OIL SHOCK REDUX
Is OPEC the Real Cartel —or the Transnationals?
by Vilosh Vinograd, WW4 Report

GLOBAL WARMING AND THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE
by Brian Tokar, Toward Freedom

MARLON SANTI
The New Voice of Ecuador’s Indigenous Movement
by Marc Becker, Upside Down World

BOLIVAR’S SWORD
Venezuela’s Recognition of the Colombian Insurgency
by Paul Wolf

ZAPATISMO IN NEW YORK CITY
by Michael Eamonn Miller, NYC Pavement Pieces

THANK YOU TO OUR READERS!

“I believe it is the job of a president to confront problems, not pass them on to future presidents and future generations.”
—George Bush, Oct. 11, 2004

“The White House confirmed Wednesday that its new budget next month will not request a full year’s funding for the war in Iraq, leaving the next president and Congress to confront major cost questions soon after taking office in 2009.”
—Politico.com, Jan. 23, 2008

“Now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.”
—Macbeth

Exit Poll: Will oil hit $200 a barrel by year’s end?

Responses to last month’s Exit Poll:
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VOICE OF THE TUAREG RESISTANCE
Issouf ag-Maha on Music, Culture and the Guerilla Struggle in Niger
by Bill Weinberg, WW4 REPORT

AGAINST U.S. AGGRESSION; AGAINST THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC
Iranian Left-Opposition Activist Azar Majedi Says No to Both
from Riposte Laique

PLAN MEXICO
Militarization and the “Mérida Initiative”
by Laura Carlsen, Foreign Policy in Focus

CONSTITUTIONAL CONFLICT ROCKS BOLIVIA
Deadly Violence as Draft Charter Approved
from the Andean Information Network

VENEZUELA’S CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM—TWO VIEWS:

What’s at Stake
by Sujatha Fernandes, ZNet

Reforms Take Away What Was Won Through Struggle
from El Libertario, Caracas

DOWNWINDERS CATCH THE DRIFT
Survivors of Cold War Nuclear Testing Say No to Revived Weapons Program
by Lisa Mullenneaux, WW4 REPORT

SPECIAL MESSAGE TO OUR READERS

“The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

— George Orwell, “Notes on Nationalism,” 1945

Exit Poll: Is Hugo Chávez a heroic revolutionary socialist or pseudo-left aspiring tyrant?

Extra Credit : Are you anticipating a New Years Eve nuclear terrorist attack on New York City? C’mon, tell the truth.

Responses to last month’s Exit Poll:
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USAF struck Syrian nuclear site
The September 6 raid over Syria was carried out by the US Air Force, the Al-Jazeera Web site reported Friday. The Web site quoted Israeli and Arab sources as saying that two US jets armed with tactical nuclear weapons carried out an attack on a suspected nuclear site under construction.

The sources were quoted as saying that Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets provided cover for the US planes.

The sources added that each US plane carried one tactical nuclear weapon and that the site was hit by one bomb and was totally destroyed.

At the beginning of October, Israel’s military censor began to allow the local media to report on the raid without attributing their report to foreign sources. Nevertheless, details of the strike have remained clouded in mystery.

On October 28, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the cabinet that he had apologized to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan if Israel violated Turkish airspace during a strike on an alleged nuclear facility in Syria last month.

In a carefully worded statement that was given to reporters after the cabinet meeting, Olmert said: “In my conversation with the Turkish prime minister, I told him that if Israeli planes indeed penetrated Turkish airspace, then there was no intention thereby, either in advance or in any case, to – in any way – violate or undermine Turkish sovereignty, which we respect.”

The New York Times reported on October 13 that Israeli planes struck at what US and Israeli intelligence believed was a partly constructed nuclear reactor in Syria on September 6, citing American and foreign officials who had seen the relevant intelligence reports.

According to the report, Israel carried out the report to send a message that it would not tolerate even a nuclear program in its initial stages of construction in any neighboring state.

