by Neve Gordon
November 10, 2003JERUSALEM: As the government of the Jewish state forces the Palestinians in ghettos, history must be turning in its grave. Qalqiliya, a city of 45,000, has been surrounded by a concrete wall and only those who are granted permits by the Civil Administration can enter and exit the city's single gate.
Along the West Bank's north western border, an additional 12,000 people are now living in enclaves between the wall and the pre-1967 border. They too have become captives; yet the so-called security wall does not separate these Palestinian residents from Jewish Israelis, but rather from their brethren in the West Bank.
After placing them on small "islands," Israel is now "encouraging" them to leave their ancestral homes by undermining their infrastructure of existence. The goal, so it seems, is to annex the land uninhabited.
More recently, another 15-km of the wall were approved to be built in the midst of East Jerusalem. A wall, eight meter high, will cut between houses in the middle of such neighborhoods as Sawahra, Azarieh, and Abu Dis. A new Berlin wall in the making, only this time in the holy city.
This wall will ultimately place approximately 35,000 Palestinians in a ghetto. Not only will they be isolated from their source of livelihood, but the sick will not be able to reach hospitals and the children will not be able to reach schools. Even the cemeteries will be out of bounds.
Think about it, once this Apartheid wall is completed, many Palestinian parents will be living on one side while their adult children will be living on the other. Families will be torn apart.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=4478