who did take His servant for anocturnal journey from the Sacred Mosqueto the Farthest Mosque’ (17: 1), it is Jerusalem.
When He says: ‘... in houses which God hathpermitted to be raised, and His name to becommemorated therein; therein glorifying
Him, in the mornings and the evenings aremen whom neither commerce nor traffickingdiverts from the remembrance of God ...’ (24:
36), it means the Sacred House, that is,Jerusalem”.
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be on
him) is quoted as saying that he who performsa prayer in Jerusalem his reward is multipliedby 1,000.2 Among Jerusalem’s merit is that
* SHAMSUDDIN AL-KILANI is the co-Author of al-Tariq Ila’l-Quds
Thus they saw in
Jerusalem, in the
Aqsa Mosque, and
especially in the
Holy Rock, the
causeway
connecting them to
heaven.
6 Al-Aqsa
God raised Jesus, the son of Mary, to heavenfrom this city. The first spot from which the
Deluge receded was the Rock of Jerusalem. It isalso in Jerusalem that the Trumpet will be blownon the Day of Resurrection and on the Rock of
Jerusalem the Caller will proclaim the Day ofjudgement.3
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him)
is quoted as saying: “Mounts are saddled to threeplaces only: this Mosque of mine [in Madinah],the Sacred Mosque of Makkah and the Mosque
of Jerusalem”.4 One single prayer in Jerusalemis better rewarded than a thousand prayersperformed elsewhere.5 It is also the nearest point
on this earth to heaven.6 The Antichrist will beforbidden to enter it and Gog and Magog willperish before they are able set their feet in it.7
Ibrahim immigrated to it, and it is in this city thatpeople will be gathered together and resurrected.8
Jesus, when still an infant in the cradle, also talked
to people in this very city of Jerusalem.9 Inreligious teachings, Paradise will be led toJerusalem on the Day of Resurrection, and it will
be from Jerusalem that people will go either toheaven or to hell.10 Ka’b (d. 50/670) is quoted assaying that all the prophets (peace be on them)
visited Jerusalem out of veneration.11 ‘Abd Allahibn ‘Abbas (d. 68/687), a Companion of theProphet reportedly said: “The Sacred House [i.e.
Jerusalem] was built by prophets, and wasinhabited by prophets. There is no space, even assmall as a span of the hand, but has been a site
of prayer for a prophet or an angel”.12
The famous Companion Abû Dharr al-Ghifari(d. 32/653), and one of the greatest of the
Prophet’s Companions, a paragon of pietisticausterity and moral excellence, is reported to havesaid: “I asked the Prophet Muhammad (peace be
on him): ‘Which was the first mosque to be builton earth?’ The Prophet answered: ‘The SacredMosque of Makkah’. Then I asked him: ‘Which
was the next?’ Thereupon he replied: ‘The Mosqueof Jerusalem, with a period of forty years betweenthem’ ’’.13 Ka’b, another Companion of the
Prophet, said: “Whoever visits the Sacred House[Jerusalem] out of pure longing, will go to Paradise.Whoever prays two prostrations will come out as
much cleansed of his sins as on the day his motherbore him, and he will be granted a thankful heartand a tongue that eloquently remembers and
glorifies God”.14
This panoply of sacred symbols, especially theNight Journey and the Ascension (al-Isra’ and al-
Mi’raj), seized the imagination of Sufis, linkingthe monotheistic faith from the Prophet Ibrahim(peace be on him) till the Prophet Muhammad
(peace be on him). From this panoply we learnhow Muhammad (peace be on him) was the heirand seal of all prophets when he led them all in
prayer near the Rock and on the floor of the
Sacred Mosque. This journey also forged asacred bond between Makkah, Madinah and
Jerusalem, extending, at its furthest, mostdistant extent to the Uppermost Lote-tree nearthe Throne of God. The journey has, besides,
bestowed a vast and sanctified significance onthe site of the Aqsa Mosque, from whichopened the road that connects with heaven.
This miracle of the Ascension has sincedazzled the imagination of Muslim Sufis,leading them, one after the other, to visit
Jerusalem to seek blessings and to try toenvisage, albeit at second hand, that momentof Ascension in which the Prophet
Muhammad (peace be on him) acted as anintermediary between the terrestrial and theheavenly.
The significance of the Night Journey andAscension has led Muslims to join the oldersymbol of holy locale to the newer orientation
towards the righteous, holy personality,whereby it has become possible for man andlocale to find the relation between the heavenly
and the terrestrial.15 This found a gracious anddignified embodiment after the constructionof the Dome of the Rock in the Umayyad
period. It rose high above the ground to shadethe Rock from which the Prophet (peace beon him) had ascended to heaven and drew
Muslim Sufis to take up residence in its vicinity.They tried to see how Muhammad (peace beon him) had lost his identity in the state of
elation in the Divine Presence, seeing in this“annihilation of self ” a prelude to that“enduring survival” wherein humanity attains
an exalted realization of self. The Sufis,therefore, hastened to Jerusalem, taking uptheir residence in the colonnaded porticos
around the pavement, meditating on thesymbols of the Rock from which the Prophet(peace be upon him) had commenced his
Ascension. 16 Many other Sufis wished tospend the remaining period of their lives inJerusalem and to be buried there, since they
considered Jerusalem to be the earthly pointclosest to heaven. Jerusalem was also regardedas the venue for the resurrection of the dead.17
PIETISTIC AUSTERITY AND SUFISM
Sufism has deep roots in pietistic austerity
which characterized the lives of manyCompanions of the Prophet especially thoseknown as Ashab al-Suffah (“people of the
ledge”), who confined themselves to worshipat a ledge built for them by the Prophet (peacebe on him) in his Mosque. Here they waited
constantly to be enlisted for service in theProphet’s armies. Some were required to teach
Many other Sufis
wished to spend the
remaining period of
their lives in
Jerusalem and to be
buried there, since
they considered
Jerusalem to be the
earthly point
closest to heaven.
Al-Aqsa 7
Islam in different regions. As teachers of the Qur’anthey were an elite among the believers. The same
austerity characterized the lives of many Successors(al-Tabi‘ûn) as it had characterized the lives of theOrthodox Caliphs, the muezzin Bilal (d. 20/641),
Abû Dharr al-Ghifari; Suhayb (d. 38/659), AbûHurayrah [‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Sakhr] (d. 59/679),‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Umar (d. 74/693), ‘Ammar ibn
Yasir (d. 37/657), ‘Asim ibn Thabit al-Ansari (d.4/625), those who were party to the ‘Aqabah Pactof allegiance to the Prophet (peace be on him),
Shaddad ibn Aws (d. 58/677), Tamim al-Dari (d.40/660), and other Successors such as Sufyan al-Thawri (d. 161/778), Ibrahim ibn Ad-ham (d. 162/
779) and Dha’l Nan al-Misri (d. 245/859).18
The trend towards a pietistic austerity whichbegan in the first century AH was marked by a
cathartic moral attitude as embodied by AbûDharr al-Ghifari. In the second half of thatcentury, it developed a stance of protest on the
part of the a number of pious people in Kûfah,Basrah and Egypt against the affluence of theUmayyad court.19 By the end of the second
century AH, overly austere behaviour came toprovide a nucleus for a mystical interpretivemethodology in the hands of such renowned
figures as Rabi‘ah al-’Adawiyyah (d. 185/801) andMa‘rûf al-Karkhi (d. 200/815). We are nowcrossing the threshold of Sufism: Rabi‘ah al-
’Adawiyyah sets out the concept of “divine love”,while al-Karkhi introduces the concept of “tasteknowledge”, leading in turn to God.20
Sufis, who subsequently combined theirmysticism with philosophy, are unanimous thatthe aim common to all of them is union (ittihad),
annihilation of self (fana’) or solitude throughsublimation (al-tawahhud bi ‘l-ta‘ali). Sufismbranched out into a number of directions, of
which the most important were the Baghdadschool with al-Muhasibi (d. 243/857), al-Junayd(d. 297/910), al-Saqati (d. 253/867); the Nisapûr
school with al Qassar (d. 271/884); and the Syrianand Egyptian school with Dhû ‘l-Nûn al-Misribefore the philosophy of illuminism (ishraq) and
inspiration (ilham) reached its peak with the threefamous Sufis, al-Hallaj (d. 309/922), al-Suhrawardi (d. 587/1191) and Ibn al-’Arabi (d.
638/I240).21 Concurrently and subsequently, thisfurther branched off into orders (tariqahs) eachwith its own rituals, hospices and cloisters.
THE COMPANIONS AND ‘PEOPLE OF
THE LEDGE’ IN JERUSALEM
The Muslim conquerors’ attachment to
Jerusalem - and a great many of them werecompanions of the Prophet - was manifestedmost openly when they stood directly outside its
walls, placing their full trust in the sacredconnotations expressed by their religion. They
vied with one another for the honour ofsharing in its conquest, so much so that, when
they stood up for prayer outside the gates ofJerusalems:
The call [to prayer] was made and people
performed the dawn prayer. Yazid ibn Abi
Sufyan recited the following verse ...: ‘O mypeople! enter that holy land which God hath
assigned to you and turn not back ...’ (5: 21).The other field commanders are said to haverecited the self-same Qur’anic verse as if they
had been in absolute concordance with eachother.22
During the conquest of Jerusalem and
after it many Companions and Successors,including pietists and “People of the Ledge”,who are regarded as the harbingers of Sufism,
went there one after the other. Books ofIslamic history, along with books written onfada’il al-Quds (Merits of Jerusalem), took
pains to mention the Companions andSuccessors who visited Jerusalem or diedthere, seeking the blessings of visiting it or
being buried in it.Foremost among those visiting Jerusalem
was the second Caliph, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab
(d. 23/644), who went there at the time ofthe conquest and granted the famousCovenant to Sophronius, the Patriarch of
Jerusalem, pledging to safeguard the rights ofreligious freedom to the Christians. Abu‘Ubaydah ibn al-Jarrah (d. 18/639) was the
commander of the armies that conqueredJerusalem. He died when he was on his wayto visit it for the second time with the intent
to pray in the Aqsa Mosque, and was buriedto the west of the River Jordan.23 Bilal ibnRabah, the Prophet’s muezzin, visited
Jerusalem and made his first call for prayerafter the Prophet’s death. When it was timefor the midday prayer following the conquest
of the city, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab requestedBilal to call people to prayer.24 Others enteringJerusalem with the Muslim conquerors
included the great general, Khalid ibn al-Walid(d. 21/641) and Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan (d. 18/639). Mu‘awiyah ibn Abi Sufyan (d. 60/680)
also received the oath of allegiance (bay‘ah)as caliph in Jerusalem. Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas(d. 55/675) came to Jerusalem and entered
the state of ihram for pilgrimage. SomeCompanions came with the intent to proceedto hajj. They started with a visit to Jerusalem,
where they entered the state of ihram on wayto the Sacred Mosque of Makkah. They didso in compliance with the following hadith of
the Prophet: “He who begins hajj or umrah
from the Aqsa Mosque to the MakkahMosque will be forgiven his previous sins”.25
Thus ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Umar came to
O my people! enter
that holy land which
God hath assigned
to you and turn not
back ...’ (5: 21). The
other field
commanders are
said to have recited
the self-same
Qur’anic verse as if
they had been in
absolute
concordance with
each other
8 Al-Aqsa
Jerusalem and started his ‘umrah rituals from there.He is said to have come to Jerusalem after the
early morning prayer and to have sat in theMosque. When the sun rose, he too rose to praytogether with his companions, and then they made
for their mounts. ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Abbas also visitedJerusalem, starting his pilgrimage to Makkah fromthere in winter.26 Safiyyah bint Huyayy (d. 50/
670), a wife of the Prophet Muhammad (peacebe on him), came to Jerusalem, climbed themountain called Tur Zeita and prayed there.
Standing on the mountainside, she said: “Fromhere people will part company from one anotheron the Day of judgement and will go either to
Paradise or to Hell”.27
Foremost among the pietists and “People ofthe Ledge” eager to visit Jerusalem were Abû
Dharr al-Ghifari, Mu‘adh ibn Jabal al-Ansari (d.c. 25/645), ‘Abd Allah ibn Salam (d. 43/663),Abû Hurayrah, who was the greatest memoriser
of the Prophet’s traditions, ‘Ubadah ibn al-Samit(d. 35/655), Shaddad ibn Aws, and Tamim al-Dari. Abû Dharr al-Ghifari stayed in Jerusalem
for some time in devotional kneeling andprostration. He became famous for his forcefulpleadings to the rich that they share their wealth
with the poor. Another famous visitor was Mu‘adhibn Jabal al-Ansari. He came to Jerusalem andspent three days there in fasting and prayer. On
his departure he turned to his companions andsaid: “As for your previous sins, you have beenforgiven. Reflect now on what you will do with
the remaining part of your lives”. Abû Hurayrah,who was with the conquerors when Jerusalem wastaken, went there again, and it is who narrated
the hadith: “Mounts are saddled for three mosquesonly”.28
A number of Companions known for their
pietistic attitude resided in Jerusalem until theydied and were buried there. An example was‘Ubadah ibn al-Samit al-Ansari who was a dignitary
and a witness of the First and Second Pacts of‘Aqabah. He was also present in the Battle ofBadr and all the other battles led by the Prophet
(peace be on him). ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab appointedhim qadi and preacher in Greater Syria. He wasalso made qadi of Palestine and then of
Jerusalem. It is said that he was seen weepingover the eastern wall of Jerusalem. When askedwhy he did so, he replied: “The Prophet
Muhammad (peace be on him) told us that it isfrom here that he had a vision of Hell”.29 ‘Ubadahresided in Jerusalem and died in Ramlah, but was
buried in, Jerusalem.Shaddad ibn Aws al-Ansari, a Companion of
the Prophet, also resided in Jerusalem until he
died, and was buried there. It was he who narratedthe Prophet Muhammad’s saying to the effectthat al-Sham [Greater Syria] would be conquered
and so would Jerusalem. Shaddad’s grave is said
to be in the Rahmah Graveyard. Othersinterred in Jerusalem include: Wathilah ibn al-
Asqa’ (d. 83/702); Dhû ‘1-Isba‘ al-Tamimi andthe Yamani prince of Persian origin, Fayrûzal-Daylami (d. 53/673)30
THE SUCCESSORS
Jerusalem was frequented by many piousSuccessors who came to Jerusalem to obtain
its blessings. The famous faqih, ‘Abd al-Rahmanal-Awza‘i (d. 157/774), said: “Qubaysah ibnDhu’ayb (d. 86/705), ‘Abd Allah ibn Muhayriz
(d. c. 100/719) and Hani’ ibn Kulthûm (d. c.100/719) would [occasionally] come fromRamlah to Jerusalem for the performance of
ritual prayers. They were devout worshipperswith austere habits. The famous scholar, Raja’ibn Haywah (d. 92/710) said about him: “If
the people of Madinah are proud of theirdevout worshipper Ibn ‘Umar, we are proudof our own worshipper, Ibn Muhayriz.
Indeed, his being amongst us was a securityfor the people of the earth”. Hani’, on theother hand, declined - obviously out of
pietistic considerations - the governorship ofPalestine when it was offered to him.31
Jerusalem was also visited by Muharib ibn
Dithar (d. 116/734), the jurist and judge ofKûfah. It was said about him that he surpassedother in three fields: inordinate performance
of ritual prayer, long silence and liberality.32
Another visitor was the pious servant,Muhammad ibn Wasi‘ (d. 127/744) from
Basrah, who is quoted as saying: “Beware ofthe world; and if you are not able to do so,look upon the world as a thorn, taking good
care where you set your feet”.33
SUFIS OF THE SECOND/EIGHTH
CENTURY
According to historians of Sufism, its mostprominent figures were Rabi‘ah al-‘Adawiyyah,Sufyan al-Thawri, al-Layth ibn Sa’d (d. 175/
791), al-Fadayl ibn ‘Iyad (d. 178/803), Ibrahimibn Ad-ham, Yahya ibn Dinar and Sa’id ibnal-Musayyab (d. 94/713). To these they add
the name of Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi‘i(d. 204/819) because he kept company withSufis for seventeen years. They also add the
name of al-Awza‘i for the same reason.34 Acareful examination of the lives of those wholaid the foundations of Sufism reveals that
most of them were eager to visit Jerusalemto earn the blessings of the various sacredsites there.
We shall now proceed to note the extentof the most prominent Sufis’ devotion toJerusalem.
On his departure he
turned to his
companions and
said: “As for your
previous sins, you
have been forgiven.
Reflect now on
what you will do
with the remaining
part of your lives
Al-Aqsa 9
Rabi‘ah al-‘Adawiyyah (d.c. 185/801)
According to Ibn Khallikan, she was one ofthe most distinguished figures of her time. Others
say that she came from a poor family. When shegrew up and her father died while she was still inthe prime of her youth, a drought struck Basrah,
and Rabi‘ah, together with her three sisters,wandered about aimlessly. She was captured by aman who sold her to another man, and the latter
overburdened her with work.35 Al-‘Attar gives thefollowing account of how Rabi‘ah’s spiritualmessage descended on her. One day when she saw
a man casting evil looks at her she fled along theroad to Syria. This is meaningful enough if weremember that Jerusalem lies in the heart of Syria,
“in the land whose precincts We have blessed”(Qur’an 17: 1). On this road she had an intimatesilent communication with God. She asked: “Are
You pleased with me?” Thereupon she heard avoice saying: “Do not be grieved! For on the Dayof judgement the favoured people in Heaven will
look up to you and envy you”. She came back toher master’s home and spent the night in prayers.