On October 17, Syria denied that one of its representatives to the United Nations told a panel that an Israeli air strike hit a Syrian nuclear facility and added that “such facilities do not exist in Syria.”

A UN document released by the press office had provided an account of a meeting of the First Committee, Disarmament and International Security, in New York, and paraphrased an unnamed Syrian representative as saying that a nuclear facility was hit by the raid.

However, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA said media reports, apparently based on a UN press release, misquoted the Syrian diplomat.

See our last posts on Israel, Syria, and nuclear fear.

“The Board,” according to The Board, “is written by The New York Times editorial board, a group of journalists with wide-ranging areas of expertise, whose primary responsibility is to write The Times’s editorials.”

As WW4 REPORT has often asked, why do so many contemporary journalists consider fact-checking to be optional?

See our last post on Lebanon.

Levin said that after Haaretz ran an opinion column describing the separate roads in the West Bank as “apartheid” roads, CAMERA members wrote letters to Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken saying this was a false charge. She then read from Schocken’s responses. In one he said “the term ‘roads for Jews only,’ which may be mathematically incorrect, is fine with me.. because it describes the true nature and purpose of the roads.” In another reply, Schocken wrote, “Your legalistic response is exactly the type that is used to blur reality, rather than clarify it. It is utterly ridiculous not to call these roads apartheid roads because the entire presence of Jews in the Occupied Territories is of an apartheid nature…”

The following is from a non-violent group in the West Bank, Apartheid Masked, Oct. 25:

Blocking the road to Apartheid: Palestinian nonviolent protestors are blocking highway 443

An anti-apartheid protest today blocked busy Highway 443, one of many highways that run on occupied Palestinian land but are reserved for Israelis only. Israeli Security forces used force to move the demonstrators. Three of the protesters, Blake Murphy, from Boston and Yonatan Polak, and Dmitri from Tel Aviv were arrested and released with conditions limiting their movement.

The protesters blocked the highway for over fifteen minutes by organising a mass sit down in the road backed by six protestors chained into a four metre pipe. Rush hour traffic was backed up for miles before the protestors were removed by force. They distributing a message to the drivers on the highway: “We know what it feels like to be blocked. We experience it daily.”

The masses of Israelis who regularly travel to Jerusalem via the settlement of Modi’in were surprised this morning to find the highway blocked by non-violent protesters. Despite obvious road blocks at the junctions with roads from the Palestinian villages along the highway, few are aware that for seven years now, Highway 443 has been accessible to Israelis only. Palestinians are forbidden to travel on the highway, even on the 9.5 kilometer-long segment which passes through occupied West Bank territory and is built on land that has been confiscated from Palestinians whose olive trees have been cut down “for the benefit of the local population.” [See comment from Israel’s newspaper Haaretz, “The Law as Roadkill”

The Israeli military claims that the prohibition of Palestinian traffic on the main road is temporary and subject to security considerations. But their actions on the ground suggest otherwise. In order to “compensate” the communities, the military has confiscated more land for the creation of what they term “fabric of life” roads at an estimated cost of 177.9 million shekels (approximately US$44.5 million). These roads will funnel Palestinian traffic under the Israeli road network via tunnels and underpasses connecting communities in nearby enclaves, thus putting the Palestinians out of sight and out of mind for Israelis.

The Israeli Human rights group B’tselem states that the prohibition on Palestinian use of Highway 443 appears to be based on Israel’s desire to annex the area along which the road runs. B’tselem explains that if Israel was only interested in protecting the lives of Israelis, rather than annexing the area, it could limit or even prohibit the travel of Israelis on the road cutting through the West Bank and build roads inside Israeli territory, thus providing safe channels of transportation to connect Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

The policy of prohibiting movement on this road is not an isolated case but is part of a general widespread policy [see map]. On 312 kilometers of main roads in the West Bank, vehicles bearing Palestinian license plates are forbidden or restricted access. The creation of a regime of “forbidden roads” has converted the right to freedom of movement in the West Bank into a privilege that is dependent upon the national origin of an individual. [see International Convention on Apartheid] These roads, in addition to the segregation wall, carve up Palestinian areas into isolated enclaves. This fragmentation is at the root of the West Bank’s declining economy.

