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Arab Member of Knesset: "The Fence Will Fall" |
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by ma'ariv via gehrig
(No verified email address) |
03 Jul 2004
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MK Ahmed Tibi congratulates the High Court for agreeing that the fence represents draconian measures against the Palestinians. |
The fence will fall
Ahmed Tibi
For decades, since 1967, the army has assumed that it could always depend upon the High Court of Justice. The court has taken just about every single injustice of the occupation and made it “kosher”. The expropriation of lands, the expulsions, the assassinations and the curfews, the checkpoints and the rules of disengagement—all the things that have exacted such a heavy human toll.
Once in a while the High Court would criticize here, or make a remark there, but it always left the door open to the IDF, as an occupying army, to do whatever it felt like doing—and it did a lot. Under the title of “warlike atmosphere”, everything was allowed.
But yesterday something happened. The High Court listened attentively to the arguments that the fence causes immeasurable damage and is draconian; that it disregards the needs of the population and that the power of the occupation harms the daily life of the Palestinian inhabitants through the construction of the wall-fence. The High Court bore witness to the difficulties the pupils have in reaching their schools, of the elderly to reach their medical clinics, of the pregnant women in labor trying to reach the hospital in time, and of the worker trying to reach his place of work.
The fence has caused more misery to Palestinian lives than the entire 37 years of the occupation has managed to. It has turned the difficult to bear into the impossible, into the inhuman. It has turned the five minute morning bus ride to school for students into an insufferable and circuitous voyage that takes two hours or more, through gates, terminus’ and soldiers wearing helmets and holding guns.
True, all this comes against the backdrop of a difficult security situation, when innocent civilians have lost their lives on both sides of the border. Israeli society cried out against the suicide bombings, and then came the false messiahs who presented Israeli society with a “magic solution”, which is really nothing more than a false illusion.
The fence was actually an idea thought up by the left, not the right. The right has been dragged into it by public pressure, and so by adopting this foolish idea, it has deepened the suffering. The desire to determine political facts on the ground by erecting a fence that winds like a snake through the heart of Palestinian territory, has caused the separation of families and homes and has created political facts—in practice, which have prevented the rise of an independent Palestinian state and a realization of the dream of two states.
Yesterday the High Court finally understood that enough was enough. Maybe because of [the International Court of Justice at] The Hague, or maybe because of the sentiments of the three honorable justices who are deeply convinced that the lives of the Palestinian inhabitants cannot be made any more miserable than they are—despite the terrible loss of life over the last three years.
There’s no doubt that the affidavit submitted by the Council for Peace and Security had great weight in the judges decision. It was a bold step by the Council and its members, who also cried out along with many Israeli citizens from nearby townships, who finally said “no” to the abusive, inhuman destruction.
The nature of walls and fences is to rise and then in the end to fall. This wall, built to a height of eight meters in Abu Dis and in the neighborhood where I live, A-Ram—there it harms the lives of almost 200,000 inhabitants. There it creates hatred and suffering, and does not provide any security.
Israel has tried everything. It has tried tanks, helicopters, airplanes, boats, curfews, closures, demolition, expulsion, arrests—and it has only suffered losses and disappointments—as is the nature of all occupational forces.
This wall is just another false illusion, whose destiny will be like those of all other walls and fences that have been erected: to fall. In its place perhaps a spark of hope will arise, which will join the two communities of the two nations together on a humanitarian basis, and on a political one. Each side will live in its own country without killing, without attacking, and far, far from an abusive authority.
Let it be so.
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See also:
http://www.maarivintl.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=9281
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