When her master saw how pious she was, he
set her free and she dedicated herself to worshipand devotion, spending her life in continuouspenitence.36 Rabi‘ah made for Jerusalem where
she spent the rest of her life and died. Her graveis just outside Jerusalem at the top of the TurZeita mountain. Her grave was well known during
the time of Shihab al-Din al-Maqdisi and wasvisited by people.37 According to Badawi, theauthor of Shahidat al-‘Ishq al-Ilahi, her grave is
on the peak of Tur Zeita to the east of Jerusalem,near the place from where Jesus (peace be onhim) ascended to heaven; it is to the south, in a
cloister to which people come down by means ofa staircase.38 The famous historian and traditionistIbn al-Jawzi (d. 597/1201) says that Rabi‘ah died
in 135/752, while others consider her to havedied much after that.39 It is said that when shewas about to die, a large number of pious people
thronged around her. Then she said: “Get up andgo out. Leave the road open to the messengersof Almighty God” (meaning, God’s angels). They
all left, and, as they shut the door, they heard thevoice of Rabi‘ah reciting the shahadah, testifyingthat “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad
is the Apostle of Allah”. After she had breathedher last, these devout people gathered again,bathed her and recited the funeral prayer over
her, then rested her in her final abode.40
Ibrahim ibn Ad-ham (d. 162/799)
He came from Balkh and was of royal lineage.Once he went out hunting and an invisible caller
wakened him from his heedlessness. Thereuponhe abandoned his way of life, based on addiction
to worldly pleasures, and espoused a life offrugality and piety, refusing to take any of his
rich and rightful inheritance. He made his wayto Makkah accompanied by Sufyan al--Thawriand al-Fudayl ibn ‘Iyad and then went on to
Syria.41
It is said that Ibrahim asked some religiousscholars about what was permissible (halal),
and they advised him to go to Syria to knowthese things thoroughly. He went to Tarsûs,and would say: “I have never enjoyed life and
relished livelihood except in Syria. I fled in anattempt to maintain my faith, from one highplace to another, and from mountain to
another mountain, and whoever saw me wouldsay I was obsessed and deluded”.42 Ibrahimended up in Jerusalem, where he slept
habitually beside the Rock.43 One day, whileleaving the city, he passed by a group ofarmed troops, who asked him: “Are you a
slave”? He answered: “Yes”. Then they said:“A runaway”? Once more he replied: “Yes”.Thereupon they had him put in prison. When
people in Jerusalem learned of this, they wentall together to the governor of Tiberias toask for his release. The governor summoned
him and asked him: “Why were youimprisoned”? “Ask the armed troops”, hereplied. They, in turn, said: “You are a runaway
slave”. He said: “True. I am running away frommy sins”. Thereupon he was released.44
Sufyan al-Thawri (d. 161/777)
He was a famous Sufi, celebrated for his
asceticism and piety. He came to the AqsaMasjid where he offered his congregationalprayer. It is said that he came to the Holy Rock
and read the entire Qur’an there. Al-Walid ibnMuslim (d. 195/810) recounts how he metSufyan at the Masjid in Jerusalem. He asked
Sufyan whether he had visited the Dome ofthe Rock. “Yes”, Sufyan replied, “and I readthe entire Qur’an there”.45 When in Jerusalem
he was described as a shaykh who looked as ifhe were burned with fire, being dressed in ablack cloak with a black turban, silent, noble-
looking, with thick hair and looking very sad.When advised to change this dress, it is saidthat he wept and said: “This is very much like
the dress of one bereaved; in this world we aresurely in a state of mourning”?46
Al-Layth ibn Sa‘d (d.175/791)
Al-Maqdisi said of al-Layth that he was
the most learned scholar in Egypt and the peerof Imam Malik (d. 179/795) in erudition. Itwas said that he was so open-handed that no
year of his life ever passed without leavinghim in debt. He went to Jerusalem and during
10 Al-Aqsa
his stay there Caliph al-Mansûr (d. 158/775)visited the city. Upon meeting al-Layth, he told
him: “I admire your strength of mind, and I thankGod Who has created people like you among mysubjects”.47
Thawr ibn Yazid (d. 153/770)
He stayed in Jerusalem and kept companywith a man from a village near the city. This manwould come to Thawr at dawn and perform all
prayers in Jerusalem, then return to his villageafter he had performed the evening prayer. Thisman heard Thawr tell how Khalid ibn Ma‘dan (d.
104/722) recounted to him a hadith which hetraced back to the Prophet (peace be on him):“Anyone who witnesses something that shocks or
terrifies him should say: ‘God is One, and thereis nothing like Him. He is the One and theSubduer’. Anyone who says this will be relieved
of his troubles, even if he were encircled with aniron wall”.48
Muqatil ibn Sulayman (150/767)
He visited Jerusalem and prayed there. He
sat at the southern door of the Holy Rock, wheremany people thronged around him, writing andlistening to what he said.
(Part II in Next Issue)
Notes
1. Shihab al-Din Abu ‘Abd Allah Yagut ibn ‘Abd Allah
al-Hamawi, Mu’jam al-Buldan (Beirut: Dar
Sadir,1977) 5: 166.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Hajj,
Bab Safar al-Mar’ah Ma’ al-Mahram ila al-Hajj wa
Ghayrih.
5. Yaqut Ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Hamawi, Mu‘jam al-Buldan,
5:166.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., 5:166-167.
11. Ibid., 5:167.
12. Ibid.
13. Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Masajid
wa Mawadi’ al-Salah.
14. Yaqut al-Hamawi, Mu‘jam al-Buldan, 5: 167.
15. Karen Armstrong, Jerusalem, trans. Fatimah Nasr
and Muhammad ‘Anani, al-Quds: Madinah Wahidah
wa ‘Aqa’id Thalath (Cairo: Sutnr, 1998), 380.
16. Ibid., 413.
17. Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Muqaddasi
al-Bashshari, Ahsan al-Taqasim fi Ma‘rafat al-Aqalim
(Leiden: Brill, 1906), 166.
18. Muhammad ‘Abdul-Mun’im Khafaj i, Dirasat f i al-
Tasawwuf al-Islami (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qahirah,
n.d.), 74.
19. Karen Armstrong, God and Man, trans., Muhammad
al-Jura (Damascus: 1996), 230. See also Ignaz
Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and
Law, trans., Muhammad Yusuf Musa , al-Aqidah
wa al-Shari ‘ah f i al-Isl a m (Baghdad: Maktabah
al-Muthannah, 1959), 147.
20. Abu ‘1-‘Ula‘Afifi, al-Tasawwuf al-Thawrah al-
Ruhiyyah fi ‘-Islam (Beirut: Dar al-Sha’b, n.d.),
85.
21. Ibid., 89-91.
22. Muhammad ibn ‘Umar al-Waqidi, Futuh al-Sham
(Beirut: Dar al Jil, n.d.), 1: 231.
23. Shihab al-Din Abu Mahmud ibn Tamim al-
Maqdisi, Muthir al-Gharam ila Ziyarat al-Quds
wa al-Sham, ed., Ahmad al-Khutaymi (Beirut:
Dar al Jil, 1994), 299-300.
24. Ahmad ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Azdi, Ta’rikh Futuh al-
Sham, ed., ‘Abd al-Mun’im‘Abd.Allah ‘Amir
(Cairo: Mu’assasah Sajill al-’Arab, 1970), 257.
25. Abu Dawud Sulayman ibn Ash’ath, Sunan Abi
Dawud, Kitab al-Manasik, Bab fi Mawaqit; Diya’
al-Din Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahid al-Maqdisi,
Fada’il Bayt al-Maqdis, ed., Muhammad Muti‘
al-Hafiz (Damascus: Dar al-Fikr, 1985), 88.
26. Mahmud Ibrahim, Fada’il Bayt al-Maqdis
(Kuwait: al-Munazzamah al-‘Arabiyyah li al-
Tarbiyyah wa al-Thaqafah wa al-‘Ulum, 1985),
354.
27. Muhammad Hasan Shurrab, Bayt al-Maqdis wa
al-Masjid al-Aqsa (Damascus: 1994), 174.
28. See Mujir al-Din al-Hanbali, al-Uns al Jalil fi
Ta’rikh al-Quds wa al-Khalil (Aleppo: n.d.), 1:
234-236; Abu Mahmud ibn Tamim al-Maqdisi,
Muthir al-Gharam, 332, 334, 338; and
Muhammad Hasan Shurrab, Bayt al-Maqdis wa
al-Masjid al-Aqsa, 355-56.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. Muhammad Ibrahim, Fada’il Bayt al-Maqdis, 379-
80.
32. Ibid., 379-84.
33. Ibid.
34. Muhammad ‘Abd al-Mun’im Khafaji, Dirasat fi
‘l-Tasawwuf al-Islami, 81.
35. Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr Ibn
Khallikan, Wafayat al-A‘yan, ed., Muhammad
Muhyi ‘1-Din ‘Abd al-Hamid (Cairo: Maktabah
al-Nahdah al-Misriyyah, n.d.), 2:48.
36. Cf. ‘Abd al-Rahman Badawi, Shahidat al-Ishq al-
Ilahi: Rabi’ah al-‘Adawiyyah (Cairo: Maktabah
al-Nahdah al-Misriyyah, n.d.), 12.
37. Al-Maqdisi, Muthir, 350.
38. ‘Abd al-Rahman Badawi, Shahidat al-Ishq al-
Ilahi: Rabi‘ah al- :Adawiyyah, 97.
39. Ahmad ibn Muhammad Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat
al-A’yan, 2: 48.
40. Badawi, Shahidat al-Ishq al-Ilahi, 157
41. Muhammad ibn al-Husayn al-Sulami, Tabaqat
al-Sufiyyah, ed., Nur al-Din Sharibah (Cairo: Dar
al-Kitab al-‘Arabi,1953), 27.
42. Abu al-Fida’ Ibn Kathir, al-Bidayah wa al-
Nihayah (Beirut: Dar al-Ma‘arif, 1966), 10: 136.
43. Ibrahim, Fada’il Bayt al-Maqdis, 393.
44. Ibid., 139.
45. Al-Hanbali, al-Uns al-Jalil, 1: 261.
46. Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn ‘Ali al-Suyuti, Ithaf
al-Akhissa’ bi Fada’il al-Masjid al-Aqsa, ed.,
Ahmad Ramadan Ahmad (Cairo: al-Hay’ah al-
Misriyyah al-‘Ammah li al-Kitab, 1988), 2: 46.
47. Al-Maqdisi, Muthir, 355.
48. Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Suyuti, Ithaf al-
Akhissa bi Fada’il al-Masjid al-Aqsa, 2: 47.
Al-Aqsa 11
The Israeli/Palestinian Struggle Over
Water Resources –
Gender, Ideology and Natural Resources
Sarah Irving*
In the summer of 2004, a day-tour designed
to show foreigners the situation of
Palestinians living in the Jerusalem area took
me through the illegal settlement of Ma’ale
Adumim. Amongst its pristine new homes and
glossy shopping centres were swathes of bright
green lawns and bright flowerbeds, being watered
by drip irrigation and sprinklers which glistened
in the sun. A public swimming pool advertised
activities, and in the gardens of private houses,
bushes and trees were growing.
I had been staying in the comparatively
comfortable, affluent Palestinian town of Beit
Sahour, near Bethlehem in the West Bank.
Although water was freely available, it tasted
unpleasant and we were urged to have quick
showers. Visiting refugee camps I had encountered
houses where running water was available for only
part of some days and sometimes standpipes had
to be used. I also knew that the camps were often
under curfew or military attack, and that going
outside to collect water was not feasible. I had
also read the accounts of Amira Hass, an Israeli
journalist who had lived in Gaza, who described
the brown, rusty, foul liquid which came out
(occasionally) of the taps in Gaza City.
There is a substantial body of academic and
institutional literature on the issues of water
distribution in the West Bank and Gaza, and the
subject was one of the five main areas of
discussion in the doomed Final Status
Negotiations of the Oslo Accords1. Amongst the
Palestine solidarity community, however, water
has been less widely picked up as an issue.
Settlements and the Separation Wall can be seen;
human rights abuses listened to and agonised over.
But the details of aquifers and rainfall can seem
scholastic and dull, and the key significance of
water – for Palestinian survival and in Israeli
strategic considerations – is easily passed over.
Even more commonly discounted is the role of
ideology in the way that water is regarded, and
the differential impact that water appropriation
has on different groups; especially women, within
Palestinian society. I particularly want to focus
on these two aspects of the water issue in
Palestine and Israel, as I believe that
highlighting them adds considerably to
understanding of the way that access to water
has been used as a weapon against the
Palestinian people, and has affected relations
within Palestinian society.
PART 1: THE NORMATIVE
STATUS OF WATER
Israeli Uses of Palestinian Water
Access to Palestinian water was recognised
by the architects of the State of Israel as vital
to their plans. The Zionist leaders, coming
from a rapidly industrialising Europe, aspired
to standards of living which were much more
resource-intensive than those pursued by the
inhabitants of Palestine under the Ottoman
Empire and British Mandate. This included
plans for hydroelectric power generation and
for intensive forms of agriculture that were
already, even in the 1920s, causing dangerous
levels of salinisation of soil around Jewish
farms under the British Mandate2.
In 1946 the American Zionist Association
employed Tennessee Valley Water Authority
engineers, who had been responsible for some
of the biggest water management projects in
the modern world, to present plans for the
diversion of the Jordan River to the Negev3.
The Haganah Museum in Tel Aviv attaches
great significance to water in the founding of
the country and in the military aims of the
‘Founding Fathers,’ and features maps linking
the lines of water control between the Mandate
era Jewish settlements of the 1930s. Just five
years after the establishment of Israel, the UN
intervened to prevent conflict with Syria over
Israel attempts to divert water from part of
the Jordan River in the demilitarised zone
down to the Negev. With this plan foiled, the
National Water Carrier was built between 1959
and 1964, using a network of pipes and tunnels
* SARAH IRVING is a freelance writer with a long history of involvement in the environmental justice, anti-
globalisation and Palestine solidarity movements. She was involved in the International Solidarity Movement in
Palestine in 2001-2 and is a director of Olive Co-operative, which runs tours to Palestine and sells fairly traded
Palestinian products.
water has been
used as a weapon
against the
Palestinian people,
and has affected
relations within
Palestinian society.
12 Al-Aqsa
to draw water from the Sea of Galilee to the
desert South4.
This level of water appropriation was still,
however, insufficient for Israeli usage. The
occupation of the West Bank in 1967 increased
Israel’s accessible water by 50% due to its
occupation of the three West Bank aquifers5. Israel
used Military Orders to enforced control over
Palestinian water. In addition, the Golan Heights,
also occupied by Israel in 1967, increased Israel’s
water supply by giving it control of two Jordan
tributaries; the Banyas and the Yarkon, and
provided a “water tower”6 for the country.
Despite this widespread appropriation of
other countries’ water resources, and the
availability of efficient water-saving technologies,
Israel still massively over-uses water, and has done
so since the 1970s7, aspiring to the lifestyles of
water-rich industrialised nations. Israel takes 40%
of its groundwater and 25% of renewable water
supplies from Palestinian sources; draws heavily
on its own stocks; and still needs to undertake
negotiations with Turkey to buy water capacity
from this and other countries. With a projected
population in Israel of 8 million by 2025, this
desperation for water can only increase. In
addition, Israel is the only country of the Jordan
basin not to have signed up to the UN
Watercourse Convention, which aims to promote
dialogue between countries sharing water
resources8. Solutions to water shortages are the
subject of great interest in Israel – from
desalination plants to the use of wastewater for
agricultural irrigation9 – but it is unlikely that any
of these will be able to meet the kind of increases
in demand that are projected.
While the over-use of water by Israel is the
result of individual habits and a reaction to the
availability of water, I would contend that it is
also influenced by the way that Israeli society
wishes ideologically to see itself and to promote
itself worldwide. This is as a ‘modern,’ ‘Western-
style’ nation with unlimited resources and access
to pastimes such as swimming pools, lush gardens
and keeping expensive cars sparkling clean. An
Israeli elite that has often grown up in European
countries or the USA, or has family links with
these countries, has profited considerably from
its identification as being ‘like’ these countries, in
an international climate where non-whites are
categorised as inferior. It is their success in
maintaining this racist differentiation that has been
so useful to the Israeli state in presenting itself to
the West as rational, victimised and ‘white’, so
that its enemies – Palestinians and the wider Arab
world – are constructed in opposition to this; as
the violent attackers. Western anti-Jewishness has
been overcome by another layer of prejudice,
which Israeli politicians have successfully
manipulated in the international arena to create a
racist stereotype of their opponents. Water is
fundamental to this lifestyle, both for Israelis
themselves and for the experience that Western
visitors to Israel have of a country that is
‘civilised.’
Symbolism And Ideology
My contention about the normative role
of water leads into a discussion of the
symbolism and ideology which surrounds water
in Palestine and Israel. The conflict is ridden
through with emotional, ethnic and religious
significances which further complicate any
notion of ‘rational’ decisions that international
relations scholars might attempt to apply. As
Miriam Lowi, one of the first scholars to
consider the subject of Israeli and Palestinian
water in an international context, pointed out:
“What is more important to understand,
though, is that interests emerge within the
context of a particular belief system and
historical experience. Both the neo-realists and
neo-liberals fail, in general, to take sufficient
account of this. Indeed, national interests and
foreign policy behaviour are responses to
environmental constraints that are normative
and ideational in nature, as well as being
structural and material”10.
For right-wing religious Jews, such as Rabbi
Ariel of the violent exclusivist movement
Gush Emunim, “the real Zionism, the holy
one with profound roots, exists only where
the really religious Jews are living; in the
mountains of Judea and the valleys of
Samaria”11. Both land and water have
profound religious significant, and the racism
which is implicit (and often explicit) in such
religious fervour rejects the validity of any
other ownership of ‘God-given’ natural
resources, and therefore lays religious claim
to water as well as land: “[Gush Emunim]
argue that what appears to be the confiscation
of Arab-owned land for subsequent settlement
by Jews is in reality not an act of stealing but
one of sanctification”12. Thus taking possession
of Palestinian-owned land is seen as not only
a matter of resource control but also a
religious duty.
For Israeli Jews who are not of religiously
fundamentalist leanings, there are still
significant normative values associated with
water. The place of agriculture in the Israeli
psyche is particularly prominent, associated
with Zionist slogans about ‘greening the desert’
and symbolic of the fertile ‘promised land.’
Its significance in this respect is out of all
proportion to the contribution it makes to the
country’s economy. In 1999, for example,
economists proposed a solution to the summer
drought which entailed giving water to
Palestinian farmers, in order to maintain the
Israel takes 40% of
its groundwater and
25% of renewable
water supplies from
Palestinian sources
Al-Aqsa 13
Palestinian economy and Palestinian consumption
of Israeli goods. In monetary terms, this would
benefit the Israeli economy more than giving the
same water to Israeli farmers. The public outcry
and political opposition that crushed this idea is a
clear illustration of the overwhelming of
economics by ideological passions13.
