The Experience of the Popular Committees Against the Wall in the West Bank

September 2006

 

The Israeli occupation has intensified its Zionist project by the establishment of the Apartheid and annexation wall in the West Bank. Eventually, Israel succeeded to create the ground for the implementation of its Zionist dream which is based on ethnic cleansing strategy for Judizing the Palestinian territories and maintaining a Jewish majority in the country. The expulsion and transfer policy has been part and parcel of the Zionist ideology, whether before the creation of Israel or even after the signing of the Declaration of Principles (DOP) in Oslo in 1993. Israel deliberately implemented a number of operations and measures to cut Palestinians off sources of living, particularly those Palestinians whose agricultural lands now locate behind the Wall. Israel keeps its full control over the Palestinian movement through the erected gates, which are sometimes closed for several consecutive days. As a result, farmers face serious obstacles to access to and irrigate their lands. Additionally, farmers go through a torture journey that begins with the issuance of permits to access their crops in and out of their lands, and to transporting them across the West Bank due to the erected checkpoints and barricades.

Additional to the Wall, Israel built a network of roads and tunnels across the West Bank as a part and parcel of the Wall. The Wall, roads and tunnels have handily sliced the West Bank into isolated population gatherings (blocs) and annexed the Israeli settlements established illegally in the occupied Palestinian territories to the State of Israel.

 

The Israeli purposes of the Wall:

The Israeli media claims that the Wall is a “security fence” that aims to prevent the perpetuators of the “guerrilla” and “suicidal” operations from reaching the Israeli territories. However, one can claim that if the Wall is erected for this so-called reason, then why they do not erect it along the borders of 1967. The Israeli real intentions are following:

1. Annex the largest possible lands of the West Bank with the least Palestinian inhabitants to the State of Israel. Estimates say that between 42-45% of the West Bank lands will be annexed to Israel by the completion of the Wall construction.

2. Israel’s absolute control of the Palestinian groundwater particularly the western basin additional to the eastern and east northern basins. It is worth noting that more than 50 artisan wells have been drastically affected by the completion of the first phase of the Wall.

3. Prevent the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state. The basic prerequisite for a state with full sovereignty is the existence of geographic and territorial integrity. With the Wall, Israel plans to isolate and cut Jerusalem off the Palestinian environment leaving behind 3 major blocs; one in the south of the West Bank of 710 square km including Hebron and Bethlehem districts.  The second isolated bloc of 1930 square km will include Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqilia  Toubas, Salfeet, and Nablus and will extend to include Ramallah. And the third one will be Jericho bloc of 60 square km, which will be entirely isolated from the rest of the West Bank. The three isolated blocs additional to Gaza Strip will constitute 12% of Historic Palestine.

4. Harass and pressure the Palestinian people to force them to voluntarily leave the country by means of :

   • Confiscation or destruction of agricultural lands, which constitute the sole source of living for many families. At least 52,000 Palestinians will be cut off their farmed lands by the Wall.

   • Nearly 436,000 Palestinians will be confined to a tiny area that lies between the Wall and the Green Line (i.e. 1967 borders). In other words, they will be imprisoned between two walls.

   • Trees uprooting: During the first phase of the Wall erection, 102,320 trees among them were 83,000 olive trees were destroyed additional to 50 artisan wells.

   • Eliminating investment and job creation projects, and pushing investors to leave the country.

   • Restrictions on people’s movement: Movement between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is totally restricted and impossible, whilst movement between governorates is extremely difficult. Moreover, movement within the same governorate is becoming complicated because of the gates that were erected on the entrances of many villages and towns, which are opened for specific hours.

As such, Israel has been using all means to expel Palestinians out their country so as to dismantle the so-called demographic bomb that is entrenched in the Zionist ideology. Israeli Ex-Prime Minister Arael Sharon said: “You cannot load people onto trucks and throw them away. I prefer using a positive policy summarized in preparing the conditions that can force people to leave.”