In an appeal, The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI ) states that the term “Crime of Apartheid,” applies to acts that are used as a means for establishing and maintaining domination of one racial group of persons over any other racial group and systematically oppressing them. ACRI states that an accepted systematic policy of discrimination against the Palestinian population constitutes a practice of apartheid as defined by the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Separation exists between Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank in many other aspects of life, as with the two separate legal systems that exist for the two populations.

A spokesperson for the Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Movement said: “Israel wants to legitimize apartheid and call it peace. This is the first in a series of popular non-violent protests against the Israeli system of apartheid. “anti-apartheid activists block highway 443 Thursday morning, protesting the Israeli-only road which traverses occupied Palestinian land. A major highway, it is inaccessible to Palestinians.

See our last post on Israel/Palestine.

After hearing you had invited the Israeli singer Ehud Banai to sing in a concert in Tel Aviv I had decided to withdraw andy support and sympathy for your organization. Mr. Banai had just came back from a performance in a extreme right wing settlement in the west bank. He should be banned, not suppoerted!

The extreme right-wing settlement the anonymous commenter referred to is Nokdim, home of Israel’s Minister for Strategic Affairs, MK Avigdor Lieberman. Besides living in violation of international law in Nokdim, in the area of settlements the Israeli government collectively refers to as the Gush Etzion Bloc, Lieberman is known for his extremist rhetoric, such as calling for drowning Palestinian prisoners and blowing up the Aswan dam, and advocates the “transfer” of Palestinian Israeli citizens to PA rule.

The Israeli left-wing organization Gush Shalom wrote on its website on Sept. 9:

Dancing to the settlers’ tune

Artists Idan Reichal, Ehud Banai, and Ety Ankary have sold their souls to the settlers; peace seekers to boycott their performances

Singers Idan Reichal, Ehud Banai, Ety Ankary and the Madreygot Group are scheduled to perform at the festival planned by the Gush Etzion settlers (in the Bethlehem Region of the West Bank) during the Sukkot Holiday, in order to “celebrate” forty years to the creation of settlements there. As explicitly stated in the settlers’ own website, this is part of a campaign aimed at legitimizing these settlements in the Israeli public opinion, i.e. preventing a peace agreement which would necessitate their dismantling.

Use of the name “Gush Etzion” (The Etzion Bloc) in itself constitutes an attempt to cheat the public. “Gush Etzion” was the name of a cluster of four small kibbutzim which stubbornly resisted Arab forces in 1948 until being destroyed and around which a heroic myth developed in Israel. There might have been a legitimate claim for recreating them (had israel been willing to recreate in exchange four Palestinian villages destroyed in the same war). However, nowadays this name is applied to dozens of small and big settlements which take up enormous territory all around the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, and bear no connection or resemblance to the pre-1948 “Gush Etzion”, including the ever – expanding settlement-city of Efrat.

The one and only purpose for the creation of these settlements is to cut the West Bank to pieces, cut the cities of Bethlehem and Hebron off from each other, and deny to the Palestinians the territorial continuity which is vital for genuine statehood. On these very days, inhabitants of villages in this area such as Umm Salamuna conduct, with the help of Israeli and international peace volunteers, a persistent struggle against the Separation Fence, which cuts deeply into their land and pass it into the possession of the Gush Etzion settlers . The settlers themselves, however, are displeased with the route of the fence, and demand to change it so as to gain even far more Palestinian land.