The symbolic value of water has also made it
an effective weapon, not only in disrupting
people’s lives but also by humiliating and depriving
them. All societies have notions of cleanliness and
pollution which go beyond the immediate
biological or chemical properties of substances,
which means that actions such as urinating in
water tanks (recorded in both the first and second
Intifadas); serve to enforce the helplessness of
people under occupation and the contempt of
their occupiers, as well as to affect their health
and physical cleanliness.
It is factors such as these which go some way
to explaining the inadequacy of Israeli
macroeconomic analyses of the water situation.
One such analysis suggests the settlements are
not a significant tool of water policy because to
use conflict to control water is more expensive
for Israel than to buy it from other countries14.
To rely solely on the pragmatic issues around
water is to fail to understand the normative
significance it has for the Israeli policy-makers
and public.
Land, agriculture and water also inhabit
significant normative spaces for Palestinians,
though without the kind of ethnic exclusivism
expressed by Israeli Jewish fundamentalists.
Women interviewed by Tamar Mayer during the
first Intifada regularly used words such as ‘holy’
to express their perception of the land and its
resources. For these women, farming (often under
difficult conditions) and their relationship to the
land had become part of their resistance to the
Israeli occupation and had taken on emotional
and nationalistic connotations15. Unlike the Israeli
religious right, for Palestinians keeping control of
their land and its resources is not only a matter
of physical survival, but also of identity and of
spiritual resistance. As two female Palestinian
citizens of Israel wrote in 2002: “land is
fundamental to Palestinian culture, economy and
identity. The current destruction of olive groves
by Israeli military and settlers is not simply the
destruction of thousands of trees, but of the
Palestinian soul.”16
The normative role of water and land also
underlies a significant problem of dealing with
water issues for the Palestinians. As water has
become a symbol of the oppression, and a
significant factor in day-to-day difficulties for
them, a discourse has developed which only
allows water problems to be attributed to the
Occupation. This means that other problems
which became rife in the West Bank and Gaza
due to water shortages cannot be properly
dealt with, because their root causes cannot
be acknowledged. These problems include
corruption, water theft and mismanagement,
the chaos caused by different agencies and
aid organisations failing to co-operate with one
another in the Oslo period, and the failure of
some villages to acknowledge the
consequences of their own choices to be
attached to the Israeli state water network17.
Trottier uses the concept of ‘sanctioned
discourses’ to explain the circumscribed way
in which certain ideas and concepts are allowed
– or not allowed – to exist within the way that
water is talked about by Palestinians. The
‘sanctioned discourse’ of a simple Israeli
appropriation of all West Bank water is
undoubtedly a useful rallying cry for the
Palestinian Authorities, but it also obscures
inquiries into bureaucratic incompetence and
corruption18.
Ideology And The Sitting Of Settlements
Despite official denials, the use of the West
Bank settlements to control water resources
is well known and widely admitted. The pattern
of settlement building since the 1970s has
followed the ridges and edges of aquifers in
the hills of the area, allowing settlers to
dominate aquifers and more easily access their
contents19. It is widely acknowledged that
settlers use between three and four times as
much water per head as their Palestinian
neighbours20. Their access to more
sophisticated drilling equipment allows them
to drill deeper wells to access clean water,
which many Palestinians believe saps the
supplies of their own older, shallower wells.
The Taba agreement between Israel and the
Palestinian Authority, signed in 1995, ceded
Israel the rights to 82% of West Bank water,
setting in stone Israeli control over Palestinian
resources. This agreement was facilitated by
the ‘facts on the ground’ created by the
settlements. This also reinforced the kind of
situation, typical in the West Bank, commented
on by Hanna Nasir, mayor of Bethlehem, in
2002: “Here we are surrounded by settlements.
They are grabbing the land around the clock
and taking eighty-one percent of our water.
Oppression to this extent doesn’t help the cause
of peace”21.
Those who attribute the sitting of
settlements to Israeli desires to control water
resources are still largely dismissed as
conspiracy theorists despite evidence to the
contrary coming from many quarters. Even
Malcolm Rifkind, former Conservative
defence minister in the UK, acknowledged that
this was the case and that it was illegal22. A
The symbolic value
of water has also
made it an effective
weapon, not only in
disrupting people’s
lives but also by
humiliating and
depriving them
14 Al-Aqsa
study cited by Trottier denied strenuously that
water grabbing motivated settlement
construction – but admitted that the IDF’s
planning department included an officer whose
responsibilities included “the evaluation of the
strategic influence of water resources”23. And
maps produced by Palestinian organisations such
as HDIP and Israeli human rights groups such
as B’tselem confirm the congruence of
settlement construction and the position of water.
The most recent of these maps also confirm
the role of the Separation Wall in reinforcing
this control, throwing long spurs into the West
Bank to strengthen ownership of strategically
important settlements such as Ariel and Barkan.
Thus, the pragmatic concerns of Israeli planners;
to control water resources; further coincides with
the ideological motives of racially and religiously
discriminatory Israelis whose primary objective
is the expansion of the state of Israel.
Ideology and Israel’s International Water
Relations
The appropriation of Palestinian water has
not been Israel’s only controversial acquisition.
Water conflicts have been key to interethnic
conflicts in the region since Biblical times, and in
their plans for a state the early Zionists were well
aware of the issue. They were the only group to
bring the subject into the peace conferences at
the end of World War I, whereas the Hashemites
complacently assumed they would control the
entire region and did not need to consider specific
areas. Even Zionist founder Theodor Herzl
commented that “the real founder of the new-
old country were the hydraulic engineers”24.
In 1953, the UN had to prevent the newly
formed state of Israel from diverting water from
the demilitarised zone between Israel and Syria,
in order to draw it south to the Negev desert25.
Having been thwarted in this, Israel built the
National Water Carrier; a network of pipes which
took water from the Sea of Galilee to the southern
desert. Israel’s 1967 occupation of the Golan
Heights was also partly inspired by the desire to
take control of this source26. It was access to this
water and its channelling southwards which
allowed Israel to carry out the Zionist dream of
‘greening the desert.’
Prior to 1948, Zionist organisations entered
into a deal with King Abdullah of Jordan,
offering him the West Bank aquifers and parts
of the Jordan River in return for co-operation27.
The two countries co-operated from 1963
onwards and more so after 1967, although the
relationship was kept quiet because of hostility
from other Arab states28. A 1994 treaty
formalised exchanges of water between the two
countries in times of crisis, setting in law the de
facto control by Israel of the Wadi Arabah,
captured in 1967. However, the deal was not
well thought out on the Jordanian side, as
the absence of a clause specifying water
quality has meant that Israel has handed over
dirty, high-salinity water after receiving
cleaner supplies29. Israel’s lack of respect
for its Arab neighbours makes sending them
dirty water an act of symbolic aggression, as
well as of short-term economic pragmatism.
PART 2: WATER AND DAY-TO-DAY
LIFE FOR PALESTINIANS UNDER
OCCUPATION
Water in Israeli-Palestinian Peace and War
As Birgit Schlutter noted at the end of
2005, “With the beginning of new peace
negotiations under Palestinian President
Mahmud Abbas, the topic of water and its
allocation to Palestinians and Israelis is back
on the negotiation table.” Water has of
necessity featured in the provisions of all
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations since the
Madrid talks and Oslo accords of the early
1990s. However, Israel has held a hard line
on the subject. At Madrid it refused to discuss
the ‘political’ aspects of water, insisting on
covering only ‘technical’ areas and
programmes of capacity-building in Arab
states and areas, including resurrecting the
idea of a canal between the Nile and Gaza30.
The Oslo agreement included an annex
specifying ‘co-operation’ on water issues31, but
the 1994 Cairo agreement placed the
Palestinian Authority in an untenable position
of being responsible for water and sewage
in the West Bank and Gaza, but keeping
supply in the hands of the Israeli Mekorot
Water Company32.
As is often the case, many people – the
press, the international community, and the
governments of the countries concerned –
spend a lot of time talking about the ‘big’
questions – of geology, of international
politics, agreements and treaties. What so often
fails to appear in such discussions is the impact
on millions of ordinary people.
Israel’s controlled manipulation of water
sources has been used as a weapon during
both Intifadas. During the first Intifada even
the Mayor of Jerusalem cited the illegality of
collective punishment in his objections to army
cutting of water supplies in East Jerusalem as
punishment for communities in resistance33.
Similar tactics were still being employed in the
second Intifada, for example in Bethlehem in
2002 Israeli soldiers cut domestic water pipes
while keeping the city centre under 24-hour
curfew for weeks34.
The pragmatic
concerns of Israeli
planners; to control
water resources;
further coincides
with the ideological
motives of racially
and religiously
discriminatory
Israelis whose
primary objective is
the expansion of the
state of Israel.
Al-Aqsa 15
The Situation for People in the West Bank
In January 2006 the Israeli newspaper
Ha’aretz printed a story that will be familiar, in
essence if not in detail, to anyone who pays
attention to Israeli incursions onto West Bank
land. According to the piece: “Wadi Fuqin is known
far and wide for its traditional farming practices, considered
by many to be the finest, most impressive agricultural
system in any Palestinian village. However, extensive
[settlement] expansion plans are now threatening the
preservation of this farming tradition by endangering,
among other things, the village’s water supply. If the
plans materialize, the village will be surrounded on nearly
all sides by new Betar Illit neighbourhoods and the
separation fence. A planned road will also cut through
village fields.
This tale illustrates the breadth of the impact
that Israel’s attitude to Palestinian water has. It
not only affects people’s livelihoods by curtailing
agriculture, but destroys heritage and ways of life
that have lasted for generations. In urban settings,
where supplies can not be just disrupted but cut
altogether, it impacts on health, causing unsanitary
conditions and an inadequate supply of clean
drinking water. Everyday tasks such as washing
clothes and bathing are restricted, and stereotypes
about ‘dirty Arabs’ reinforced, despite Israeli
imposition of any lack of cleanliness. Increasingly,
environmental problems occur as a result of
Israel’s over-exploitation of its own and others’
water. Chemicals, fertilisers and sewage pollution
are starting to concentrate in the aquifers,
damaging future water resources35, while even the
Jordan River is drying up as the sources feeding
it are used to excess. According to environmental
groups, fifty years ago “some 1.3 billion cubic
metres of clean water flowed through the Lower
Jordan each year. Today, the total is less than 100
million cubic metres, much of it either sewage or
diverted saline water. Massive water diversion
programs, closed borders and sewage discharge
have almost completely destroyed the natural and
cultural heritage of this river”36. This not only
damages current agriculture and domestic access,
but also has considerable implications for a
putative Palestinian state built on industries such
as agriculture and tourism. It also contributes to
the high levels of unemployment in the West Bank,
where an estimated 60% of the population lives
below the poverty line37, as jobs lost to inadequate
resources join those cut off by movement
restrictions such as the Wall and checkpoints.
Israeli control of Palestinian water has also
had longer-term impacts, preventing development
and planning. The (in)famous Military Order 158
of 1967 subjected all drilling of agricultural or
industrial wells in the West Bank to Israeli licenses,
and only 23 were granted between 1967 and
199038. Domestic wells were largely allowed,
indicating that the intention was to stifle economic
activity and ensure that Palestinians, until the
first Intifada, remained a source of cheap
labour for Israeli agriculture and industry.
Economic uses of water were further
prevented by high prices; well above the
subsidised rates for Israelis served by the same
supplier; which were set by a board dominated
by Israeli farmers39 in whose interests it was
to price their Palestinian colleagues out of
existence. Despite some allocation of
governance to the Palestinian Authority, under
the Taba agreement, the Israeli state retained
a veto40, allowing it to forever inhibit
Palestinian development and curtail the
Palestinian authorities’ ability to plan or to deal
adequately with fraud and theft (should it be
inclined to). The ideological element of this
process is illustrated by the fact that under
slightly more ‘dovish’ Labour governments,
the committee determining water licenses met
frequently allowing decisions to be made
quickly. Under the ‘hawk’ Netanyahu, the
timing was cut to just four times a year,
slowing the process even further41. As well as
the economic impacts of such constraints, they
continued to function as impediments to the
Palestinian people’s sense of being in control
of its own affairs and contributed to a
situation of disempowerment in which the
impetus and energy was drained from
Palestinians who were continually denied the
chance to make decisions or have a say in
their own futures.
The Situation for People in Gaza
The water situation in Gaza is in some
respects worse than that in the West Bank,
where, although the Israelis draw large
quantities of water out, rainfall is more
abundant and the Israeli state has largely stayed
out of domestic water issues. In Gaza,
however, the underlying aquifer has been
seriously depleted and what water remains is
polluted and saline. The population of Gaza
was massively increased by refugees of 1948
and 1967, increasing demand on already
diminished supplies, and proper wastewater
treatment only started in the 1990s42. Although
the occupying authorities had been more
inclined to allow wells to be dug than in the
West Bank, where they wanted to keep the
water for Israeli use43, this now leads to a
complex situation for the post-withdrawal
Palestinian Authority, which must decide
whether to allow more wells to be dug –
further depleting the already scanty aquifer –
or to try and take a longer-term approach
which may be unpopular with a public which
has had to put up with desperately scarce
running water. In addition, the occupying
Massive water
diversion programs,
closed borders and
sewage discharge
have almost
completely
destroyed the
natural and cultural
heritage of this
river
16 Al-Aqsa
Israeli authorities have refused to invest in
infrastructure, resulting in a situation of poverty
and hardship, as described by Amira Hass:
“The Israeli military government set up in
1967, and the civil administration after it, were
distinguished by their budgetary niggardliness, by
a lack of provision for development, by heavier
taxation than in Israel, by an education system
that could not or did not try to keep up with the
increasing number of schoolchildren, and by
monumental neglect of Gaza’s infrastructure: its
roads, its water, sewage, telephone and electricity
systems. Families compensated for the neglect with
their own improvisations, and the cost was
shouldered by sons and daughters and siblings
and in-laws. Such improvisations often included
makeshift sewage systems, private water tanks,
illegal wells, or even just a battery of jerry cans
filled with unpolluted water taken from pipes near
the Jewish settlements or the Sheikh Radwan
neighbourhood – all to avoid the foul-tasting water
in most homes and to cope with the frequent
interruptions in its flow”44.
The situation for Palestinians in Israel and
East Jerusalem
The Israeli State’s ideological desire to control
water resources, and to reserve them for its Jewish
population, does not only impact on Palestinians
resident in the West Bank and Gaza. Hadas Lahav,
a left-wing Israeli activist with labour rights and
women’s organisations, takes visitors to the Galilee
through the countryside alongside either side of
the main roads. She points out that on one farm
a crop will be tall and robust, while the same
species growing in a neighbouring field will be
stunted and sparse, yielding far lower harvests.
Jewish Israeli farmers, who are granted licenses
to irrigate their fields and use considerable
amounts of water, own the lush, healthy farms.
The poor, sparse plants are those of Palestinian
Israeli farmers, who are frequently denied
irrigation permits and have to struggle to grow
crops that are reduced in quantity and quality,
confining their sale to local markets and denying
the farmers access to lucrative export sales.
Restrictions on access to water also affect
Palestinian-Israeli towns; where water supplies are
often inadequate for the population size, and
Israeli state polices which deliberately under-fund
Palestinian towns mean that amenities such as
public swimming pools, common in Jewish towns,
are rare in Arab neighbourhoods.
Palestinian residents of Jerusalem live under
much more direct day-to-day control of the Israeli
state than West Bank and Gazan Palestinians. Like
Israeli citizens of Palestine, East Jerusalemites also
exist as second-class citizens when it comes to
access to water and sanitation, with many
neighbourhoods still lacking proper running
water45. Many existing water lines were
installed in the early 1970s, in the immediate
aftermath of Israeli annexation of East
Jerusalem, and are inadequate for current
population levels. The lack of will of the Israeli
authorities, combined with tensions between
the communities which at times has made it
difficult for Israeli water engineers to carry
out repairs in Palestinian areas, has also meant
that many pipes are broken and leaking46.
Again, normative considerations – racism and
concepts of exclusive rights to resources –
govern decision-making about access to water.
This attitude is illustrated by the comments
of a former Mayor of Jerusalem, whose
policies ensured sub-standard conditions for
Palestinians:
“Only when the lack of infrastructure
threatens to produce wider problems for
Jewish populations has the Israeli state invested
systematically in modernising occupied
Palestinian communities. On retiring, Teddy
Kollek, mayor of Jerusalem between 1967 and
1993, made a startling admission: ‘For Jewish
Jerusalem I did something in the past 25 years,’
he reflected. ‘For East Jerusalem? Nothing!
Sidewalks? Nothing! Cultural institutions? Not
one! Yes, we installed a sewerage system for
them and improved the water supply. Do you
know why? Do you think it was for their good,
for their welfare? Forget it! There were some
cases of cholera there, and the Jews were
afraid that they would catch it!’”47.
Gendered Impacts
Different groups within Palestinian society
are affected in different ways by the problems
of water shortages and appropriation. I want
to look specifically at the way that women;
particularly those living in the refugee camps
of the West Bank and Gaza, and women in
other working-class areas, both urban and
rural, are impacted on. It is a truism of
development studies that women are most
affected by poverty, as in many societies they
are more likely to be confined to the domestic
sphere and to be responsible for allocating
scarce food resources within the family,
resulting in less resources being allotted to
themselves. So, as well as the issues discussed
below, it must be understood that Palestinian
women are likely to be on the receiving end
of the declines in income caused by
unemployment, economic closures of large
areas of Palestine, and the decline of
agriculture48.
Around a third of the Palestinian
population lacked piped water to their homes
in the early 1990s. Although aid donors and
the PA have improved this situation, many
The poor, sparse
plants are those of
Palestinian Israeli
farmers, who are
frequently denied
irrigation permits
and have to
struggle to grow
crops that are
reduced in quantity
and quality,
Do you think it was
for their good, for
their welfare?
