Crossing the fence when we get there

Wednesday, October 1, 2003

Bloodline, acrylic on canvas, 35x50 cm, Painting by Silvia Rosenberg

While the government met today to approve a 45-kilometer stretch of security fence, Israeli Arabs were marking the third anniversary of the October riots that coincided with the outbreak of the intifada and left 13 dead from Israeli police gunshot wounds.

The Israeli Arabs 'Supreme National Monitoring Committee,' an umbrella group of political groups in the community, decided against calling a general strike and instead was holding a central rally in Sakhnin, as well as some local rallies in those towns where people were killed.

The rioting began in late September 2000, the day after Ariel Sharon, then the leader of the Right wing opposition, paid a visit to the Temple Mount in late September 2000 to protest against Ehud Barak's reported readiness at Camp David to discuss a compromise solution for sharing Jerusalem between Israel and a putative state of Palestine. The protests inside Israel coincided with similar protests in the territories, and on both sides of the Green Line, events spiraled into lethal violence.

Inside Israel, the riots subsided after less than a week. In the territories, the protests turned into the second intifada, dubbed the Al Aqsa Intifada after the mosque that Sharon didn't actually visit on the Temple Mount, and which the protestors said was being threatened by Israel. Without using the specific term 'police riot,' a state judicial commission of inquiry into the events of fall 2000, made clear the police were not equipped, physically, psychologically, politically, or practically to handle the protests.

With the political leadership of the country already appearing to panic in light of the emerging intifada on the other side of the Green Line, the police used the same kind of ammunition against citizens that troops were using against the Palestinians on the other side. MK Mohammed Barake said the message of the demonstrations today was 'peace and coexistence.'

The government now is not panicking, but as it deliberates the proposed route of the fence today it is reverting to the form that has been the style of Israeli governments since the earliest days of the settlement movement: using a combination of language and facts on the ground to enable it to argue that it is not annexing West Bank land to Israel while laying the groundwork for that annexation.

The new stretch of fence being approved today – at an estimated cost of NIS 500 million – mostly sticks to the Green Line, but in several places (most notably in the area of Ariel and Kedumim) makes sharp indentations eastward, as disconnected sections that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says will be filled in, after discussions with the Americans in a few months, when the construction reaches those places.

During the cabinet meeting, Natan Sharansky said the fence should already encompass Ariel, Sharon lost his temper at Minister Meir Sheetrit, who proposed the fence run along the Green Line and leave settlements on the other side. 'Sometimes I envy the Egyptians, who weren't ready to give up an inch at Taba,' said Sharon, 'while we Jews are without borders.' Sharon has insisted to the Americans – who oppose any construction of a fence east of the Green Line – that the fence is only for security reasons and has no political significance. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the fence construction should make clear that Israel plans to annex Hebron and the Jordan Valley.

Sharon in fact has planned two fences – one more or less along the Green Line, though with deviations eastward as a result of pressure from the settlers -- and another to set off the western bank of the Jordan Valley, where Israel established a string of farming settlements in the early 1970s. Indeed, the Sharon fence – formally proposed by the Defense Ministry -- largely resembles the original Allon Plan.

In other developments, the Islamic Jihad vowed to avenge the IDF capture of Bassam Saadi, 43, suspected of dispatching a suicide terrorist in July who killed an elderly woman in a moshav just west of the Green Line, in July, while a Hamas spokesman said an unspecified Arab country arrested a Mossad cell that was trying to assassinate Hamas political leader Khaled Mashal. Israel, of course, had nothing to say about the report, with Israel Radio's correspondent saying that Israeli officials dismissed it as 'a fantasy.'

Nonetheless, two elements make the report 'not implausible'; First, the Mossad's failed attempt, seven years ago, to assassinate Mashal in Jordan, which led to a chain of events that included the return of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin to Gaza and the appointment of Ephram Halevy as the head of the Mossad; Second, the recent appointment of Sharon confidante, counter-terrorism expert Meir Dagan, to replace the more diplomatically-oriented Halevy as head of the intelligence agency. Dagan is said to be emphasizing operations over strategic intelligence cooperation with foreign agencies, as the Mossad's main mission nowadays.

And the public sector strike continues. Netanyahu called on Histadrut chief Peretz to meet for talks to end the strike. But the government announced it would subsidize importers and exporters who send shipments to Aqaba or Port Said to truck the goods in and out of Israel, a clear move meant to emphasize its determination to privatize the Haifa, Ashdod and Eilat ports. Economic commentators are calling the showdown with the ports, if not the entire public sector, a Netanyahu showdown similar to Thatcher against the miners and Reagan against the air traffic controllers. He has not denied the comparisons.

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