The Israeli artists who had avoided military service, have been already for months the target of an intensive hate campaign in the media. But the artists who for monetary gain collaborate with the settlers in a project aimed at preventing any chance for peace, at perpetuating hatred and bloodshed – about them nobody is talking.

The artists Idan Reichal, Ehud Banai, Ety Ankary and the Madreygot Group have made themselves into mercenaries and lackeys of the settlers – not even out of ideology, but simply after getting considerable amounts of money. They are all scheduled to appear at the “Israeli Home” festival organized by the settlers on the forthcoming Sukkot Holiday. Idan Reichel is due to appear on the “central stage” to be erected at the settlement of Nokdim – home of the arch – racist demagogue Avigdor Lieberman.

Artists who have prostituted themselves in such a shameful way do not deserve to have Israeli peace seekers come to their performances or spend money for their CD’s.

Contact: Adam Keller, Gush Shalom Spokesperson adam@gush-shalom.org

Gush Etzion settler website

Not to take it lying down, Avigdor Lieberman then called Gush Shalom “Kapos” for their protest, according to Gush Shalom on Oct. 10:

Lieberman attacks Gush Shalom and Yesh Gvul

Gush Shalom considers lodging a libel suit against Minister Avigdor Lieberman, for the “Kapo” comparison.

“The fact that such a person is a government minister is badge of infamy and danger to democracy”

Gush Shalom, the Israeli Peace Bloc, considers lodging a libel suit against Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who in an interview to the First Channel TV attacked the movement’s members (as well as those of “Yesh Gvul”) and called them “Nazi Kapos.”

Gush Shalom immediately checked the matter with its legal advisers. “There can be little doubt that such words constitute libel of the most severe and malignant form – not to mention the desecration of the Holocaust victims’ memory – and Liberman would find it difficult to defend such words at a court of law. What makes is worse is that these things were said by a man who built his whole career on acerbating conflicts and the spreading of hatred, and in spite of that became cabinet minister.

Lieberman’s special anger was aroused by Gush Shalom’s boycott campaign against the artists Idan Reichal, Ehud Banai, Ety Ankary, who performed at a “festival” organized by the Gush Etzion settlers (in the Bethlehem Region of the West Bank). Among other things, Idan Reichel performed on the “central stage” erected at the settlement of Nokdim – Avigdor Lieberman’s own home.

“It is clear that the boycott campaign which we initiated has touched a sensitive and painful spot for Lieberman and his fellow settlers, namely the illegitimacy of the settlements. Lieberman claims that in the Israeli public “there is a complete consensus about the Gush Etzion settlements,” which is simply not true.

[…]

In such a situation there can be no chance of peace.
Contact: Adam Keller, Gush Shalom Spokesperson adam@gush-shalom.org

According to the Orthodox Anarchist blog, which is run by Jewish Telegraphic Agency employee Dan Sierdarski, the Israeli OneVoicers made an especially poor impression at a OneVoice press event: “Don’t even get me started on my interaction with OneVoice’s Israeli participants who were present at the blogger event, one of whom told me that ‘If it came down to a choice between saving a hundred Jewish lives or killing a million Palestinians, I wouldn’t even blink, I would kill them all.’ He’s a moderate?”

Gideon Spiro, an Israeli journalist and activist, wrote the following open letter to OneVoice on Oct.9

I read the list of names of Israelis who support you, and of the organizations that joined you as member organizations and find that there is no escape from concluding that you’ve fallen into the trap of being all-embracing. For example, MK Gila Finkelstein from the Hamafdal [NRP, or National Religious] party who supports settlers, settlements, and the policies of occupation and apartheid that Israel carries out in the territories, can she be considered moderate? Or again, MK Ephraim Sneh, who until recently was Deputy Minister of Defense and responsible for the collective punishment of Palestinians, for orders to kill without trial (targeted killings, assassinations, as the occupation terms them), who was responsible for the killing of children and women–is he moderate? Again, the Likud and Shas youth who joined you support the occupation, the apartheid wall, and collective punishment. Is there any common ground between them and Meretz Youth?