Forget it! There
were some cases of
cholera there, and
the Jews were
afraid that they
would catch it
Al-Aqsa 17
rural households still have no running water49. In
areas such as refugee camps this pattern is
repeated because they are most likely to be subject
to attack by Israeli troops, including severing of
water supplies, and the inhabitants of the camps
are least likely to be able to afford illicit extensions
from the established water network. In addition,
many urban areas with pipes fitted only actually
receive water through them for a few days a
week50. The result for women is that they are
often expected to carry water for long distances,
either from wells and springs, or from standpipes51.
During the first intifada, women were shot at by
soldiers and settlers while collecting water, and
were extremely vulnerable during the 2-6 hours
it can take to gather water for an average-sized
family of 6 people. The collection of water was
also often a job allocated to older girls in a family,
meaning that they were even less likely to be able
to choose whether to stay in education52.
Many of the houses with poor water supplies
also have substandard sewage and sanitary
provision, due to decades of underinvestment,
as observed by Karen Assaf: “sewage disposal
and treatment has been systematically neglected
since the days of the British Mandate which ended
in 1948. All types of development in the OTs
have been more directly hindered by the Israeli
occupation”53. The pressure on this infrastructure
is increased by the growth in population density,
especially in Gaza and the refugee camps. This
results in widespread problems typical of the kind
found in the presence of poor sanitation, such as
endemic dysentery and other digestive tract
problems, especially amongst children. When such
diseases become chronic they also have longer-
term effects, such as malnutrition54. The dangers
for women in childbirth also increase when water
is scarce, as sterilisation becomes impossible55. The
health effects of water shortage are
disproportionately heavy on women and female
children, as they tend to spend more time within
contaminated areas, while men are more likely to
work or socialise away from home, and boys are
more likely to be permitted to go to school or
play further from home56. Some commentators
have even seen this as a means of covert
population control by the Israeli authorities of a
‘despised population’57.
The contamination of water sources with
substances such as unregulated pesticides, which
the Israeli authorities have allowed to enter the
West Bank and Gaza while banning inside Israel,
also disproportionately affects women and
children, as they are again more likely to be
routinely drinking water from a single source.
Water supplies in the West Bank have never been
regularly tested for pesticide residues. It must, of
course, be noted that such health problems are
likely to be increasing amongst men in the West
Bank, as they too have been more confined to
small areas and to the home since the
beginning of the second Intifada brought
checkpoints and mass job losses.
Conclusion
Water, the little-discussed and unglamorous
but utterly vital resource, is key to so many
aspects of the situation of the Palestinian
people and their Israeli occupiers, from the
smallest everyday acts to the grandest dreams
of men forging international agreements and
launching international wars. Its significance
in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship is not as
simple as a blanket scarcity affecting all
Palestinians, or a pragmatic concern of the
Israeli state. It is crosscut by myriad factors
of class, ethnicity, geography and, as I have
highlighted in this essay, gender and ideology.
It is these complexities which make resolution
of the water issue – even should the Israeli
state desire such a resolution – so difficult.
Because water has such symbolic significance,
creating fair agreements on it is not simply a
matter of technical issues but of emotion and
ideology. For the Israeli state to relinquish even
a small percentage of the water it currently
controls, it would not only impact on its
people’s lifestyles but also their self-image and
the international standing of their country, so
vital to its continued defence by the states that
currently determine the world’s balance of
power. And because the voices of women,
especially working-class ones, are largely absent
from political and international negotiations,
in Palestine as in so many other parts of the
world, their specific needs and the particular
challenges they face in their roles as women
continue to remain unaddressed.
Footnote: the geography of Palestinian
and Israeli water
Palestine lies at the Western end of the
Fertile Crescent, the site of humankind’s first
domestication of plant and animals. Although
there is sufficient water for agriculture, many
areas are very dry, and water was key to the
sitting of some of the earliest towns in the
region, such as Beersheba. Early inhabitants
of what is now Israel and Palestine, such as
the Nabateans, were amongst the first desert
farmers, and the techniques they developed
are still used today amongst the Bedouin.
Ironically, the Romans wrote of these people
‘making the desert bloom,’ a phrase which
echoes the propaganda of Zionist projects to
bring agriculture to the Negev desert .
Nevertheless, water has always been in short
supply in the region, and fertile land goes
uncultivated for lack of it.
Some com-
mentators have
even seen this as a
means of covert
population control
by the Israeli
authorities of a
‘despised
population
18 Al-Aqsa
There are five main aquifers – underground
rock formations where water is stored – in the
land making up Israel and Palestine (the West
Bank and Gaza). The Israeli coastal aquifer
stretches from Mount Carmel south to Gaza,
while the Yarkon-Taninim runs from Mount
Carmel inland to Beersheba, and is partly fed by
rainwater which falls in the West Bank and
percolates downwards through the rocks.
In addition to these, the West Bank area of
Palestine contains three further aquifers. One is
situated in the West of the area, another in the
East, where its water flows down to the Jordan
River, and one to the North, where its water ends
in the Galilee in Israel. The position of these
aquifers, and the direction of their water flow, is
key to understanding much of Israel’s behaviour
towards the Palestinian people and the territory
they live on.
Notes
1. Trottier, Julie (1999) Hydropolitics in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip, PASSIA (Palestinian Academic Society for
the Study of International Affairs), at 1.
2. Ibid, at 42, 45.
3. Ibid at 13.
4. Bregman, Ahron and Jihan el-Tahri (1998), The Fifty
Years War: Israel and the Arabs, Penguin, at 257-259.
5. Supra note 1, at 60.
6. Ibid at 59.
7. Hunt, Constance E (2004)., Thirsty Planet: Strategies For
Sustainable Water Management, Zed Books, at 51.
8. Ibid at 56, 269.
9. Ibid at 125.
10. Quoted by Trottier, supra note 1, at 9.
11. Quoted by Shahak, Israel and Norton Mezvinsky (2004),
Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (2nd ed.), Pluto Press, at
88.
12. Ibid at 67.
13. Supra note 1, at 192-193.
14. Ibid at 15.
15. Mayer, Tamar “Heightened Palestinian nationalism:
military occupation, repression, difference and
gender”, in Tamar Mayer (ed) (1994) Women and the Israeli
Occupation: the Politics of Change, Routledge, pp 62-87, at
81.
16. Shaheen, Wafaa and Trees Zbidat-Klosterman (2002)
“We have to change our lives”, in Trouble & Strife: Feminist
Perspectives After September 11th, pp37-45, at 37.
17. Supra note 1 at 23, 77 and 163.
18. Ibid at 164.
19. Philo, Greg and Berry, Mike (2004), Bad News from Israel,
Pluto Press, at 94.
20. Ibid. See also, Hunt, supra note 7, at 51.
21. Schubert, Katharine von (2005), Checkpoints And
Chance: Eyewitness Accounts From An Observer
In Israel-Palestine, Quaker Books, at 25.
22. Supra note 19, at 92.
23. Supra note 1, at 11.
24. Supra note 1, at 40.
25. Supra note 4, at 257.
26. Ibid at 230.
27. Supra note 1, at 50.
28. Ibid at 7-8.
29. Ibid at 10, 60, 68.
30. Ibid at 63.
31. Supra note 4, at 230.
32. Supra note 1, at 65.
33. Cheshin, Amir S., Hutman, Bill and Melamed, Avi
(1999), Separate and Unequal: the inside story of Israeli
rule in East Jerusalem, Cambridge/London, Harvard
University Press, at171.
34. Irving, Sarah (2004), Besieged in Bethlehem: letters home
from Palestine March-April 2002, at 10.
35. Supra note 15, at 13.
36. Friends of the Earth Scotland 2005. ‘What on Earth’
magazine Winter 2005, at 15.
37. Gavrilis, George 2006. ‘The Forgotten West Bank.”
Foreign Affairs, January-February 2006, http://
w w w. n y t i m e s . c o m / c f r / i n t e r n a t i o n a l /
20060101faessay_v85n1_gavrilis.html?_r
=1&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin
38. Supra note 1, at 60.
39. Ibid at 62.
40. Ibid at 67, 184.
41. Ibid at 184.
42. Ibid at 71, 120.
43. Ibid at 171.
44. Hass, Amira (1996) Drinking the sea at Gaza: days and
nights in a land under siege, New York, Henry Holt &
Co, at 59.
45. Supra note 33, at 21.
46. Ibid, at 84, 130 and 174.
47. Graham, Stephen (2002) ‘Clean Territory:’ urbicide in
the West Bank, www.opendemocracy.net, http://
w w w. o p e n d e m o c r a c y . n e t / c o n f l i c t -
politicsverticality/article_241.jsp (last visited
February 2006)
48. Assaf, Karen (1994), ‘Environmental problems
affecting Palestinian women under Occupation’,
in Tamar Mayer (ed) Women and the Israeli Occupation:
the Politics of Change, London, Routledge pp 164-
178, at 173.
49. Ibid at 170.
50. Ibid at 169, and supra note 44 at 60.
51. Supra note 48 at 170.
52. Young, Elise G. (1994), ‘A feminist politics of health
care: the case of Palestinian women under Israeli
occupation 1979-1982’, in Tamar Mayer (ed), Women
and the Israeli Occupation: the Politics of Change, London,
Routledge, pp178-198, at187.
53. Supra note 48, at 171.
54. Supra note 52, at 188.
55. Ibid at 187.
56. Supra note 48, at 165.
57. Supra note 52, at 178.
�
Al-Aqsa 19
My War with Zionism
Alan Hart*
Events at the time of writing oblige me
to begin this article with a confession.
I am ashamed, deeply ashamed, to be a
citizen of a nation with a government which,
along with the Bush administration, is complicit
in Israel’s collective punishment of two peoples
– the Palestinians and the Lebanese. Collective
punishment is a war crime, so it can and should
be said that Prime Minister Blair and President
Bush are complicit in the war crimes of Israel’s
generals and those Israeli politicians who rubber
stamp their demands.
What I think we have been witnessing in the
Zionist state of Israel since 12 July 2006 – some
would say since Israel’s unilateral declaration of
existence in 1948 - is the emergence into the
full light of day of the New Nazis – Zionist
Nazis. And that’s not only the opinion of this
Gentile.
On 15 June I chaired a panel presentation
and debate at the School of Oriental and African
Studies at London University (SOAS) on the
subject of “WHY ANTI-ZIONISM IS NOT
ANTI-SEMITISM.” One of my four
distinguished panellists was a German-born
Jewish gentleman, Dr. Hajo Meyer. As a youth
fighting in the Jewish underground, he was
captured by the Gestapo in Holland and
transported to Auschwitz. In other words, he is
a holocaust survivor. On the platform he said
that Israel’s behaviour could and should be
likened to that of the Nazis in Germany and
Nazi-occupied Europe.
It might well be that there is much more to
Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon than
collective punishment of a whole people as part
and parcel of a stated objective – the destruction
of Hezbollah as a Muslim David which can hit
and hurt the Zionist Goliath.
In one possible scenario, the Zionist state’s
real game plan is to ethnically cleanse Lebanon
up to the Litani River, with a view to occupying
and then annexing the ethnically cleansed
territory. For Zionism this would be the
fulfilment of the vision of modern Israel’s
founding father, David Ben-Gurion. His
vision was of a Zionist state within “natural”
borders, those borders being the Jordan
River in the East and the Litani River of
Lebanon in the north. Israel gained control
of the Jordan River border in its 1967 war
of expansion, but all of its attempts to date
to establish the Litani border have failed.
It might also be that Zionism’s real game
plan includes the installation of a Christian
puppet government in Beirut, one that would
make peace with Israel on Israel’s terms. In
other words, Israel’s New Nazis may be
seeking to succeed where Sharon failed in
1982. And it’s not impossible that this what
the neo-cons in and around the Bush
administration really want. They would view
such an outcome to the recent events in
Lebanon as proof that they can create “a
new Middle East” on their terms.
In my opinion a new Middle East based
on more Zionist ethnic cleansing, and the
fortification of the Zionist state of Israel as
the hammer of American policy in the
region, would make the so-called “war
against terrorism” (with Syria and Iran) less,
not more, winnable. I think it would make a
Clash of Civilisations, Judeo-Christian v
Islamic, unstoppable. And perhaps that, a
Clash of Civilisations, is also what the neo-
cons and their Christian fundamentalist and
Zionist allies really want.
It was to assist the understanding, so
desperately needed, if the longest running
conflict in all of human history is not to end
in catastrophe for us all, that I devoted more
than five years of my life to researching and
writing Zionism: the Real Enemy of the Jews. It
has two central and related themes.
One is how the modern state of Israel,
the child of Zionism, became its own worst
enemy and a threat not only to the peace of
the region and the world, but also to the best
interests of Jews everywhere and the moral
integrity of Judaism itself.
* ALAN HART is a former ITN and BBC Panorama reporter who covered wars and conflicts wherever they
were taking place in the world. His latest book, an epic in two volumes, is ZIONISM: THE REAL ENEMY OF
THE JEWS
the Zionist state’s
real game plan is to
ethnically cleanse
Lebanon up to the
Litani River, with a
view to occupying
and then annexing
the ethnically
cleansed territory
20 Al-Aqsa
� It is a fact that prior to the obscenity of
the Nazi holocaust most informed and
thoughtful Jews everywhere, including
the very small number of Jews then living
in Palestine who had maintained the
Jewish presence on the land throughout
everything and who regarded themselves
as Palestinians, were opposed to
Zionism’s colonial enterprise. Why?
Because they believed it to be morally
wrong. Because they feared that it would
lead to unending conflict given the
opposition of the entire Arab and Muslim
world. And because they also feared that
the creation in the Arab heartland of a
Zionist state for some Jews (a minority)
would not be in the best interests of those
(the majority) who preferred to live, as
they still do, as integrated citizens in the
many lands of the mainly Gentile world.
� A more recent expression of the latter
fear can be found in Israel’s Fateful Hour
by Yehoshafat Harkabi, Israel’s longest
serving and most enlightened Director
of Military Intelligence. In this seminal
book, published in English in 1988,
Harkabi wrote the following (my
emphasis added):
“Israel is the criterion according to which all
Jews will tend to be judged. Israel as a Jewish
state is an example of the Jewish character,
which finds free and concentrated expression
within it. Anti-Semitism has deep and historical
roots. Nevertheless, any flaw in Israeli conduct,
which initially is cited as anti-Israelism, is likely
to be transformed into empirical proof of the
validity of anti-Semitism. It would be a tragic
irony if the Jewish state, which was intended to
solve the problem of anti-Semitism, was to
become a factor in the rise of anti-Semitism.
Israelis must be aware that the price of their
misconduct is paid not only by them but also
Jews throughout the world.”
The other central and related theme is why,
really, the whole Arab and wider Muslim world
is an explosion of frustration and despair waiting
for its time to happen.
In this context I describe the Palestine
problem as the cancer at the heart of
international affairs; and I summarise what I
mean with this statement. If an America
President had a magic wand, and if he could
wave it to get Israel back behind its borders as
they were on the eve of the 1967 war, with
Jerusalem an open city and the capital of two
states, he would have (with one wave of the
wand) the thanks, respect and support of not
less than 95 percent of all Arabs and Muslims
everywhere.
The way to put violent Islamic funda-
mentalism out of business is not with bombs
and bullets (the neo-con and Zionist way)
and draconian “anti-terror” legislation which
degrades the human and civil rights of all,
but by curing the cancer at the heart of
international affairs, the cure being justice
for the Palestinians.
I insisted on Zionism: The Real Enemy of
the Jews as the title because it reflects in seven
words two related truths for our time. The
first is that the sleeping giant of anti-
Semitism has been re-awakened. The second
is that the prime cause of the re-awakening
is the behaviour of Zionism’s arrogant, self-
righteous and aggressive child, Israel.
Do I really believe that a book could help
to change the course of history?
Yes, in principle, if… If with it, and the
assistance of peoples of all faiths and none
who share my passion for the truth of
history, I can succeed in setting a new agenda
for informed and honest debate about who
must do what and why for justice and peace
in the Middle East; by definition a debate
on something other than Zionism’s terms.
Why, really, is such a debate needed?
From the Nazi holocaust and Israel’s
unilateral declaration of independence in
1948 to the present, informed and honest
debate has not been possible throughout the
mainly Gentile Judeo-Christian world. Why
not? Because its first and still existing draft
of history – which to my shame today I
helped to write as an ITN and Panorama
reporter – is constructed on Zionist
mythology.
The core assertion of this mythology is
that poor little Israel has lived in danger of
annihilation – the “driving into the sea” of
its Jews. The truth of history, which flows
fully documented through both volumes is
that Israel’s existence has never, ever, been
in danger from any combination of Arab
force. Not in 1948. Not in 1956. Not in
1967. And not even in 1973.
1948
It is true that on 15 May 1948 it was the
Arabs, elements of the armies of five states
– Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and
Transjordan – which initiated the first Arab-
Israeli war in response to Israel’s unilateral
declaration of existence. But the prospect
of Israel being annihilated was not a real
one accept in Zionist mythology, which was
able to present itself as truth to the mainly
Gentile Judeo-Christian world because of
the ignorance of public opinion and the
bellicose rhetoric of some Arab spokesmen;
It would be a tragic
irony if the Jewish
state, which was
intended to solve
the problem of
anti-Semitism, was
to become a factor
in the rise of anti-
Semitism
Al-Aqsa 21
and this against the background of the Nazi
holocaust.
In reality as opposed to rhetoric, the Arabs
had neither the ability nor the intention to
destroy the Zionist state at birth. The actual
intention of those Arab leaders who went
through the motions of fighting Israel was to
hold the territory assigned to the Arab state of
the UN General Assembly’s partition plan – to
prevent the Zionists grabbing it, too. During a
30-day truce which ended on 9 July, the IDF
came formally into being with 60,000 men added
to its fighting strength. When the war was
resumed it was no contest. Some 90,000 well-
armed Israelis were taking on not more than
21,000 Arab regular soldiers who were without
the ammunition and weapons to offer more than
token resistance. From that point on it was the
Arab (Palestinian) state of the partition plan that
was in danger of annihilation. Not the Zionist
state. And from this point on, Israel was,
actually, the Goliath.
Still today there is a great deal of ignorance
about what really happened in the countdown
to the first Arab-Israeli war and whether or not
Israel has “a right to exist”.
