Over the past week, the world has been captivated by a novel legal controversy: the challenge to Israel's proposed security wall in the chambers of the International Court of Justice in The Hague. While few would deny the monumental legal implications of the case, the issue itself transcends the vagaries of international law. The security wall is about people. It is about political reality. And, it is about the proper balance between the right to security on the one hand -- for Israelis -- and the right to freedom and independence on the other -- for Palestinians.
In truth, the force of law has had little resonance in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel has imposed an illegal occupation for more than 35 years. It has built illegal settlements on occupied territory, systematically dismantled the Palestinian authority and systematically imposed draconian security measures on the captive Palestinian populace -- setting curfews and limiting Palestinian movement within their own territory. For its part, Palestinian militants have subjected Israel to the continuous threat of suicide attacks and have never recognized its right to exist. The concept of a wall itself however, intended to promote Israeli security and long-term stability, is ludicrous and counter-productive. Pro-wall advocates in Israel believe that a physical separation with the Palestinian territories will substantially lower or eliminate the threat of Palestinian terrorists. A dubious proposition, the only guaranteed outcome of the wall's construction is an extension of Palestinian suffering, lowering of humanitarian and economic standards and the poisoning of future generations of Palestinians who will unhesitatingly blame Israel for their socioeconomic despair.
The impact of the wall will be both widespread and deep. The U.N. Commission on Human Rights has warned that approximately 210,000 Palestinians living in the area between the wall and Israel would be cut off from basic social services, schools and their places of employment. Given that about 70 percent of Palestinian trade is with Israel itself, the physical barriers and higher transport costs that the wall has given birth to will deepen the crisis of the Palestinian economy. In other words, life will become untenable for Palestinians in these regions leading to the creation of a new generation of internally displaced peoples. The town of Qalqiya, once a prosperous commercial center, has been irreparably damaged by the path of the wall. It has been cut off from surrounding farms that supply its markets, and, more importantly, has lost access to the second-largest water resources in the region. Water, needless to say, is a precious commodity in the arid Middle East and is the very basis of the Palestinians' agriculture-dominated economy. Without it, Palestinians have no crops to grow and no hope for the future.
But what of Israel's legitimate right to national security? No one will deny that the state has the right and responsibility to protect its citizens. The question, then, is one of the efficacies of specific security strategies. The deliberate Israeli state policy to cantonize the occupied territories -- rendered practical by Israeli-only military access roads, checkpoints, settlements and now the wall -- is based on the notion of rendering Palestinians harmless by leaving them physically divided and isolated. If history is any guide, this policy has been an abject failure. Since its institution in 1967, the Israeli occupation has only heightened the suffering of both Palestinians and Israelis. The unreasonable security mantra of the Israeli far-right has been little more than a cloak for aggressive occupation and the expansion of Israeli sovereignty to Palestinian land. If the wall were about self-defense, then why does it snake deep into Palestinian territory to encompass illegal Israeli settlements? Why does it close off Palestinian access to important water resources? Why was it not built along the internationally-recognized pre-1967 borders? And why does it entirely cut off Palestinians from 15 percent of the total territory? The wall will not promote Israeli security. It is instead the perverse consequence of the supremacy of the far-right in Israeli national security policy. Critics argue that the wall is a ploy to unilaterally create political realities that will limit the boundaries of future peace negotiations. Palestinians fear that the Israeli right is maneuvering itself into a position of unassailable strength, allowing it to dictate future settlement conditions.
Misguided Israeli security policy has generated only greater insecurity for its citizens. Conditions of poverty and hopelessness in the occupied territories have spawned massive numbers of disaffected that are ideal recruiting grounds for terrorist organizations. Groups of patriotic Israeli citizens have protested these policies and have filed court challenges in the Israeli Supreme Court against the wall's construction. Their efforts should be lauded. A lasting settlement that creates real peace can only come to fruition if both sides win and both sides lose. Compromise solutions, not unilateral impositions, will create the foundations of a permanent two-state solution. Sharon's wall is a barrier to that peace.