Your desire to embrace all, including contradictories, results in the fact that not once in your texts does the word “occupation” appear, as if there were no Israeli occupation. Your texts likewise omit the words ‘human rights abuses,” which are integral to the occupation.

See our last post on Israel/Palestine. See also: Another Voice – Palestine.

by David Bloom, WW4 REPORT

Despite over a thousand nonviolent protests, international media attention, worldwide condemnation, a decision by the International Court of Justice at The Hague declaring Israel’s “Separation Wall” illegal where it is built inside the occupied West Bank, and over 120 petitions to the Israeli courts, Israel’s High Court has issued only five decisions supporting changes in the wall’s route. As a result, only a small percentage of Palestinian land has been “returned” to the eastern side of the barrier. The wall still encloses 11.9% of the West Bank’s land, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

A review of the decisions shows that even in the few cases where the High Court decided in favor of Palestinians, the benefits to the villages have been minimal. In one case, around the settlement of Alfe Menashe in the northern West Bank, the court’s decision actually made the situation worse for some of the villagers.

Lower courts have also heard cases. Sheikh Sa’ed, a neighborhood in the village of Sawahra, East Jerusalem, had the wall moved to the neighborhood’s eastern flank by the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court last year. This cut the neighborhood off from the rest of the West Bank, instead of Sawahra and East Jerusalem. This was an improvement for the village, but it is still negatively impacted through separation from the West Bank.

As of Oct 1 2007, the Israeli courts have heard over 120 Palestinian complaints against the wall, 89% of which runs through Palestinian territory inside the West Bank. In an Aug. 6 article, the fence’s main architect, Col. Danny Tirza—a settler—told the Washington Post that he lost only three of those challenges. As of Jan. 3, 2007 the Defense Ministry reported that 39 petitions against the barrier had still to be decided.

In a widely publicized ruling, on Sept. 4, the town of Bil’in won a case at the High Court to have the barrier moved, saving 500 acres of its farmland which had been isolated from the rest of the village by the wall. But the very next day, in a separate ruling that received little media attention, the court ruled that Matityahu East, a large, new settlement outpost being built within the wall on part of Bil’in’s land, could stay. So while the publicized decision returned lands to Bil’in, the quiet one upheld an illegal grab of other, more outlying village lands.

Israeli anti-wall activist Nir Shalev says the court “laundered” Mattiyahu East with its ruling. According to correspondent Akiva Eldar of the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, the court couldn’t countenance dispossessing all the settlers living in Matitatyu East — despite the fact that it was built illegally according to Israel’s own laws.

Mohammed Khatib, a leader of Bil’in’s non-violent resistance movement, wrote on Alternet Sept. 26, “In Bil’in we celebrated, along with our Israeli and international supporters. But Israel’s Supreme Court demonstrated both the power of nonviolent resistance to Israeli occupation, and its limits. On September 5 the court rejected our petition to stop the construction of another Israeli settlement, Mattiyahu East, on our land even further to the west. Israel, with US support, appears determined to retain major West Bank settlement blocs, including one west of Bil’in, that carve the West Bank into bantustans.”

The court’s bait-and-switch tendency demonstrated with the two Bil’in decisions is not new. Indeed it has been in evidence since its first rulings on the wall’s path.

On June 30, 2004, one week before the International Court of Justice in The Hague was to give its ruling declaring the barrier route illegal, the Israeli High Court ruled the route in Beit Surik was disproportionately harmful to the village. The ruling appeared timed to blunt the impact of the Hague court’s, and at the time drew some praise.