The truth is that because of the
circumstances of its creation, the Zionist state
of Israel had no right to exist unless….. Unless
it was recognised and legitimized by those who
were dispossessed of their land and their rights
during the creation of the Zionist state. In
international law only the Palestinians can give
Israel the legitimacy it craves.
According to first and still existing draft of
history, Israel was given its birth certificate and
thus legitimacy by the UN Partition Resolution
of 29 November 1947.
� In the first place the UN without the
consent of the majority of the people
of Palestine did not have the right to
decide to partition Palestine or assign any
part of its territory to a minority of alien
immigrants in order for them to establish
a state of their own.
� Despite that, by the narrowest of margins,
and only after a rigged vote, the UN
General Assembly did pass a resolution
to partition Palestine and create two
states, one Arab, one Jewish, with
Jerusalem not part of either. But the
General Assembly resolution was only a
proposal – meaning that it could have
no effect, would not become policy,
unless approved by the Security Council.
The truth is that the General Assembly’s
partition proposal never went to the
Security Council for consideration. Why
not? Because the US knew that, if
approved, it could only be implemented
by force; and President Truman was
not prepared to use force to partition
Palestine.
� So the partition plan was vitiated
(became invalid) and the question of
what to do about Palestine was taken
back to the General Assembly for
more discussion. The option favoured
and proposed by the US was
temporary UN Trusteeship. It was
while the General Assembly was
debating what to do that Israel
unilaterally declared itself to be in
existence.
The truth of the time was that the Zionist
state came into being as a consequence of
Zionist terrorism and ethnic cleansing.
A question raised by the events of the
time is, why did President Truman give the
unilaterally declared State of Israel de facto
recognition and thus an apparent degree of
legitimacy, and why, also, was he the first to
give it?
The answer according to those who have
bothered to ask the question is that Truman
did what he did, probably against his own
best judgement and certainly against the
advice of his Secretaries of Defence and
State, to secure the Jewish votes and
campaign funds needed to guarantee his re-
election for a second term. But there is
another possible explanation. Truman may
have feared that if America did not
recognise the self-declared state of Israel and
was not the first to do, the Soviet Union
would be the first and that Israel would then
look to it not the U.S. for superpower backing.
I think there is sufficient evidence to support
the view that Ben-Gurion had Truman put
on notice that Israel would play its cards
through the Soviet Union if the U.S. was
not the first to recognise Israel. And I
speculate that Truman’s real problem was
that he did not know whether Ben-Gurion
was bluffing or not.
1956
If governments had had their way, we
would still be ignorant of what really
happened in 1956. But today there are no
serious historians or writers of any kind who
dispute the truth – that Israel went to war
with Nasser’s Egypt in a conspiracy with
France and Britain. There is also no dispute
about how this war ended. President
Eisenhower read the riot act to the
conspirators, and then confronted Zionism
by insisting that Israel withdraw un-
conditionally from the Egyptian territory it
The actual
intention of those
Arab leaders who
went through the
motions of fighting
Israel was to hold
the territory
assigned to the
Arab state of the
UN General
Assembly’s
partition plan
22 Al-Aqsa
had occupied while doing the dirty work for
France and Britain, and from which it had not
been intending to withdraw unconditionally.
When Kennedy entered the White House it
was his intention to continue Eisenhower’s policy
of seeking to contain both Zionism and the MIC
(Military Industrial Complex). If he had been
allowed to live there would not have been a shift
of U.S. policy in favour of Israel right or wrong;
in all probability the1967 war would not have
happened – Greater Israel would not have been
created; and the Zionist state would not have
been allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
Really?
That, on balance, is my conclusion and why
Volume Two begins with a chapter headed
“Turning Point – The Assassination of President
Kennedy”.
1967
Nearly four decades on from the Six-Day
War of June 1967 which resulted in the creation
of Greater Israel, almost all Jews everywhere,
and very many Gentiles, still believe that Israel
went to war either because the Arabs attacked
(that was Israel’s first claim), or because the
Arabs were intending to attack (thus requiring
Israel to launch a pre-emptive strike).
For ITN I was the first Western
correspondent to the banks of the Suez Canal
with the advancing Israelis; and because of the
quality of my contacts – they included one of
the founding fathers of Israel’s Directorate of
Military Intelligence - I was privy to some of
the plotting behind closed doors on the Israeli
side in the countdown to war.
The truth about that war only begins with
the statement that the Arabs did not attack and
were not intending to attack. The complete truth
includes the following facts:
� Israel’s prime minister of the time, the
much maligned Levi Eshkol, did not want
to take his country to war. And nor did
his chief of staff, Yitzhak Rabin. They
wanted only very limited military action,
an operation far, far short of war, to put
pressure on the international community
to cause Egypt’s President Nasser to re-
open the Straits of Tiran.
� Israel went to war because its military
and political hawks insisted that the Arabs
were about to attack. They, Israel’s hawks,
knew that was nonsense, but they
promoted it to undermine Eshkol by
portraying him to the country as weak.
The climax to the campaign to rubbish
Eshkol, who was wise not weak, was a
demand by the hawks that he surrender
the defence portfolio and give it to Moshe
Dayan, Zionism’s warlord and master
of deception. Four days after Dayan
got the portfolio he wanted, and the
hawks had secured the green light
from the Johnson administration to
smash Egypt’s air and ground forces,
Israel went to war.
� What actually happened in Israel in
the final countdown to that war was
something very close to a military
coup, executed quietly behind closed
doors without a shot being fired. For
Israel’s hawks the war of 1967 was
part of the unfinished business of
1948/49 – to create Greater Israel
with all of Jerusalem its capital. (In
reality Israel’s hawks set a trap for
Nasser and, for reasons of face, he
was daft enough to walk into it).
1973
On 7 October 1973 it was the Arabs –
the Egyptians and the Syrians – who initiated
the fighting. But… Their intention was only
to liberate (take back) territory Israel
occupied in 1967, in Egypt’s case only a small
amount of it, to give Henry Kissinger the
opportunity to get a peace process going – a
peace process in which Israel prior to that
war had no interest. At that moment in
history, even Kissinger was troubled by
Israel’s intransigence and the threat he
believed it posed to America’s and Israel’s
own best, real interests in the region.
Question: How did Zionism get away
with it?
The short answer is publishing and media
complicity in the suppression of the truth
of history.
My own experience of this complicity
can be summarised as follows.
To get the first book published in the UK,
I had to set up my own publishing company,
(World Focus Publishing). This despite the
fact that my literary agent had on file letters
of rare praise for my work from some of
the chiefs of the major, conglomerate-owed
publishing houses. One letter, as I note in
the Acknowledgements of Volume One,
described my manuscript as “awesome…
driven by passion, commitment and profound
learning.” This letter added: “There is no
question it deserves to be published.” But,
out of fear of offending Zionism, they were
all too frightened to publish. Sadly, and as
many authors including Jewish critics of
Zionism know, that’s par for the course in
the conglomerate-owned world of book
publishing.
The truth about
that war only
begins with the
statement that the
Arabs did not
attack and were
not intending to
attack
Al-Aqsa 23
Why, you might ask, are major publishing
houses everywhere (including some with Jewish
ownership) frightened of offending Zionism?
Behind closed doors on one of many visits
to America I was given an answer by a number
of publishing executives. I was in New York
trying to interest them in my first book, Arafat,
Terrorist or Peacemaker? It was published in the
UK by Sidgwick & Jackson in 1984 and
subsequently in updated editions over a decade.
It was the first ever book to tell Arafat’s side of
the story as told to me by the man himself and
his most senior leadership colleagues. The
conclusion it invited, and which I asked readers
to consider, was that Arafat had completed a
journey into reality, the reality of Israel’s
existence, and was ready to make peace on terms
which any rational government and people in
Israel would accept with relief.
In New York a number of publishing
executives said they really would like to take
the book on. Some even declared that it was
well written. But each in turn said they could
not publish it. Naturally I asked why. The answer
I was given was that “our friends” (supporters
of Israel right or wrong) would organise boycotts
of major stores carrying my book and, as a
consequence, no books in the boycotted stores
would sell.
There’s much more that could be said about
how, over the years, Zionism has used its
awesome influence to prevent the publication
of books which exposed its version of history
for the propaganda nonsense it mainly is; but
those are revelations for another time and place.
When I had secured access for Zionism: The
Real Enemy of the Jews to the retail trade in the
UK (bookshops and on-line Amazon),
something I was not supposed to be able to do,
I assumed that I had overcome Zionism’s veto
on truth-telling. How naïve I was!
Because conflict in the Middle East is a hot
and almost constantly running news story, my
book is topical and timely, so I had also
assumed that the media – some mainstream
newspapers and some TV and radio
programmes – would give it and me some
attention. However, the mainstream media
refused to give my book any attention, review
or other; and this despite the fact that in the
months prior to publication of the first
hardback edition of Volume One, I put great
effort into seeking the interest of the literary
editors and/or editors of most major
newspapers in the UK, and programme decision
makers in TV and radio organisations. In
addition to briefing them in writing on what I
regarded as the significance of the book and
the need for the information it provides, I
invited them to receive advance copies of both
volumes. Not one of the media people to
whom I wrote, repeat not one, had the
courtesy even to acknowledge my overtures.
In total I sent 21 letters with enclosures
to different BBC production people and
programme editors. None of them
responded. And when I wrote challenging
letters asking why not to Chairman
Michael Grade and Director General
Mark Thomson, all I received in reply,
eventually, was unsatisfactory and silly
responses from an information officer.
At senior management level the BBC is
more terrified of offending Zionism than
any other media organisation. Just how
frightened (perhaps I should say
intimidated) BBC news executives are is
indicated by the following comment one
of them made in conversation with Greg
Philo, director of Glasgow University’s
internationally respected Media Group.
“We live in fear of the incoming call from
the Israelis. When it comes we ask only
two questions. The first is: From what
level did it come – the press office of
the Israeli embassy, the ambassador
himself or an Israeli government
minister? The second is: To what level in
the BBC’s chain of command did it go –
to a middle order executive or all the way
to the top, Director General or
Chairman?” (This executive went on to
say to Greg, “If you quote me by name,
I’ll deny it.”)
In many cases the media’s refusal to
come to grips with the difference between
Zionist mythology and the documented truth
of history is born of self-censorship out of
fear of offending Zionism.
But why, you might ask, is the media
frightened of offending Zionism?
One part of the answer is in the fact that
since the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust –
a Gentile crime for which, effectively, the
Arabs were punished – the charge of anti-
Semitism is a blackmail card Zionism has
played, ruthlessly and brilliantly, to silence
criticism of Israel and suppress informed
and honest debate about who must do what
and why for justice and peace in the Middle
East. The point is that there’s nothing media
people (and politicians and all in public life)
fear more than being accused of anti-
Semitism, even when they know the charge
is false. They just don’t want the hassle of
having to deal with it.
The other main cause of self-censorship
is the fear managements have of their
newspapers or their commercial TV and
In many cases the
media’s refusal to
come to grips with
the difference
between Zionist
mythology and the
documented truth
of history is born of
self-censorship
24 Al-Aqsa
radio stations being punished by the withdrawal
of advertising revenue (In 1984 The Observer
changed its mind about running extracts from
my Arafat book on the advice of its then
advertising manager).
Because I am aware of the media’s fear of
offending Zionism, I emphasised in my
overtures to literary editors and others that
Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews is the opposite
of anti-Semitic, and contains the call of a
concerned and caring Gentile, me, for the Jews
to become the light unto nations. My summary
view of how they could become that is
contained in the text on the back cover of
Volume Two, and I drew this text to the
attention of all the media people to whom I
wrote. It reads as follows:
If the Jews of the diaspora can summon up
the will and the courage to make common
cause with the forces of reason in Israel
before it is too late for us all, a very great
prize awaits them. By demonstrating that
right can triumph over might, and that there
is a place for morality in politics, they would
become the light unto nations. It is a prize
available to no other people on earth because
of the uniqueness of the suffering of the
Jews. Perhaps that is the real point of the
idea of the Jews as Chosen People… Chosen
to endure unique suffering and, having
�
endured it, to show the rest of us that
creating a better and more just world is
not a mission impossible.
I had hoped that those words, from my
heart, would inspire at least some media
people to find the courage to take the risk
of offending Zionism, but they didn’t.
Nearly a year on from the publication the
Wall of Silence the media has constructed
around it, and the documented truth of
history it represents, is as solid as ever.
When I joined ITN as a very young
reporter, it’s then Editor-in-Chief, Geoffrey
Cox, gave me a most explicit mission
statement. Our job, he said, like that of the
media as a whole, was to “sustain democracy”
– to help keep it alive by providing the
information which makes possible the
informed and honest debate which is the
very lifeblood of democracy. By its
complicity in the suppression of the truth
of history as it relates to the Arab-Israeli
conflict, I think the media has betrayed
democracy.
I wrote Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews
not only to set a new agenda for informed
and honest debate, but to empower citizens
of all faiths and none, so-called ordinary folk
especially, to become engaged and participate
in debate.
Information on Palestine
www.aqsa.org.ukJournal – Referenced articles from previous issues of Al Aqsa.
Newsletter – Quarterly printed by Friends of Al Aqsa.
Publications – History of al Masjidul Aqsa and Guide to al Masjidul Aqsa.
Flyers – On Jerusalem, Refugees, al Masjidul Aqsa, UN Resolutions and Much More.
News From Palestine – Important news and views from Palestine.
Photographic Gallery – Photos from the ground in Palestine.
Book Reviews – Reviews on books related to Palestinian issues.
PLUS * CAMPAIGNS * ACTIVITIES * EVENTS AND * MUCH, MUCH MORE
Al-Aqsa 25
Israel’s Seperation Wall: Apartheid, Illicit
Legitimate Self-Defence
James Barrett*
* JAMES BARRETT studied history (BA Hons.) at the University of Sheffield and obtained a Masters in Politics
at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg , South Africa. His thesis explored anti-capitalist social
movements in pre and post-Apartheid South Africa. He is also a founding member of the Palestine Solidarity
Committee at Wits.
Introduction – Outlining the Wall in
Palestine
In assessing the nature of the “SeparationWall”, it is first necessary to sketch out itsphysical characteristics. In the West Bank, theroute of the final Wall will be approximately700 km long.1 Over 300 km of the Wall wasfinished by February 2006. The first stage ofthe project in the West Bank began in Jenindistrict in mid-2002, costing $4.7 million perkilometre. Construction cut deep intoPalestinian lands, running southwards from thenorth-western side of the West Bank. Thesecond stage of the Wall saw this processcontinue further south, through the districts ofRamallah, Bethlehem and Hebron whereconstruction is ongoing. The total western routeof the Wall, confirmed by the OccupationForces in January 2005, annexes 9.5% of theWest Bank, isolates Palestinian communitiesfrom their lands, and bars Palestinians fromtheir capital Jerusalem.2
In the east of the West Bank, a third stageof the Wall project is beginning to take shape,enabling the annexation of the Jordan Valley tothe Occupation. Meanwhile, a Wall built in the1990s already imprisons Gaza’s population of1.3 million. The Wall here – which is not builton the 1949 “Green Line” but on Gaza’s lands– is being bolstered by the current constructionof a second Wall. This seals the Strip’s status asthe world’s largest open-air ghetto.
Mainstream media and international agenciessuch as OCHA and the EU tend to ignore thepresence of the Wall beyond that which runson the western side of the West Bank. Togetherwith a lack of cognisance for the way in whichthe Wall is designed to cut Palestinian towns andvillages off from their lands, it has helped tofuel misguided perceptions that the Wall formsa separation or barrier between Jews andPalestinians. To the contrary, we will demonstratethat it forms a highly effective tool to divideand imprison Palestinians into a series of
miserable and disparate cantons, for the
direct benefit of the Occupation and the
expansion of its settlements.
Moreover, the Wall takes on various
forms often negated in coverage and analysis
of the Occupation of Palestine. From the
daunting 8 meter-high concrete structure, to
razor wire reinforced fences, to militarised
settlement infrastructure and fenced in
settler-only roads, the Wall in Palestine is a
myriad of forms that prevents Palestinian
movement and steals Palestinian land. Taken
together, we suggest that the Wall advances
a specific system of Apartheid that confines
Palestinians to ghettos and appropriates their
lands. Creating a hellish existence for
Palestinians trapped behind the Wall and its
fortified checkpoints, a total of 50% of the
West Bank is being stolen by the Apartheid
Wall project. It facilitates settlement
expansion currently being stepped up on
Palestinian lands from Jerusalem to the
Jordan Valley. In Gaza, where 85% of the
population are refugees from 1948, the Wall
serves as a permanent barrier to their right
of return, in clear defiance of international
law and convention.
We will argue that the Wall continues a
project begun in 1948 when the Nakba
forcibly drove over 750,000 Palestinians
from their homes into exile. Over the last
58 years the Occupation has sought by
various means to facilitate the exile of
Palestinians from their lands, as well as
controlling, regulating and profiting from
Palestinian life under Occupation.3 This has
created a dualism to Israeli colonialism,
which distinguishes it from other forms of
imperialism, racism and Apartheid. Thus a
brief deconstruction of Israel as an
Apartheid and pariah state will flesh out
important similarities, but also fundamental
differences, with experiences of Apartheid
in South Africa.
it forms a highly
effective tool to
divide and imprison
Palestinians into a
series of miserable
and disparate
cantons, for the
direct benefit of
the Occupation and
the expansion of its
settlements
26 Al-Aqsa
In conclusion, our analysis will suggest that
any portrayal of the Wall as “security” apparatus
is misguided and buys into the discourse and
aims of the Occupation. Israel as an occupying
and colonial power cannot claim legitimate self-
defence until it fulfils the obligations it has under
international law and convention to respect the
intrinsic rights of the Palestinian people to their
lands, and provide adequate reparations for the
injustices they have suffered over the last 58
years. While the Wall is illicit, and has been
declared illegal by the highest organ of
international law in The Hague (the International
Court of Justice – ICJ), we will argue that
characterising the Wall as “illicit” or “illegal”
cannot possibly encompass the ideological
framework under which it is being created and
the realities it shapes. We will suggest that while
both “separation” and “illicit” reflect some
characteristics of the Wall, they remain inferior
definitions if compared to the overall dynamics
emphasized by the terminology of the
“Apartheid Wall”.
