Israel’s ‘apartheid wall’ provokes protests

The Israeli Cabinet moved on July 10 to push for completion of an apartheid wall that Israeli officials acknowledge will block some 55,000 Palestinians from freely entering Jerusalem, where they work and go to school. Ha’aretz reports that the cabinet has set a date of Sept. 1 for completion of the wall in Jerusalem.

The West Bank wall.

Palestinian officials, including Prime Minister Ahmad Qurei, President Mah moud Abbas and chief negotiator Saeb Erakat all condemned the Israeli decision as a threat to any peace process. According to the Palestine Media Center, Qurei called the decision a land grab “in the broad daylight” which makes any talk about peace “a farce.”

That same day the Palestinian National Authority rejected Israel’s decision, saying that it would reach out to the United Nations General Assembly to push Israel to stop building the wall. The UN General Assembly has adopted the July 2004 ruling of the International Court of Justice that deemed the wall illegal because it is built on occupied land.

In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom warned the Palestinian Authority against attempts “to internationalize the conflict,” saying “it harms the positive atmosphere which can and should develop around the Disen gagement Plan.”

If completed, the wall would extend for 40 miles, cutting through four Palestinian neighborhoods and a refugee camp. The Palestine Media Center reports that an estimated 65,000 Jerusalem Arabs will daily have to pass through military checkpoints along the wall and around 3,700 Palestinian students will be cut off from their schools.

People in three different Palestinian cities marched on July 9 to demand an end to the occupation and the tearing down of the wall. More than 1,000 marched in Ramallah, while in Beit Liqya—site of the Israeli killing of a 15-year-old Palestinian the day before—protesters were attacked with rubber bullets, sound bombs and tear gas by the occupation forces.

In the area of Kafr Thulth, occupation forces used batons to beat back villagers who attempted to remove the roadblocks there.

On the same day solidarity protests and events took place in Canada, Chile, Egypt, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States.

According to www.stopthewall.org, “Recently the U.S. has contributed $50 million in direct aid to finance checkpoints, gates and high-tech terminals to control Palestinian movement in their own land.”