However, Muhammed Khaled, the former mayor of Beit Surik, in a Deccember 2005 article on the website Stop the Wall, wrote: “But the Occupation court decision was worth nothing and made things even worse.” The wall’s location in Beit Surik was moved, but it still effectively surrounds the village on all sides, which is penned in additionally by a settler-only road. And Khaled writes that the Israeli army retaliated against those who had brought the petition: “Right after the court decision, they started uprooting my land for the Wall’s new path. My land is situated in the middle of its path—the only reason why they started from the middle was to retaliate against me and to intimidate whoever else wants to resist the Occupation. My land was planted with olive and almond trees as well as grapes. I carried the resolution and went to the soldiers who were working there in order to stop the uprooting of my trees. In response, they beat me very badly and then they arrested me.”

The Israeli state twice simply ignored the High Court’s order to dismantle a 41-kilometer section south of Hebron, along Route 317, affecting the villages of At-Tuwani and Yatta. The court first ordered the barrier removed in six months, in a 2006 ruling. According to a March 8, 2007 article in the Isreali daily Yediot Aharonot, Chief Justice Dorit Beinish noted: “The State…despite the court order, intends to keep the existing barrier… [T]he State chose not to comply with a court order…” As of July 24, 2007 it still had not been moved, according to Ha’aretz. The state was then given fourteen days to dismantle it, and according to Christian Peacemaker teams, it was finally dismantled on Aug. 7. A Palestinian leader of the non-violent movement in the area told CPT, “The IDF routinely disregards Israeli court decisions. We believe what happened is a success for the people’s nonviolent resistance. This is a very important step.”

On Sept. 15, 2005, the High Court ordered part of the fence dismantled where it enclosed five villages, Arab a-Ramadan, Arab Abu Farde, Wadi a-Rasha, Ja’arat a-Dara and Hirbet Ras a-Tira, with a collective 2,000 residents, inside the barrier with the settlement Alfe Menashe, just south of Qalqilya. At the time, the decision was hailed as a significant, precedent-setting victory. The villagers’ lawyer, Michael Sfard, declared, “The High Court has saved five Palestinian villages from utter annihilation, because if the fence had been left in place, they would not have been able to continue to exist”

But on July 31, 2007, the court changed its decision, leaving Arab a-Ramadan and Arab Abu-Farde trapped inside the barrier along with the settlement, according to the Jerusalem Post. These two villages, with a total population of 400, said they would be worse off with the re-routing of the wall, because they are now cut off from the other three villages and the city of Qalqilya. But the court rejected their petition.

Reached for comment, attorney Michael Sfard said, “Naturally, I am disappointed. The second decision strips the first of most of its humanitarian concerns and achievements.”

A Dec. 18 2003 report by the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign of the Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network (PENGON) had warned, “The completion of the Wall and its ghettoization of Arab Ramadin are turning a community of shepherds into exploited workers for Israeli settlement industrial zones, as they are unable to sustain their lives.”

The Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which brought the petition on behalf of the five villages, said in a press release Dec. 26, 2006: “Moreover, the solution being formulated by the military authorities regarding the two villages that were not removed from the enclave (Abu-Farde and Arab a-Ramadan) is a shameless one that is based on population transfer. Although this transfer has been presented as ‘voluntary’ and ‘consensual,’ in fact the villages are being pressurized into accepting a process of immoral and illegal transfer of protected persons from their land.”

ACRI added, “The proposed route will also result directly in the destruction of 1,400 acres of cultivated land, and will cause a great deal of damage, indirectly, to large tracts of land. This is in addition to the destruction of some 2,000 acres of agricultural land that is required for the construction of this section of the barrier. The ‘amended” route of the Barrier places it in extremely close proximity to the homes of the residents, something that has already been proven to pose a real danger to their lives by a number of cases in the past in which villagers were shot and killed. Any movement close to the Barrier, which is almost on top of their homes, arouses the suspicion of the soldiers and others guarding the Barrier. In some cases this has resulted in the security forces opening fire.”

