MIFTAH
Friday, 29 March. 2024
 
Your Key to Palestine
The Palestinian Initiatives for The Promotoion of Global Dialogue and Democracy
 
 
 

“You don’t simply bundle people onto trucks and drive them away…I prefer to advocate a positive policy, to create, in effect, a condition that in a positive way will induce people to leave.” [1]
–Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel

Fact Sheet:

Israel’s goal in building the “security” wall is twofold: (1) to confiscate Palestinian land in order to facilitate further colony expansion and unilaterally redraw geopolitical borders and (2) to encourage an exodus of Palestinians by denying them the ability to earn a living from their land, by denying them adequate water resources, and by restricting freedom of movement to such extent as to make remaining in the town or village an unviable option.

The first phase of the wall’s construction is complete. If the wall were truly about security, the wall would have been built on Israel’s 1967 pre-occupation border (the “Green Line”). However, the wall is not being built on the Green Line, but rather well within Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The Case of Azzun Atma – Encircling the Village From All Sides

For an accompanying map, see http://www.nad-plo.org/maps/qalazzunatma903.pdf

* Situated within three kilometers of the Green Line, the village of Azzun Atma has a population of 1,500 Palestinians with half of the population under the age of 18. The village, and its neighboring village, Beit Amin, share two schools and a mosque.

* In 1982, Israel constructed the illegal colony of Sha’are Tiqwa between the two villages. The effect was to isolate the two villages from one another and disrupt territorial contiguity between the villages. The colony is located within meters of the village.

* The village yields the highest produce per dunum of land in the Occupied West Bank, and, as a result, the village is largely dependent upon its agricultural industry. Prior to September 2000, ten trucks of produce left the village daily: nine went to cities within the Occupied Palestinian Territories and one truck exported produce to Israel. Today, the main roads to the village have been completely blocked off, thereby preventing the shipment of produce.

* On March 13, 2003 Israel issued military orders for the construction of the wall.

Effects of the Wall on Azzun Atma

* Settlers living in the neighboring illegal Israeli colony of Sha’are Tiqva will have complete freedom of movement to and from Israel, while the Palestinians will be militarily caged into their village, unable to travel throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories or even visit neighboring villages.

* 25 homeowners have been forced to stop building their homes in order to create the wall.

* Part of the village’s high school (constructed in 1964) will be destroyed.

* 33 of the 36 schoolteachers will be denied the ability to enter the village, thereby impacting the education of the village’s schoolchildren.

* Nine homes, housing 49 Palestinians, will be outside of the wall and will be completely isolated from the remainder of the village, thereby separating families and denying the children the ability to attend school.

1 David Bernstein, Forcible Removal of Arabs Gaining Support in Israel, THE TIMES (LONDON), August 24, 1988, at 7.

 
 
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