Through its enclosure of Palestinian life,
racist segregation, and land annexation, the Wall
requires people of conscience from across the
global community to stand side by side with
Palestinians struggling under the latest stages of
the most brutal military Occupation.
Understanding that the central tenet of the
Israeli Occupation is based upon an imposed
system of Apartheid which necessitates
resistance provides an analysis from which
bonds of solidarity can be strengthened with
Palestinians struggling for their freedom and
liberation.
The Wall as a “Security Barrier”: Rhetoric
and Reality
Significant attempts by Zionists, in and
outside Israel, to suggest the Wall is a “security”
mechanism or barrier, have had some resonance
within the way mainstream media and
international institutions alike portray the
Occupation of Palestine. In mass media the Wall
is all too often presented as some kind of
division between two peoples seen as being in
some kind of inextricable conflict with each
other. With no historical context of the
Occupation of Palestine and the right of an
occupied people to resist, popular Western news
is often littered with references to Palestinian
suicide bombers and the Wall as a final measure
forced upon Israel to protect its citizens and
borders. It has been described as a “temporary”
measure that can be dismantled once Palestinian
“terror” has ended. Popular statistics churned
out to justify the Wall include the drop in
bombings and reduction in Palestinian militancy
since its construction.
Moreover, the largely cosmetic changes
made over the route of one section of the
Wall – announced by the Occupation Forces
in February 2005 – was viewed in some
quarters as proof of Israel as a moderate
and sincere force capable of making
compromises for the sake of “peace”.4 The
myth and hype around “disengagement” was
also tainted by such distortion, failing to show
any comprehension that Israel was actively
engaged in the further conquest of
Palestinian land in the West Bank while
making Gaza a fortified prison.
Denying the role of historical context in
determining Palestinian resistance, and
negating the continual conquest of
Palestinian land by Israel, forges an
understanding of the “security” Wall and self-
defence, which is profoundly politicised
within the Zionist ideology that Palestine and
Palestinians don’t exist. Buying into the
“security” rhetoric forges complicity with the
Wall project and the catastrophic realities it
entails. Yet, perhaps more dangerous, is that
such complicity does not restrict itself to
popular western media, but dominates the
policies and actions of significant players in
the international community.
Israel, The World Bank and
International Community: Complicit
Partners in Crime
Acceptance of the myth around Israeli
expansionism as “self-defense” by influential
global powers has helped to shape the
conditions by which the Wall and Occupation
become sustainable. It is useful to briefly
elaborate on the role of such agencies if we
are to deconstruct claims over “security”
functions of the Wall.
One of the most influential external
institutions working in Palestine – and which
works to promote the crimes of the
Occupation – is the World Bank. Its history
in the region dates to the early 1990s when
the Bank were approached by the organizers
of the 1992 “Middle East Peace Talks”,
headed by the USA, to prepare a study of
“economic prospects and development
challenges”.5 This culminated in the report
of September 1993, “Developing the
Occupied Territories: An Investment in
Peace”. So suitably impressed with the
World Bank’s negation of the crucial
precursors for genuine development such
as dismantling the settlements, ending the
Occupation and actualising the right of
return for refugees, that the Bank was
praised by global players for being
“technically competent and politically
Buying into the
“security” rhetoric
forges complicity
with the Wall
project and the
catastrophic
realities it entails
Al-Aqsa 27
neutral.”6 When the Oslo Accords were signed,the Bank took on responsibility for coordinatingdevelopment and investment in the WBGS.One of its first tasks was to create thePalestinian National Authority (PNA) toadminister the disparate Bantustans of theWBGS. It established an economic formulabased upon neo-liberal, export based principles,together with the “security” reservations ofthe Occupation, shaping a highly politicisedbrand of “development”. The Bank becamedeeply entwined with policy makingmechanisms within the PNA and consistentlythreatened – on occasion doing so – to withhold“aid” when the Authority failed to meet theconditionalities being imposed.7
The Al-Aqsa Intifada reflected a funda-mental rejection of Oslo, and specifically thecreation of a fractured Palestinian Bantu-State,in which the Bank were playing an importantrole in attempting to construct and make viable.By 2003, as the intensity of the Intifada declined(after the killings and imprisonment ofthousands of Palestinians), the Bank rekindledits relationships with the institutions it had builtin the PNA and began to proselytise the formof “development” needed to reinforce what itcalled the “peace process”. This led to thepublication of two key documents in 2004. Thelarger of the two reports, “Stagnation or Revival?Israeli Disengagement and Palestinian EconomicProspects”, made a series of premises that onceagain revealed an acceptance by the Bank ofthe Occupation’s realities on the ground and nowincluded the Apartheid Wall.8
The Bank, unsurprisingly given its historyas a strong supporter of the Occupation,welcomed the construction of the Wall in twoways. Firstly, for producing the conditions bywhich the “security” requirements of theOccupation could be met in regards to concernsover the use of cheap Palestinian labour.9
Arguing they could be efficiently screened andfunnelled through the terminals in the Wall, theBank pleaded with Israel to change its positionafter Ehud Olmert announced that from 2008there would be no more Israeli work permitsfor Palestinians from the WBGS. Moreover, theBank has strategically placed plans for massiveindustrial zones around the Wall in order to meetthe “security” requirements of businessinterests.10 The Bank sees opportunities fordevelopment stemming from the abundance ofcheap labour in Palestine – currently beingincreased by the Wall stripping farmingcommunities of their lands – and seeks theirintegration into the industrial zones. This formsthe prototype for Palestinian development; massexport production by a cheap workforce, lockedbehind walls, for the benefit of foreignconsumers and profits.
Secondly, the Wall has been welcomedfor creating a climate in which other closuresin Palestine can be removed. Ex-BankPresident James Wolfensohn is currentlyengaged in the role of “special envoy”,overseeing disengagement and some of theBank’s operations on the ground. He expectsa reduction in checkpoints because the“security barrier” has rendered them“obsolete”.11 He calls for roadblocks, internalpermits and other closures to be removedas “taken together, this system constitutes aformidable barrier to economic efficiency.”He states that discussions need to focus onconcrete steps to reduce “these barriers” butnot the Wall.12 Wolfensohn’s belief, that heis striking a “creative balance betweensecurity and development”, believe theemphasis he has placed on coordinating“development” in the West Bank which iscentred upon the permanency of theApartheid Wall.13
It reveals the acceptance of ever-shrinking Palestinian areas and the buildingof “state” infrastructure that continuesPalestinian dependency upon Israel as anoccupying and colonial state. Meanwhile theillegality of checkpoints and zones which fitin with the infrastructure of the Wall hasnot deterred the Bank from pursuing theirconstruction as part of the export orientatedeconomy. It cites how such projects can goahead on the basis of “humanitarian”grounds.14 The United States has providedconsiderable funding for these fortifiedterminal checkpoints, to the tune of $150million, in direct support of the Occupationproject.
The Bank recently stated how it wasworking to continue work permits for cheapPalestinian labour so that: “Israel wouldcushion the shock that completion of theSeparation Barrier will otherwise cause tothe Palestinian labour market, while replacingillegal labour with an equivalent quantity ofpermitted – hence safer – laborers.”15
The Bank’s manipulation of the Wall, andits willingness to buy into the “security”arguments of the Occupation, are at oddswith international law and the fundamentalrights of the Palestinian people. Theinternational financial institution (IFI) isconsiderably powerful and influential inshaping the economic policies in the“developing” world, and its role in Palestineis significant. With the mandate of theQuartet, the Bank has and is playing a centralrole in legitimising the Wall by treating it asa necessary security feature. Headed by arch-Zionist Paul Wolfensohn, the policy makersof the Bank in Washington are engaged in
With the mandate
of the Quartet, the
Bank has and is
playing a central
role in legitimising
the Wall by
treating it as a
necessary security
feature
28 Al-Aqsa
developing the means by which Palestinians can
be “calmed” and coerced into willing players in
a peace process where they suffer further
dispossession.16
In order to circumvent international law and
whitewash their crimes, the Bank and powers
within the international donor community, have
created the most outlandish euphemism behind
which they justify their actions: “for the benefit
of Palestinians”.17 Taken with the Orwellian
double-speak around notions of terror, peace
and justice, such discourse has contributed to
the climate in which the Wall has been removed
from reality and cast as a legitimate and justified
security measure. Yet if some powerful elements
of the global community have attempted to cloak
the role of the Wall, creating illusion and fantasy,
statements from the Israeli Occupation Forces
themselves have revealed the real role of the
Wall as a political device of colonial conquest.
They have felt no need to make secret the
motives of the Wall in securing Occupation
expansion upon Palestinian land. It is here where
we begin to discern the discrepancies between
the rhetoric of Zionists and their sympathisers,
and the realities being inflicted upon the
Palestinian people.
Creating Facts on the Ground
In understanding the impetus for the Wall,
we need look no further than the numerous
comments made by figures and institutions within
the Occupation Forces. They have felt little
reason to conceal Israel’s actions within the
rhetoric of “self-defense”, shedding light on the
Zionist mentality behind the latest round of
colonial expansion on Palestinian land.
In 2005 Israeli “Justice Minister” Tzipi Livni
noted to a conference in Caesarea that,
“One does not have to be a genius to see
that the fence will have implications for the
future border.”18 The Occupation’s High Court,
when considering the Wall in Qalqiliya, stated:
“We were completely unconvinced that there is
a decisive military-security reason for placing
the route of the fence where it currently runs”.19
More blatant have been the comments of
“Defence” Minister Mofaz, who has outlined
the intentions of the Occupation Forces in re-
defining the borders of Israel. He stated the
future borders would encompass “the settlement
blocs, including the Jordan Valley” adding that:
“Israel is taking a step to shape a new reality.
Disengagement will continue after Gaza.
Together with the Fence in Judea and Samaria
[West Bank] it will bring a strategic achievement,
enforce real negotiations and coexistence in
defensible borders.”20 Mofaz also noted the
Wall’s role in maintaining the demographics of
Israel in which Palestinians are a minority.
Such comments require little elaboration
and are not considered unusual in Israeli
society where a popular anti-Zionist
movement has yet to take shape. For the
moment, the society continues to be hinged
upon the continual colonisation and
domination of Palestinian land, creating and
re-creating facts on the ground.
The motivations and ideology which
underpin the Wall project have been
understood by Palestinians from the Wall’s
inception, and recognised as further stage in
Israeli colonialism. The comments of the
Occupation Forces dispel any myths around
the legitimate “security” or “self-defense” of
Israel, and reinforce the assertions
consistently made by Palestinians. It was
their petitions and refusal to accept the Wall,
which raised its profile on a global level, and
was in part responsible for the issue reaching
the ICJ in The Hague in 2004.
The Wall and International Law
Palestinian calls and resistance to the Wall
brought the attention of the highest organ
of international law, the ICJ in The Hague.
After several months of deliberations the
court declared the Wall to be illegal, called
for it to be immediately dismantled and for
suitable reparations to be made available to
Palestinians whose lives had been destroyed
by it. Moreover, in the ruling made on the
9th of July 2004, the ICJ called upon the
international community not to “recognize
nor render aid and assistance to the Wall”.21
The ruling was subsequently supported by
an overwhelming majority of states in the
United Nations General Assembly (GA),
meeting opposition from just a handful of
the usual suspects such as the United States.
The subsequent failure of the
international community to implement the
ICJ decision, and apply the necessary
pressure on Israel, has caused much
resentment amongst Palestinians for the
double standards shown by the most
powerful global powers. Moreover, it repeats
the familiar narrative in which the
international community have consistently
failed to act in ways which can secure the
rights of the Palestinian people. While the
ICJ and the UN were both clear regarding
the illegality of the Wall, it has not catalysed
any serious international effort to support
the Palestinian people who challenge the Wall
with their bare hands on a daily basis. To the
contrary, companies from across the world
are allowed to continue to reap profits from
the Wall and Occupation expansion, at the
expense of the blood, tears and misery of
More blatant have
been the
comments of
“Defence” Minister
Mofaz, who has
outlined the
intentions of the
Occupation Forces
in re-defining the
borders of Israel
the ICJ called upon
the international
community not to
“recognize nor
render aid and
assistance to the
Wall
Al-Aqsa 29
Palestinians.22 The United States provides direct
funding for the Wall’s fortified terminals. The
World Bank works to create industrial zones
around the Wall for the benefit of global capital,
creating the most devastating system of racial
capital seen since the days of Apartheid South
Africa. While international agencies such as the
UN remain idle, and thus complicit partners in
the Israeli project, global powers such as the
US are actively engaged in the attack upon
Palestinian communities. The Palestinian right
to resist remains as vital now as ever before.
The Palestinian Right to Resist
Given the scenario we have outlined, any
basic analysis of the Wall in Palestine leads to
the realisation of the basic Palestinian right to
resist a military Occupation. This Occupation,
to the contrary of abating, increases in its
temerity via the Wall on a daily basis. House
demolitions, confiscation orders for Palestinian
land, assassinations, expansion of settlements
and their roads, incursions and harassment at
checkpoints, form the daily experience of
Palestinians in the West Bank. In Gaza, the
Occupation continues as before, leaving
Palestinians ghettoised and cut-off from the rest
of the world. The following quote from the
Israeli Disengagement Plan (IDP) of 2005
illustrates the nature of such an Occupation:
“Israel will guard and monitor the
external land perimeter of the Gaza Strip,
will continue to maintain exclusive
authority in Gaza air space, and will
continue to exercise security activity in
the sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip.”23
Israel states that, “the completion of the plan
will serve to dispel the claims regarding Israel’s
responsibility for the Palestinians in the Gaza
Strip”.24 However, international conventions
suggest otherwise. The consensus within
international law for describing the status of an
Occupation can be seen within notions of
“effective control” over a population. Stemming
from the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Gaza
Strip is still considered under such definitions
as under “effective Occupation”, thus re-
asserting the right for Palestinians to continue
their resistance. Moreover, the Wall around
Gaza is not built on the 1949 Armistice Lines,
and the majority of the population are waiting
to fulfil their right to return to their homes and
communities in the 1948 areas. Indeed, until
the latter goal is achieved, “self defence” via
the construction of a Wall around Gaza can
never be justified as a legitimate measure by
Israel. The increasing severity of the
Occupation and the Wall has sharpened the
experiences of racism and Apartheid for
Palestinians in the WBGS, who are denied
the most basic rights and freedoms, and
struggle under conditions that threaten a new
Nakba in the 21st century.
Israel’s Wall: An Apartheid Mechanism
“There are few places in the world where
governments construct a web of nationality
and residency laws designed for use by one
section of the population against another.
Apartheid South Africa was one. So is
Israel.”25 Chris McGreal - January 2006
So far we have only touched upon the
conditions of Palestinian life in the WBGS,
and pointed to the impact that the Wall has
for Palestinians squeezed into tighter
ghettos, isolated from their lands. However,
the Wall is equally fundamental in the role
it plays for Palestinian life remaining in
Israel. It is here that we might begin to piece
together the ways in which the Wall is
designed to elaborate a twin system of
Apartheid.
The first goal of the Wall is, as Mofaz
revealed, to protect the demographic Jewish
majority in Israel, and to expand this through
the re-creation of borders and Jewish
settlements. The Wall acts to shut Palestinians
out from their capital, prevents any
contiguous Palestinian state and serves to
sustain the demographics of Israel in which
Jews make up around 80% of the total
population. McGreal’s comments point to
the systematic discrimination against the 1.1
million Palestinians who hold Israeli IDs.
These Palestinians face a plethora of
discriminatory laws and practices, which
control and regulate every aspect of life.
93% of the land is reserved for exclusive
Jewish use through state ownership, the
Jewish National Fund and the Israeli Lands
Authority. This has halted any natural
expansion of Palestinian areas, while
Palestinians remaining in the Negev and
Galilee are surrounded by new Jewish-only
settlements funded with grants from the
United States.26
From de-facto pass laws, restrictions on
movement, house demolitions, denial of
access to basic services such as electricity
and water, to the propagation of Zionist
propaganda in the educational curriculum,
Israel is characterized by a political, social
and cultural system in which racism and
oppression are central. It is not necessary to
detail every element of Israeli Apartheid -
this has been done convincingly elsewhere -
but for us to make the basic assertion that
Israeli society is one which bears a marked
the Wall is
designed to
elaborate a twin
system of
Apartheid
Israel is
characterized by a
political, social and
cultural system in
which racism and
oppression are
central
30 Al-Aqsa
resemblance to that of the previous regime inSouth Africa.27
However the Wall fulfils anotherfundamental role, squeezing Palestinians in the1967 areas into ever-tighter ghettos andBantustans in which they can be totallycontrolled. Existence is suffocated to the extentthat livelihoods are crushed, life becomesunbearable, and exodus becomes an inevitableoutcome. It is worth pausing here to draw out afew examples of how the Wall creates thecatastrophic conditions by which to securecontinuous Palestinian exile.
The first stage of the Wall entailedconstruction throughout the districts ofQalqiliya, Tulkarem and Jenin. Cutting in deeplyfrom the “Green Line”, the Wall isolated hugechunks of Palestinian land and weaved in andout to annex the settlements. Palestiniancommunities found themselves isolated fromtheir farming lands and basic resources such asgroundwater wells. Initially Occupation Forcesset up a “permit system” which wouldsupposedly lead to continued access forPalestinians to their arable lands. For the firstfew years after the presence of the Wall, a fewpermits were granted, often arbitrarily andsubject to restrictions whenever deemednecessary by Occupation Forces. As a resultPalestinian crops rotted and livelihoods weredestroyed. However, even such limitedPalestinian access has now begun to come to anend. Over the last few months, permits havebeen withdrawn and steps are being taken toincorporate isolated Palestinian lands intosettlements or new military camps.28
In Qalqiliya city itself, the population iscompletely encircled by the Wall. A single militarycheckpoint provides the only entrance and exitto the ghetto. In total, 41,600 people in whatwas the regional administrative and economiccentre are now cut-off from the rest of theworld, and subject to Occupation behind Walls.Already, over 4000 people have left.