Across the valley from Alfe Menashe, to the north of Qalqilya, the villages of Azzon and Nabi Elias south of the settlement of Zufim also brought petitions against the barrier. The first, in 2002, was turned down by the court. A second, in June of 2006 succeeded, though it has yet to be implemented, Ynet reported last year. A ten kilometer section was ordered moved, to return more than 250 acres to the villages, within six months. The reason the first petition failed, according to Meron Rapaport in Ha’aretz, was that fence designer Col. Danny Tirza, in a 2002 affidavit defending the route, did not mention that the route of the fence was planned for the sake of building an industrial zone, expanding Zufim further onto privately held village lands. Tirza claimed only security considerations were involved.

Justice Aharon Barak appeared shocked by Tirza’s lack of candor, writing in his decision that “a grave phenomenon has been revealed in this petition. The High Court was not presented with the entire picture in the first petition. The court rejected the appeal based on partial information.” B’Tselem was more blunt: “The High Court of Justice in fact ruled that the State lied when it claimed that the fence route is only based on security considerations.”

Tirza’s failure to mention the industrial zone led Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to tell the then-Defense Minister Amir Peretz that this was “a severe gaffe that must not be tolerated.” Yet in spite of being ordered by Peretz to desist from appearing before the court representing the Defense Ministry, Tirza continued to do so. On March 3, 2006, Palestinians petitioned to have Tirza dismissed, arguing that as a settler, he has a conflict of interest in designing the fence route.

On the northern side of Zufim are the villages of Jayyous and Falamya. On Oct. 30, 2006, according to Jayyous farmer Shareef Khaled Omar, the Israeli courts issued a recommendation to move the barrier on Jayyous’ lands. Khaled said, “the army told our advocate that they would move the path of the wall to release 1,500 of the 8,600 dunums [375 of 2,140 acres] currently isolated from the village by the wall. This does not make us feel glad. The new path of the wall may even fall within the 1,500 dunums that they will release. We would like them to move the wall to the Green Line.”

Two other routes suggested by the army are also seen as inadequate, and the villages’ lawyer is insisting on the Green Line as the only alternative route. Omar points out that on the Green Line adjacent to Jayyous, “there are two fences, one electric, the other razor-wire, that will never allow a cat or a dog to pass through. So, if it is a matter of security, those two fences are sufficient and it is not necessary to build others six kilometers to the east of the Green Line in Jayyous land!”

In July 2006, on the second anniversary of The Hague ruling that the barrier had to be dismantled, the Israeli government approved a revised route for the barrier that had only “marginal overall effect” in reducing harm to the Palestinians’ fabric of life. The new route was actually thirty kilometers longer than the old route, and only one-half of one percent of the total area in the West Bank was removed from the “seam zone,” as Israel calls the area between the barrier and the Green Line. Four Palestinian villages, totaling 2,300 residents—were placed back on the Palestinian side, but at the same time another village of 900 was placed inside the “seam zone.” The human rights organization Bimkom reported that “some 250,000 Palestinians will be trapped in enclaves either on the ‘Israeli’ side of the security barrier or almost completely surrounded by concrete walls or fences inside the West Bank.”

Tel Aviv University psychologist Carlo Stenger writing in Ha’aretz on Sept. 25, warned that Israel is “On the way to [becoming] a pariah state… Behaving in a manner befitting the standards of the Western world is far more important for Israel’s long-term survival than gaining a few square miles here and there, by building the security wall through Palestinian territories, tearing apart villages, homes and schools, and expanding settlements. Every such act is not just a moral outrage; it pushes Israel one step closer to being disqualified from belonging to the West.”

