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Israel redraws the roadmap, building quietly and
quickly
Settler population grows as Sharon grabs more West Bank land
than he returned in Gaza
Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
10/18/05 "The
Guardian" -- -- At the northern edge of Jerusalem,
on the main road to the Palestinian city of Ramallah, three
towering concrete walls are converging around a rapidly built
maze of cages, turnstiles and bomb-proof rooms.
When construction at Qalandiya is completed in the coming weeks,
the remaining gaps in the 8m (26ft)-high walls will close and
those still permitted to travel between the two cities will be
channelled through a warren of identity and security checks
reminiscent of an international frontier.
The Israeli military built the crossing without fanfare over
recent months, along with other similar posts along the length
of the vast new "security barrier" that is enveloping Jerusalem,
while the world's attention was focussed on the Israeli prime
minister, Ariel Sharon's removal of Jewish settlers from the
Gaza Strip.
But these de facto border posts are just one element in a web of
construction evidently intended to redraw Israel's borders deep
inside the Palestinian territories and secure all of Jerusalem
as Israel's capital, and to do it fast so as to put the whole
issue beyond negotiation. As foreign leaders, including Tony
Blair, praised Mr Sharon for his "courage" in pulling out of
Gaza last month, Israel was accelerating construction of the
West Bank barrier, expropriating more land in the West Bank than
it was surrendering in Gaza, and building thousands of new homes
in Jewish settlements.
"It's a trade off: the Gaza Strip for the settlement blocks; the
Gaza Strip for Palestinian land; the Gaza Strip for unilaterally
imposing borders," said Dror Etkes, director of the Israeli
organisation Settlement Watch. "They don't know how long they've
got. That's why they're building like maniacs."
At the core of the strategy is the 420-mile West Bank barrier
which many Israeli politicians regard as marking out a future
border. Its route carves out large areas for expansion of the
main Jewish settlements of Ariel, Maale Adumim and Gush Etzion,
and expropriates swaths of Palestinian land by separating it
from its owners.
In parallel, new building on Jewish settlements during the first
quarter of this year rose by 83% on the same period in 2004.
About 4,000 homes are under construction in Israel's West Bank
colonies, with thousands more homes approved in the Ariel and
Maale Adumim blocks that penetrate deep into the occupied
territories. The total number of settlers has risen again this
year with an estimated 14,000 moving to the West Bank, compared
with 8,500 forced to leave Gaza.
Israel is also continuing to expand the amount of territory it
intends to retain. In July alone, it seized more land in the
West Bank than it surrendered in Gaza: it withdrew from about 19
square miles of territory while sealing off 23 sq miles of the
West Bank around Maale Adumim.
Israel's strategy is to "strengthen the control over areas which
will constitute an inseparable part of the state of Israel", the
prime minister said after the Gaza pullout.
Last month, he told a meeting of his Likud party allies that it
was important to expand the settlements without drawing the
world's attention. "There's no need to talk. We need to build,
and we're building without talking," he said. A few days later,
one of the prime minister's senior advisors, Eyal Arad, publicly
advocated "a strategy of unilaterally determining the permanent
borders of the state of Israel".
The greatest impact of recent Israeli actions has been in and
around Jerusalem, as Israel stepped up construction of the wall
along the most controversial part of its route.
"What we are seeing is an acceleration of construction of the
barrier," said David Shearer, head of the UN's Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Jerusalem.
"Because of the barrier, Jerusalem is being sealed off from the
rest of the West Bank. Movement in Jerusalem will be with a
magnetic card and a sophisticated system of gates. The access
the Palestinians have enjoyed to their places of worship, to
some of the best schools, to hospitals is now going to be
severely restricted."
The concrete wall through Jerusalem carves out Arab enclaves in
the city, restricts the growth of non-Jewish neighbourhoods and
separates some 200,000 Palestinian residents from the occupied
territories.
East Jerusalem will be further isolated from the rest of the
West Bank by moves to link the city with Maale Adumim settlement
using the barrier to mark out a boundary. The effect will be to
entirely surround the Arab areas of Jerusalem with large Jewish
neighbourhoods and to push Israel's frontier almost half way
across the West Bank, virtually severing the north and south of
the Palestinian territory at its narrowest point.
Organisations such as the International Crisis Group say it
could have potentially explosive consequences. "Current policies
in and around the city will vastly complicate, and perhaps doom,
future attempts to resolve the conflict by both preventing the
establishment of a viable Palestinian capital in Arab East
Jerusalem and obstructing the territorial contiguity of a
Palestinian state," it said in a recent report.
"The measures currently being implemented are at war with any
viable two-state solution and will not bolster Israel's safety;
in fact, they will undermine it, weakening Palestinian
pragmatists, incorporating hundreds of thousands of Palestinians
on the Israeli side of the fence, and sowing the seeds of
growing radicalisation."
In recent years, both sides have generally accepted that a
negotiated agreement would leave the main settlement blocks
close to Jerusalem in Israeli hands. Last year, Mr Bush wrote to
Mr Sharon assuring him that Israel would not be expected to
return to the 1967 borders "in light of new realities on the
ground, including already existing major Israeli population
centres".
But Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer fighting legal cases
over the barrier, said the government has worked to make those
realities on the ground as extensive as possible while foreign
governments shied away from criticism of Mr Sharon for fear of
jeopardising the Gaza pullout.
"It's clear what's happening. It's clear the wall is used to
designate the border that Sharon thinks he can get with the
Americans," he said.
Mr Sharon appears to be counting on continued silence from
America and European capitals because he faces a general
election next year that Washington would like to see him win
over his main challenger on the far right, Binyamin Netanyahu.
The Palestinian leadership believes Mr Sharon has little
incentive to negotiate because the Palestinians will not agree
to surrender their claim to East Jerusalem or the large areas of
land he wants to annex.
But Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli cabinet minister and a peace
negotiator, said that a lack of pressure from Washington and
other members of the Quartet overseeing the "roadmap" peace plan
leaves Mr Sharon free to redraw Israel's borders.
"The commitment to the roadmap is a big joke. It's hot air all
the time," Mr Beilin said.
"I'm very pessimistic. I see the big gap between the speeches -
how high the roadmap is on the agenda and how foreign
governments say they have to deal with it - and nothing is
happening on the ground. Nothing. Sharon just does what he
wants."
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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