As the Wall runs southwards, it continues todispossess Palestinian communities of theirfarming lands. In Jerusalem, 181 kilometres ofWall is being constructed in order to shutPalestinians out of the city and strip away theirlands for the expansion of the settlements. Thisis creating an exodus of Palestinian social andcultural organisations, businesses, and institutionsinto the cantons of the West Bank anddevastating Jerusalem.
In Bethlehem district, two Walls work inparallel to each other to imprison Palestinians.A total of 71,000 dunums of land are taken inthe district, with the Apartheid Wall encroachinginto the heart of Bethlehem city to annexRachel’s Tomb (Bihal Mosque). Villages aroundBethlehem are totally isolated between two Walls
enabling the Gush Etzion settlement bloc toexpand by 40% on confiscated lands. Thesevillages already lost large amounts of landafter 1948 and life will now be unbearableafter the latest theft. Checkpoints built intothe Wall and the fenced in settler-onlyhighway roads reveal Occupationinfrastructure working in tandem to preventPalestinian movement. Contiguity for Israelisettlements is assured through an elaboratesystem of Apartheid bypass roads whichyield total Occupation control of the land.29
Meanwhile, in the Jordan Valley, massivesettlement expansion schemes are underway.Working within the framework of the thirdstage of the Apartheid Wall project,Palestinians who use the Valley to grow cropsand for pasture are being expelled, and theirlands permanently annexed by theOccupation.
The Valley is a rich fertile area, thetraditional and historic centre of agriculturefor various Palestinian farming communitiesincluding Bedouins. Providing access tosignificant water reserves and the hilltops thatoverlook the West Bank, the Valley has longbeen a key target for the Occupation. Since1967, 21 colonies have been built in theValley, currently occupied by 6300 settlers.Israeli agricultural minister Binyamin Rompronounced in an interview with Ha‘aretznewspaper (8/9/2004) that Israel’s intentionsare to confiscate 32,000 dunums of land toexpand these settlements. This includes 3,200dunums used as military camps that will beevacuated and handed over to Jewish settlers.The remaining 28,800 dunums will beconfiscated directly from the Palestinianpopulation.
Rom explained how the vast amount ofland should be secured for Jewish rule andsupremacy: “The plan which has already wonapproval from within different ministries willincrease the number of residents in 21settlements by 50 percent in a year and thenby a further 50 percent in the followingyear.”
The full extent of the land theft is laidbare from some basic statistics. Out of 2,400km2 that make up the territory of the JordanValley, 455.7 km2 is already designated as“military closed areas.” This project will puta total of 1655.5 km2 of lands under thecontrol of already existing settlements. Thetotal figure of confiscated lands will reach2354.2 km2. This leaves only 45 km2 of landsfor Palestinians use, 10km2 of which is takenup by built up areas.
By the end of 2005, this process was wellunderway. Palestinians were being cut offfrom the entire eastern sector of the West
Contiguity for
Israeli settlements
is assured through
an elaborate
system of
Apartheid bypass
roads which yield
total Occupation
control of the land
Al-Aqsa 31
Bank. Farming communities were under attack,
suffering house and property demolitions and
in some instances forced expulsion. A state
driven Zionist development project invested 60
million NIS ($13 million) in 2004, joined by an
additional 58 million NIS ($11 million) in 2005,
with a further 85 million NIS ($19 million) slated
for 2006- 2008.
Development of Apartheid infrastructure to
ensure the permanent annexation of this land
will develop from the fenced in settler roads
and highways which already pepper the
landscape of the Jordan Valley. Such
infrastructure deploys razor wire fencing,
checkpoints, trenches and roadblocks in a
contiguous form that mirror the cement Walls
that enclose Palestinians from the west.
Meanwhile, surveyors have arrived in the north
of the Valley undertaking research, which
Palestinians assert to be for the continuation
of the Wall from Jenin district into the Valley.
Pariah States: Israel and South Africa
“This is much worse than apartheid …
the Israeli measures, the brutality, make
apartheid look like a picnic. We never had
jets attacking our townships. We never
had sieges that lasted month after month.
We never had tanks destroying houses.
We had armoured vehicles and police
using small arms to shoot people but not
on this scale.”
Ronnie Kasrils - 2004
Kasril’s statement touches on the major
distinction that exists between Israeli and South
African Apartheid, the goal of cleansing a nation
of people from their lands. While the racist
regime in Pretoria coerced blacks into the
Bantustans upon 13% of the land, Israeli
Apartheid continuously re-defines borders to
suffocate the indigenous Palestinian population.
The Wall is the current manifestation of this
process and is creating new facts on the ground
which are having a devastating effect upon
Palestinian existence.
Israeli Apartheid is unique in that it
incorporates dual colonial processes that
complement, and at times, contradict each other.
The Wall provides a clear example of this.
Ramifications of its construction include the
dispossession of Palestinian towns and villages
of their lands, the denial of movement, right to
dignified and sustainable livelihoods, and access
to basic services. In this way it facilitates
Palestinian exodus by making life in ghettos
unbearable. Yet, the dynamics of the
Occupation have also ensured a continual
relationship with Palestinians based upon
dependency. As a site for cheap labour, a market
to dump and flood with products, and in
which domestic Palestinian produce is stifled,
Israel profits immensely from the
Occupation of Palestine.
The issue of the industrial zones is of
particular relevance, given their role in
continuing the asymmetrical relationship
between the economies of Palestine and the
Occupation. In a confidential report from
2001, the World Bank noted how:
“The initial conception of the
industrial estate development
program was one of fostering
business clusters on the borders
between Israel and the Palestinian
territories (“border” estates), so as to
permit employment by international
and Israeli entrepreneurs of
Palestinian workers free of security-
related restrictions on the entry of
Palestinians into Israel proper.”30
Palestinians, currently being disposed of
their lands and livelihoods, are reduced to
the role of a cheap labour force. Meanwhile,
Palestinian businessmen and elites associated
with PIEDCO, a subsidiary arm of
PADICO which receives substantial funding
from the World Bank, have been linked to
an industrial zone being built on land stolen
from Palestinian farmers in Irta (Tulkarem
district).31 The land, isolated behind the
Apartheid Wall has been significantly built
up over the last year with farmers now
resigned to the loss of their land. Mr. Munib
Rashid Masri, PADICO Chairman noted in
June 2005 how the company had “plans for
development and management of industrial
zones”.32 Details of such schemes, and if
they are funded with World Bank or donor
money, are expected to emerge shortly and
could be the target of significant outcry and
protest if they are built around the
infrastructure of the Apartheid Wall.
A system of racial capital for the direct
benefit of Israel as a colonial power forms
strong parallels with the South African
experience. Yet the ghettoization caused by
the Occupation adds features to Israeli
Apartheid which surpass the system of racist
discrimination of South Africa. For
Palestinians remaining in the 1948 areas,
subjugated to systematic racist and
discriminatory laws and practices, identity,
life and culture as a Palestinian is denied. It
leads us to conclude how the Wall as a
manifestation and extension of this
Apartheid, and a crime of humanity against
the Palestinians can be dismantled.
Moreover, it leads us to consider how tearing
Kasril’s statement
touches on the
major distinction
that exists
between Israeli and
South African
Apartheid, the goal
of cleansing a
nation of people
from their lands
32 Al-Aqsa
down the Wall can come as part of a sustained
campaign to realise the fundamental rights of
the Palestinian people to their lands.
Conclusion - After the Wall: A framework
for Palestinian Rights
Even if the Wall were to be switched to the
“Green Line”, it would continue to preserve
Israel’s nature as an Apartheid state. Until the
right of return for Palestinian refugees, the
ending of racist and discriminatory laws and
practices against Palestinians in the 1948 areas,
and until the end of the Occupation of the
WBGS, Israel cannot lay claim to legitimate self-
defense. That the Wall is built to exact even
further conquest of Palestinian land perhaps
makes the term “Annexation Wall” – which is
used in some quarters - more suitable than
Apartheid. However, Apartheid captures the
overall dynamics and ramifications of the Wall
for Palestinians in the WBGS and in the 1948
areas. The parallels it draws with South African
experiences are by no means entirely accurate,
but it serves as an important mobilisation tool
for a global justice movement to target Israeli
Apartheid and develop the means by which to
support all Palestinians who are struggling for
their freedom and liberation.
The Wall threatens to enact another Nakba
on Palestinians in the WBGS, and create a
fractured Bantu-State made up of miserable
and disparate ghettos. It seeks to enshrine a
highly racialised system of exploitation from
dispossessed Palestinian communities with the
creation of industrial estates. It represents the
continual Israeli conquest of Palestinian land
and the re-definition of borders as settlements
expand. The World Bank’s attempt to “cushion”
the impact of the Wall symbolises the direct
complicity many global powers and agencies
have chosen to take in direct support of the
Occupation and its crimes.
The Wall is illicit, it does separate (Palestinians
from Palestinians), it also annexes, but
fundamentally it is designed to sustain the
Apartheid nature of Israel and continue the
Bantustanisation of areas in which Palestinians
still live. The Wall as a manifestation of
Apartheid can be seen as a mechanism of “self-
defense”, but only in the sense that it attempts
to prop up a system of Israeli Apartheid, and
extend the Zionist project for the further
conquest of Palestinian lands.
Its removal, followed by the settlements,
along with the implementation of the right of
return into the 1948 and 1967 areas, provides
a blueprint by which people of conscience and
justice movements across the world can offer
the solidarity which Palestinians are asking for.
Standing side by side with communities who
resist Israeli Apartheid and the Wall on a daily
basis heralds the means by which
international law and convention, but most
importantly, the rights of the Palestinian
people can be won.
Abbreviations
− Ad-Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC)
− Consultative Group For Palestine (CG)
− Emergency Assistance Program for the
Occupied Territories (EAP)
− European Union (EU)
− International Court of Justice (ICJ)
− Israeli Disengagement Plan (IDP)
− International Monetary Fund (IMF)
− Joint Liaison Committee (JLC)
− Local Aid Coordination Committee
(LACC)
− Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD)
− UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
− Palestine Development and Investment
Company Limited (PADICO)
− Palestine Industrial Estate Development
and Management Company (PIEDCO)
− Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC)
− Palestinian Liberation Organization
(PLO)
− Palestinian National Authority (PNA)
− Palestinian Non-Governmental
Organizations (PNGO)
− Office of the United Nations Special
Coordinator (UNSCO)
− United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP)
− United Nations General Assembly (GA)
− United Nations Relief and Works Agency
(UNRWA)
− United States Agency for International
Development (USAID)
− West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS)
World Health Organization (WHO)
Notes
1. The references to basic features, facts and
characteristics of the Wall used in this work can
be found in the resources and materials available
from the Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid
Wall Campaign at www.stopthewall.org
2. View maps at www.ochaopt.org and
www.stopthewall.org
3. For detailed exploration of this issue see Samara,
A. (1992), Industrialization in the West Bank: A
Marxist Socio-Economic Analysis, Al-Mashriq
Publications for Economic and Development
Studies, Jerusalem
4. For the modified route of the Wall refer to maps
available from www.ochaopt.org
The Wall is illicit, it
does separate
(Palestinians from
Palestinians), it also
annexes, but
fundamentally it is
designed to sustain
the Apartheid
nature of Israel
Al-Aqsa 33
5. World Bank (2002), West Bank & Gaza: An Evaluation
of Bank Assistance, Washington, p. 7
6. Ibid. p. 7
7. The latest incident coming at the end of 2005 when
the Bank held back payments to the PNA due to its
failure to meet the targets the Bank had set.
Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
is developing new fiscal measures, which the PNA
will be required to meet.
8. Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign
(2005), Israel, The World bank and ‘Sustainable
Development’ of the Palestinian Ghettos, La Citta Del Sole,
Napoli
9. See Office of the Special Envoy for Disengagement
(2005), Periodic Report: 17th October and also World
Bank (2005), The Palestinian Economy and the Prospects
for its Recovery: Economic Monitoring Report to the Ad Hoc
Liaison Committee, Number 1, December 2005. The
Bank in the same document has praised continuing
levels of Palestinian labour used in the settlements as
a “positive trend”, and is currently engaged in brokering
an agreement to secure the continuation of cheap
Palestinian labour into Israel.
10. Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign
(2005), Israel, The World Bank and ‘Sustainable
Development’ of the Palestinian Ghettos, La Citta Del Sole,
Napoli
11. Office of the Special Envoy for Disengagement
(2005), op. cit. p. 2
12. World Bank (2005), The Palestinian Economy, p. 2/3
13. Ibid.
14. World Bank (2004), Stagnation, Overview, p. 37 where
the Bank note that “It is understood that projects
considered ‘borderline’ from a political perspective,
but which serve important humanitarian needs, could
be approved”.
15. Ibid.
16. The Bank’s own evaluation has noted its success in
calming the Palestinians throughout the 1990s, see
World Bank (2002), West Bank & Gaza: An Evaluation
of Bank Assistance, Washington, p. 7
17. See Inter Press Service News Agency (February 24th
2005), “World Bank May Fund Israeli Checkpoints”,
h t t p : / / w w w . i p s n e w s . n e t /
interna.asp?idnews=27620, where Bank Official
Markus Kostner considers World Bank Funding for
�
Terminals in the Apartheid Wall “for the benefit
of Palestinians”.
18. Reported by various Israeli and Palestinian media.
19 Ibid.
20. Mofaz interview with Yedioth Aharonot
newspaper, 29/09/04
21. ICJ ruling available from http://www.icj-cij.org/
icjwww/icjhome.htm
22. Caterpillar is example of a company directly
profiting from the Wall.
23. The Israeli Disengagement Plan can be accessed
from, http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/
Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/
Israeli+Disengagement+Plan+20-Jan-2005.htm
24. Ibid.
25. McGreal, C, (2006) Worlds Apart, for The
Guardian (UK)
ht tp ://www.guard i an . co.uk/ i s r ae l/S tor y/
0,,1703245,00.html, February 6
26. Humphries, I. (2005), From Gaza to the Galilee:
Same Policy, Same Agenda, http://www.miftah.org/
Display.cfm?DocId=8698&CategoryId=5 which
details the Judaization of the remaining Palestinian
areas of the 1948 lands.
27. For more details of the crimes of Israeli Apartheid
see Davis, U. (2003), Apartheid Israel: The Struggle
Within, Zed Books, New York and Patel, I.A,
(2005) Palestine: A Beginners Guide, Al-Aqsa
Publishers, Leicester
28. Refer to www.stopthewall.org where the “Latest
News” section documents such developments.
29. For more detail of the Apartheid Roads see Hass,
A. (2006), Israel cuts Jordan Rift from rest of
West Bank, in Haaretz, http://www.haaretz.com/
hasen/spages/681938.html, 13th February
30. Samara, A (2001), Globalization, The Palestinian
Economy and the ‘Peace Process’, http://
w w w . w p b . b e / i c m / 2 0 0 1 / 0 1 e n /
Palestine_Samara.htm, where he cites a
confidential World Bank document.
31. Rapoport, M. (2004), Israel: Industrial Estates Along
The Wall, http://mondediplo.com/2004/06/
05thewall
32. PADICO (2005), Press release – June 30th, http:/
/www.padico.com/Press%20release6-2005.htm
Books Available For Review
1 HAMAS – A Beginner’s Guide, by Khaled Hroub
2 The Second Palestinian Intifada, by Ramzy Baroud
3 Checkpoint Watch, by Yehudit Kirstein Keshet
4 A threat from within – A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism, by Yakov M. Rabkin
5 The Persistence of the Palestinian Question, by Joseph A. Massad
6 Blood and Religion – the unmasking of the Jewish democratic state, by Jonathan Cook
Interested individuals contact Friends of Al-Aqsa
34 Al-Aqsa
Al-Aqsa 35
B O O K R E V I E W
Jerusalem: Constructing the Study of
Islamic Art, Volume IVBY OLEG GRABAR, 2005, ISBN: 0 86078 925 X HB, P
284 and Includes 48 B&W illustrations, £65.00
Oleg Grabar has dedicated his academic life toIslamic art and architecture and in these fourvolumes he brings together 50 years of his work.
Jerusalem is the final volume in a set of four selections ofstudies on Islamic art. Between them they bring togethermore than eighty articles, studies and essays; work spanning
half a century by an academic of the field.Grabber is Emeritus Professor in the School of
Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study,
Princeton, USA, and Aga Khan Professor Emeritus ofIslamic Art and Architecture at Harvard University, USA.
In Jerusalem he brings to the fore the Islamic city of
Jerusalem, today known as the ‘Old City’. Within the OldCity, the Dome of the Rock gets particular attention andGrabar’s fascination with the Dome of the Rock appears
to absorb him and he rises on most occasions towardsunderstanding this enchanting and mystical building.
There is no doubt of Grabar’s academic dedication to
Jerusalem and his scholarly approach to the art. However,just beneath the surface lurks an element of suspicion withIslam and Muslim scholars that seems to rear its head every
now and again in his writing.To Grabar, many Islamic structures and their purposes
post the 7th century are debatable if not questionable. On
the other hand, he states as a matter of fact informationabout structures pre 7th century: ‘[the buildings within al-Aqsa Sanctuary] … repaired and restored by the Romans,
throughout the Middle Ages and in the modern period,this platform can be assumed to have been a Herodiancreation of the Jewish Temple’ (p60). Further to this, on
p64 he states: ‘It is the accidental inheritance by the Muslims
of such vast area and precise developments in the historyof the Muslim faith that made it a unique sanctuary’. Theconnotations are clear; Jerusalem only became important
to Muslims accidentally because they happen to conquerit. Whereas most elementary students of early Islamichistory and of the Prophet Muhammed [pbuh] are well
aware of the Prophet Muhammed’s [pbuh] effort toinculcate upon his Companions the importance ofJerusalem as early as the 9th year of Prophethood, long
before the establishment of an Islamic state or theexpansion of Islamic lands.
Again one is concerned with Grabar’s political intention
for stating: ‘Also it is located on the site of the JewishTemple, in the Holy city of Christianity’ under the subtitleof ‘Significance’ in the chapter of ‘Qubbat al- Sakhrah’.
Grabar successfully narrates in several places the threemain thoughts behind the purposes of building the Domeof the Rock; a building to commemorate the Prophet’s
[pbuh] night journey and ascension; to replace the Ka’baas the site for pilgrimage; and a monument celebrating thenew faith’s presence in the city of Jerusalem. Although the
second reasoning has been academically successfullydemolished, in almost every chapter Grabar repeats it.