——

See also:

ANATOMY OF THE WEST BANK “REALIGNMENT”
Strategic Pull-Back to Perpetuate Occupation
by David Bloom, WW4 REPORT, June 2006
/node/2023

RESOURCES:

Israel’s Security Fence, Ministry of Defense
http://www.securityfence.mod.gov.il/Pages/ENG/news.htm#news49

Col. Danny Tirza boast to Washington Post, Aug. 7, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/06/AR2007080601661.html

B’tselem on the Sheikh Sa’ed decision, Occupation Magazine, March 21, 2006
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=12804

Nir Shalev on the Bi’lin decision, Occupation Magazine, Sept. 5, 2007
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=22172

Mohammed Khatib on the Bil’in decision, Alternet, Sept. 26
http://www.alternet.org/audits/63640/

Muhammad Khaled on the Beit Surik decision, Stop the Wall, Dec. 20, 2005
http://stopthewall.org/communityvoices/1064.shtml

Yediot Aharonot on the Route 317 decision, March 8, 2007
http://www.peace-security-council.org/news.events.asp?id=638

Christian Peacemaker Teams on the dismantling of Route 317, Aug. 20, 2007
http://www.cpt.org/archives/2007/aug07/0020.html

Michael Sfard on Arab a-Ramadan, et al, The New Standard, Sept. 16, 2005
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2370

Jerusalem Post on Arab a-Ramadan, et al, Aug. 31, 2007
http://www.peace-security-council.org/news.events.asp?id=656

Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) on Arab a-Ramadan, et al, Dec. 26, 2006
http://www.acri.org.il/english-acri/engine/story.asp?id=348

YNet on Azzoun and Nabi Elias decisions, June 15, 2006
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3263267,00.html

Meron Rapaport on Azzoun and Nabi Elias decisions, Ha’aretz, June 25, 2006
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=14709

Amira Hass on Col. Danny Tirza, Ha’aretz, March 3, 2006
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=12441

More from Ha’aretz on Col. Danny Tirza, Aug. 24, 2006
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=15934

Bimkom on the enclosure of 250,000 Palestinians, Jerusalem Post, Jan. 22, 2007
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1167467790412&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

Carlo Stenger on Israel as “pariah state,” Ha’aretz, Sept. 25, 2007
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/906924.html

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Special to WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Oct. 1, 2007
Reprinting permissible with attribution

ISRAELI HIGH COURT RETURNS PALESTINIAN LANDS?
Don’t Believe the Hype!
by David Bloom, WW4 REPORT

BOOTS, BEARDS, BURQAS, BOMBS
The Politics of Militarism and Islamist Extremism in Pakistan
by Beena Sarwar, Himal Southasian, Kathmandu

DESTINATION DARFUR: A NEW COLD WAR OVER OIL
by Vijay Prashad, Frontline, Chennai, India

PARAGUAY: LABORATORY FOR LATIN AMERICA’S NEW MILITARISM
by Benjamin Dangl, Upside Down World

COLOMBIA: PARAS, ARMY STILL KILLING PEASANTS
from Weekly News Update on the Americas

INDIGENOUS ANARCHISM IN BOLIVIA
An Interview with Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui
by Andalusia Knoll, Rustbelt Radio, Pittsburgh

Book Review:
PIRATES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
America’s First War on Islamic Terrorism
by Bill Weinberg, Middle East Policy

“If we were to be driven out of Iraq, extremists of all strains would be emboldened. Al-Qaeda could gain new recruits and new sanctuaries. Iran would benefit from the chaos and would be encouraged in its efforts to gain nuclear weapons and dominate the region. Extremists could control a key part of the global energy supply. Iraq could face a humanitarian nightmare. Democracy movements would be violently reversed. We would leave our children to face a far more dangerous world.”

—George Bush, address to the nation, Sept. 13, 2007

“If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double”

— The Clash, “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” 1982

Exit Poll: Separation barriers appear to be the icon of the new security state from the West Bank to Baghdad to the US-Mexican border. Are there still potentialities for a just co-existence (Israeli-Palestinian, Sunni-Shi’ite, gringo-Latino), or do “good fences make good neighbors” and it is just a question of where to draw the line?

Responses to September’s Exit Poll:
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Respond to: feedback (at) ww4report.com (remove spaces, obviously)

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