Annexation trumps security

[Englander]

By Danny Rubinstein

During the past year, Route 443 from Modi'in to Jerusalem has become an important and crowded traffic artery. At the start of the intifada, a number of terror attacks occurred along this highway, and many people stopped using it, especially at night. Now, however, it is a busy road. Driving along it just north of Jerusalem, one sees high concrete walls on both sides. Parts of the walls are covered in colorful frescoes, and from the road, what is happening on either side is not visible. In one segment, the road is built on a large bridge, which is unnoticeable because of the walls. Beneath the bridge, far from travelers' eyes, hides an Arab neighborhood called Al-Muwahil (the Mud Neighborhood).

This is not the only place in the West Bank where separation between Israelis and Palestinians is achieved by means of bridges and tunnels that have cost the state huge sums of money (the price of excavating tunnels in the territories could certainly have paid for building dozens of cloverleafs for trains and cars in Israel proper). All enthusiastic supporters of building the separation fence are invited to visit the Al-Muwahil neighborhood to see the hallucinatory world that the fences and walls have created around Jerusalem.

It is true that the wall in this neighborhood, which is inside the West Bank, has not yet been completed, because of court deliberations. Therefore, it is easy in this area to pass from the West Bank into the Atarot Industrial Zone, which is within the jurisdiction of Jerusalem (i.e., in Israel). Though the defense establishment has built a temporary fence in the neighborhood, parts of it have been dismantled under cover of darkness, most probably by metal thieves, and there is no problem going through on foot. In at least one place in the neighborhood, in the area of the Al-Nabali Company's cement factory, it is also possible to pass through the fence driving in a car. There is a locked gate there, but the owners of the factory have a key, and they open and close the gate as they wish.

There are about 1,200 inhabitants of Al-Muwahil. Nearly all have Israeli residency cards, and some of them are even full citizens, who work in Israel and are dependent on the services there. However, apart from the crossing point under the bridge, in the direction of the West Bank, they are cut off by fences and walls in all directions. A similar situation prevails in a number of other residential areas around Jerusalem. For example, in the villages of Beit Hanina, Beit Ikhsa, Sheikh Sa'ad and Mazmoriya. The separation walls cut through and in effect tear apart all of the neighborhoods and small towns on the boundary of East Jerusalem, from Walaja in the south, through Abu Dis and Al-Azzariya to the east, to Al-Ram in the north.

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Haaretz