The anti-Islamic angle mares yet again an excellent
chapter on ‘Al-Kuds Monument’ in which Grabar states,regarding lack of pictures of living creatures in the Domeof the Rock, ‘the other one is absence of any
representation of living beings several decades before webecome aware of a partial Muslim prohibition of images’(p120). In fact Imam Abu Hanifa (b.80 AH) in his Hidaya
within the first century of Islam recorded what waspracticed and orally transmitted regarding the prohibitionof representing living creatures.
In the first chapter Grabar contends the Dome of theRock, ‘can only be understood in all its complexity anduniqueness when seen in its Umayyad context. As a political
…structure it soon lost its meaning. But as a religiousbuilding it continued the great tradition of the Temple(Jewish) …’ (p46). Irrespective of the political motives of
Umayyad’s, which may be debatable, there already existedat this early stage within Muslims the desire to establishMosques as a testimony of their devotion to their faith.
Grabar unfortunately skims through the potential socio-religious aspects behind the building of the Dome of theRock.
There is an interesting hypothesis in chapter IXsubstantiated from Professor Goitein’s remarks thatMuawiyah may have initiated the idea of building the
Dome of the Rock on its present location. This is probablebecause there are historical sources which ascertain thatan oath of allegiance to Muawiyah (as a Caliph) was taken
in Jerusalem.Undermining Islamic historians if not history and Islam
itself appears again in chapter XII : ‘Whether or not the
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caliph Umar came for the occasion (liberation of al-Quds)is not clear, although the various events which are said by
later legends to have occurred as he arrived and as hevisited the city are fascinating exercise in the formation ofhighly creative and imaginative historical myths’ (p187) and
‘It had been the place where Herod the Great (71-4 BCE)and his successors built the spectacular Jewish Temple withfull use of Hellenistic architectural technology and design’
(p188).This book attempts to provide an understanding as to
how buildings can be and are used by competing faiths
and politicians to stamp authority. It has been lucidlypresented and is a valuable source for anyone interestedin not only art and architecture but also the politics of the
city.This is a valuable reference book for all and a must
read for Muslims who wish to understand how ‘others’
view the Islamic holy city of Jerusalem in which Muslimsproudly proclaim the sanctity of Jews and Christians.
Contents
The Umayyad Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem; A newinscription from the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem; Al-Haram al-Sharif; The earliest Islamic commemorative
structures, notes and documents; Qubbat al-Sakhrah; Al-Kuds, monuments; A note on the Chludoff Psalter;Al-Masjid al-Aqsa; The meaning of the Dome of the Rock in
Jerusalem; Le Temple, lieu de conflit: le monde de L’Islam;Jerusalem elsewhere; The making of the Haram al-Sharif:the first steps; Space and holiness in medieval Jerusalem;
The Haram al-Sharif: an essay in interpretation.
Leicester Abu Huzayfa
Dining with Terrorists: Meetings with the
world’s most wanted militantsBY PHIL REES, Macmillan 2005, ISBN: 140504716X, 400pp.,
HB £18.99
Rees is to be congratulated for producing a readable, at
times enthralling book on a vital issue. Frankly, one
cannot put it down. Objective yet penetrating, its value is
heightened by the fact that it does not only deal with ‘Islamic
terrorists’. These days, we could be forgiven for thinking that
guerrilla warfare is the sole prerogative of Islamists, but as Rees
addresses situations in Colombia, meeting FARC, the Tamil
Tigers, the IRA, etc., we can see that the situation was always
more complicated than that. One criticism; having met the IRA,
Rees should have dealt with corresponding Loyalist groups,
especially as in his chapter on Colombia, he meets not only the
FARC Marxist terrorists, but their right-wing opponents, and in
Kosovo he encounters not only Albanians supporting the KLA,
but also their Serb mirror-images.
The diversity of guerrilla organisations and their differing,
often contradictory aims reveals the central problem concerning
‘terrorism’; not how to stop it, but how to define it. After all, as
the famous cliché states, ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s
freedom fighter’, p. xv. It must be galling for Americans to read
that if this cliché had existed in 1776, Washington would have
been labeled as a ‘terrorist’ by the British government. The
Apartheid regime labeled Mandela as a terrorist, but we know
how most people viewed him. Rees notes that every global effort
to give an objective definition of the term since 1996 has failed,
p. xvii.
The problem is complicated by several factors, among them
the identification of legitimate targets, and the methods used.
Another is the issue of justification – is it unethical to oppose
an occupying army that enjoys conventional military superiority?
Rees observes that the US invasion of Iraq, not sanctioned by
the UN, caused a resistance to emerge which the US often
designates, and certainly where ‘foreign fighters’ are concerned,
as terrorists’, p. 4. However, Rees asks the pertinent questions
of how, if using the same justification as the US and UK, Iraqi
troops occupied Britain, what would be the popular reaction, or
if Hitler had occupied London in 1940, whether Britons would
have accepted his rule, p. xvii?
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This is one area which Rees could have developed further.
The obvious response to this from the US and UK is that they
are democracies, but how do we respond if democracies do not
act democratically – at least in their treatment of others? The US
may be democratic but it supports an Israeli regime whose
treatment of the Palestinians is anything but democratic.
Remember also that part of the aim of the US blitz of Iraq in
2003, as Rees observes, was to ‘terrify the civilian population
into supporting the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’, p. xvii.
Was the US acting democratically or was it guilty of state terrorism?
The global overview of ‘armed militants’ is one of the most
fascinating aspects of Rees’ book. From Latin America to the
Balkans, from North Africa to Sri Lanka, and from Palestine to
Cambodia, the trail of tears is gripping. It is also frequently
stomach-turning. The section of the Khmer Rouge and their
genocidal policies in Chapter Seven goes over familiar ground,
but the display of Man’s inhumanity to Man never fails to shock.
When we consider their policies and practices, could we ever
consider this group as ‘freedom fighters – even after the 1979
Vietnamese invasion which transformed them into a guerrilla
group once more, resisting foreign occupation, and enjoying
support from China – and the West, p. 166? If not, then how
should we regard the Zionist guerrilla groups such as the Irgun
and Stern Gang who terrorised Palestinians with slaughter and
ethnic cleansing, or the Serb ‘paramilitaries’ who did the same to
Albanians, p. 157? Remember, the latter had the backing of the
‘legitimate’ government of Serbia? Perhaps that is why the media
described them as ‘paramilitaries’ instead of ‘terrorists’.
The ambivalence on definition is best exemplified by
considering the Kosovo Liberation Army. America at first
designated it as a terrorist group, p. 152, and it would have
definitely been so-defined after 9/11, p. 154, but America about-
faced and effectively supported it. Is the US definition of
terrorism therefore based on a group’s opposition to US policy?
After all, the US allied itself with Kurdish guerrillas against the
recognised government of Iraq, but designates Kurdish guerrillas
across the border in Turkey as terrorists – ah, but Ankara is a US
ally. Yet when I interviewed British-based Kurds some years ago
about the Turkish situation, their spokesman – an Iraqi Kurd –
stated that the Turkish situation was worse than its Iraqi
equivalent.
One of the most useful parts of the book is the postscript
dealing with 7/7 and its legacy. An interview with a moderate
Muslimah who heads Slough Race Equality produces the
startlingly frank statement that whatever is said publicly, privately
many British Muslims regard Bin Laden as a hero, p. 371. Why?
Because of US/UK policy. Salma Yaqoob is quoted as pointing
to the hypocrisy of the public response to Ken Bigley’s murder
whilst the deaths of Iraqi civilians remain uncounted, p. 374.
Defining ‘terrorism’ remains a Herculean task.
London Dr.Anthony McRoy
The West Bank Wall: Unmaking PalestineBY RAY DOLPHIN, London: Pluto Press, 2006, ISBN
0745324339, pp 256, £15
I read this book in Beirut in mid-July 2006 as the Israeli
bombardment of Lebanon began and intensified. At the
time, it seemed to many that Israel’s brutal assault was part
of a very longstanding pattern and that Hizbullah’s actions, in
capturing two Israeli soldiers and then firing rockets into northern
Israel, were a legitimate way of striking back against all the
indignities and humiliations suffered by Palestinians, Lebanese
and other Arabs since the state of Israel was created in 1948.
There is a link between the occupation of Arab land, the
terrorization of powerless civilians and the building of what
many refer to as an “apartheid wall” in the occupied West Bank.
I have seen the wall at several points along its route and, as
Ray Dolphin comments, it is “disingenuous to describe such a
formidable construction as a ‘fence’”. It is a monstrous and
shocking structure, cutting off communities and defacing the
landscape. Dolphin’s book charts in painstaking detail the history,
politics and reality of the wall. He makes extensive use of Israeli,
Palestinian and international sources in an effort to illustrate the
destructive nature of what Graham Usher, in his excellent
introduction, terms the “most lethal and potentially irreversible”
component of Israel’s system of rule in the occupied territories.
For the Israelis, the wall is seen as a protective device, a
contribution to the global war against terrorism. But, as Dolphin
says, the main purpose of the wall is “to obliterate the
internationally-recognised Green Line and to create a new border
deeper within West Bank territory, in the process annexing major
settlements, territory and water resources to Israel”. As the wall
has taken shape, it has swallowed up Palestinian farmland, cut
off Palestinian villages from medical and educational facilities,
made travel difficult and, for some, encouraged emigration. The
Israeli settler movement has had a significant impact on the
route of the wall. B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization,
states that the Israeli cabinet’s decision on the route of the wall
was “to establish facts on the ground that would perpetuate the
existence of settlements and facilitate their future annexation to
Israel”.
The settlers’ greed and intransigence is supported by the US
government, and few in the international community seem
willing or able to speak out against it. In July 2004, the
International Court of Justice delivered a strongly worded
38 Al-Aqsa
advisory opinion on the wall. The Court ruled that “the wall –
where it deviated into the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which
was for the majority of its route – was contrary to international
law. Israel must cease construction, dismantle the sections already
build, compensate those affected and ‘repeal or render ineffective’
the gate and permit system”. Palestinians, as an Israeli
commentator observed, “have appealed to the world’s sense of
justice, while we seek the world’s pity”. However, the Israeli
government does not seem inclined to comply with this ruling
and no one has seen fit to pressure them. Dolphin also describes
the non-violent campaign waged by farmers in the village of
Jayous to prevent the wall from stealing their land. According to
one villager, “economic strangulation and ‘voluntary’ emigration
is the real purpose of the wall: ‘they want the land without the
people’”. Legal channels and peaceful resistance have achieved
little; apparently, as Pat O’Connor of the International Solidarity
Movement remarked, “it is forbidden for Palestinians to use the
tactics of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr to try to save their
land and their communities from destruction. The Israeli
government continues to do as it pleases and, as a result of the
wall and the 2005 unilateral Israeli disengagement from Gaza,
the Middle East Road Map is now moribund.
Dolphin reports on the physical and psychological impacts
on Palestinian residents affected by the wall. Women, he suggests,
“bear the brunt of these new movement restrictions. Families
are increasingly reluctant to allow female members, including girl
pupils, to endure the humiliating delays and searches at the gates,
further diminishing women’s mobility, social participation and
educational opportunities”. Children, too, are suffering. A survey
carried out in 2003 reveals that almost half the children in Qalqilya
“had personally experienced conflict-related violence or witnessed
violence affecting a member of their immediate family”. In the
words of one child: “they stole the smile from our faces”.
In East Jerusalem, a policy of “military conquest by
architectural means” was introduced by the Israeli government
after 1967. As Dolphin notes: “To provide housing, and to
forestall pressure for a withdrawal to the pre-1967 boundary, a
large-scale settlement programme was undertaken in East
Jerusalem and the surrounding area, primarily on private land
expropriated from Palestinian owners… By the end of 2001,
nearly 47,000 housing units had been built exclusively for Jews
on this expropriated land”. The wall, he adds, “marks the
summation of Israel’s policies in Jerusalem since 1967, literally
setting in concrete the fruits of decades of annexation and
settlement building”.
Many Arabs point to the occupation of Syrian, Palestinian
and Lebanese land, the terrorization of civilian populations, the
constant violation of human rights, and the ongoing
construction of the wall as evidence that Israel is not interested
in reaching a mutually acceptable peace. There is something
pernicious about this behaviour which seems calculated to cause
maximum misery, thereby forcing Palestinians to accept yet more
compromises. I recommend this book as an unsentimental and
factually precise examination of a situation which seems to many,
both Arab and non-Arab, not simply immoral but also short-
sighted.
London Dr. Maria Holt
Politicide – Ariel Sharon’s War against
the Palestinians.BY BARUCH KIMMERLING VERSO 2003, ISBN
1859845177, 234 pp., £15.
Henry Kissinger once recalled that Ariel Sharon was
the most dangerous man he met in Middle East,
Baruch Kimmerling’s title of Politicide reflects that
opinion by his detailed account of how Sharon as a soldier,
general, politician and as Prime Minister created the
dissolution in the hearts and minds of every Palestinian by
his political and military onslaught for over fifty years.
Kimmerling wrote his book in 2003, which was well before
his disengagement plan from Gaza, the internal political
upheaval in Israeli which resulted in the creation of the
Kadima Party and subsequent incapacitation of Sharon due
to his stroke. Nevertheless this book deals with Ariel Sharon
through the lens of academic critique which questions the
creation of policies which Kimmerling refers to as Politicide.
The book portrays a detailed attack on Sharon who directly
or indirectly has been associated with repression, war crimes
and clear provocation against the Palestinian population by
a series of measures such as the Sabra and Shatila massacres,
the ongoing assault since 2000 and his usage of the war on
terror to suppress Palestinian resistance.
From reading the arguments it is quite clear that
Kimmerling is a soft Zionist with a conscience as much of
his book constantly refers to how Sharon has led Israel to
self destruction due to the process of politicide. The term
Politicide is constantly used to describe a wide range of social,
political and military activities as the means to destroy the
existence of a community and any possibility of self
determination. He refers to methods which have been
incorporated by the military elite of Israel who under the
banner of democracy have used their position to justify and
control their means by the argument that there is a Palestinian
menace which is an obstruction to Israeli society, which has
to be suppressed. He refers to the Israeli interference in
Lebanon as a military exercise by Sharon who as the Defence
Secretary shielded all military action from his fellow cabinet
members and acted reputedly against any checks and
Al-Aqsa 39
balances. Throughout the book it is highlighted that
Kimmerling is a patriot committed to the well being of his
people, and that this book is a painful thesis to wake up the
Israeli population against the barbaric measures of the Likud
government and in particular Ariel Sharon. Kimmerling on
some occasions does not hide his Zionist credentials, in
particular his admires the assassinated leader Yitzhak Rabin;
his chapter on the Oslo accords is very sympathetic towards
Rabin and Peres. He ignores the weak leadership of Arafat
and how Israel negated the Right of Return, no commitment
to dismantling all illegal settlements, no clarified position
towards the final status of Jerusalem and that how Oslo
had created a fragmented Palestinian society by the constant
Israeli infringement upon Palestinian life. Kimmerling rather
naively believes that Israel gave more than it should and
fails to realise that the PLO had at the expense of the
Palestinian people sold out many of their principles.
Kimmerling also can be accused of not highlighting the
duplicity of the USA in the whole conflict. Throughout the
book there was no clear question raised about the role of
the USA. One would have expected to at least read about
the Bush administration through the neo-con agenda have
tightened the screws upon the Palestinians and thus allowing
Sharon a blank cheque in any systematic erosion of any
Palestinian society.
Kimmerling however should be commended on his
explanation on the policies of politicide by Sharon have
instigated the heightening rise of suicide bombers. He also
indulges in explaining that much of the motivation of
suicide bombers is not based on religious doctrine but
secular and political factors. He publicly berates Israeli
society for not understanding Palestinian desperation as a
precursor for suicide bombings due to the constant
humiliation and politicide policies by the Israeli military
especially during the reign of Sharon.
Politicide is a book in which the reader will understand
that Kimmerling who as a left wing Zionist is attacking the
Likudites under the stewardship of Sharon. He advocates
that Sharon has created a partial ethnic cleansing
programme through systematic policies which is slowly
eroding the already fragmented Palestinian society.
Politicide draws the argument that Sharon and his allies
�
are more belligerent towards creating facts on the ground
while at the same time generating a step towards an Eretz
Israel as the only solution for the survival of the Jewish
state. As Politicide was written before the Disengagement
of Gaza, the book sadly cannot offer any logical explanation
to where the Disengagement fits in to this wider plan of
Sharon. No doubt due to the permanent incapacitation of
Sharon nobody would ever find out what Sharon really
wanted to achieve, but it is certain after reading this book,
it can be concluded that the final aim was to create a
demoralised and destroyed Palestinian society who would
accept any imposed settlement to cease any more
humiliation. Kimmerling offers a rationale that this policy
will backfire as every repressive measure merely resurrects
a Palestinian mindset to resist at all costs any imposed attack
as for all Palestinians everything is to be played for. This is
wholly evident by the election victory of Hamas and how
the Palestinian population are now mentally equipped to
engage in a war of attrition with their sticks, stones and
mental defiance.
Politicide is a book in which it is argued that through
the policies of Politicide the real victim in the long run is
the Zionist society of Israel. Kimmerling offers an opinion
of someone on the Israeli left who believes that iron and
the rule by force can no longer be applied on any people,
as sooner or later the oppressor himself will become the
victim of their own misfortune. Sharon is blamed for being
the architect of this foiled plan of Politicide, as no matter
what can happen, there will always be a Palestinian people
and that their defiance will be the downfall of the of the
Jewish state. There could have been more emphasis on
Israeli policy since 1948 which has created this vacuum of
political uncertainty, nevertheless he eloquently argues that
Politicide was the brainchild of Sharon through the auspices
of Likud and that the mindset of the Israeli political and
military elite itself is the precursor towards failure. With
hindsight we do know that Sharon is no longer more active,
but it seems sadly his policies and style are to have outlived
his own political career through the constant Politicide of
the Palestinian people.
Leicester Hasan Loonat
40 Al-Aqsa