The Palestinian popular resistance against the Wall:

Ever since Israel issued military orders and handed them to the Palestinian land owners, the popular effort to resist the Wall has begun. The soonest Israel started to build the Wall the quickest the Popular Campaign against the Wall was established. Pickets, demonstrations and protest actions broke out across the locations, where Israel started the Wall erection. Though these actions could not prevent Israel from building the Wall, they created many obstacles that impeded some of the Israeli plans and led to some alteration of the Wall track. The accumulated achievements were crowned by the Advisory Ruling of the International Court of Justice, which revealed the illegality of the Wall.

The Popular Campaign against the Wall, which was adopted and supported by the Network of Non-governmental Environmental Organizations, took the initiative to mobilize and unite volunteers’ efforts and adopt the demands of the farmers who are affected by the Wall. Though the Campaign was successful in mobilizing international pressure actions, it faced great challenges such as Israel’s escalation of violence against the Palestinian people, weak coordination and networking among stakeholders and the failure to respond to farmers’ huge needs.  .

The Campaign established a strategic plan that focused on 5 main goals:

1. Support and reinforce people’s steadfastness particularly in the affected areas.

2. Enhance the role of the Campaign, the non- governmental organizations and the grassroots committees in resisting the challenges and impacts of the Wall.

3. Contribute to enforcing a positive change in the international public opinion so as to pressure Israel to implement the Advisory Ruling of the ICJ and of the international legitimacy resolutions.

4. Mobilize the Arab public opinion to adopt the resistance against the Wall and settlements.

5. Activate the resolutions pertaining to boycott and divestments imposition on Israel additional to freezing foreign investments in the Israel economy.

The formation of the Popular Committees against the Wall is not far from common in the Palestinian history, which is rich in many examples of popular resistance movements. Thus, the Popular Committees against the Wall are part and parcel of the organic fabric of the Palestinian society and its deep-rooted traditions. Throughout history, Palestinian popular and grassroots movements took various forms; local dog- watch teams in village, popular initiatives to alleviate people’s agonies and sufferings, volunteer groups, land defense committees,  refugees committees, etc.  Some of those movements were replaced by new initiatives that addressed emerging issues. The grassroots initiatives have provided the most effective mechanism to resist the Israeli violent assaults, and to protect the Palestinian population from the impacts and destruction of these assaults at the time there was no active political leadership in existence.

The strengths of the Popular Committees against the Wall stem from their grassroots foundation, their presence at the incident site and their closeness to people additional to the values and principles of volunteering and participation. The fact that these committees are not formal, allowed them a lot of flexibility and free communication with all different stakeholders particularly affected farmers who constitute the majority of their membership.

Implemented Actions against the Wall:    

By October 2002, the Palestinian non-governmental organizations commenced their ever first actions against the Wall. The Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees prides itself over being the first NGO to deal with this issue. Our effort to draw the attention of the Palestinian civil society to the Wall issue was crowned by the formation of a number of grassroots committees. Very soon other NGOs got involved in the resistance campaign such as the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, Agricultural Work Committees, ARIJ, the Hydrology Group, Union of Health Work Committees, and others. These NGOs assumed the responsibility to fight against the Wall and adopt farmers’ issues. They helped farmers to organize themselves and assess their needs and priorities additional to provide them with legal assistance. However, the Popular Committees and Campaign against the Wall faced two major challenges: (1) the extremely weak role of the Palestinian Authority and the fabrications of the Israeli undertakers that led to accusing the PA of collaboration with Israel to build the Wall, (2) the lack of farmers’ ability to organize themselves and explicitly express their real situations and concerns to the PA and political parties to get them involved in the battle against the Wall, and to convince the external world that the facts on the ground that Israel is creating are daily war crimes committed against our soil, land, water and people.

Achievements:

1. Organizing farmers in grassroots committees across the West Bank. These committees hold joint coordination meetings on a regular basis additional to organizing events and protest actions. These committees along side the civil society organizations have formed up the Grassroots Campaign to Resist the Wall. The latter supplemented the work of the PA institutions and formed together the National Committee against the Wall..

2. Providing legal aid by hiring lawyers and legal representatives to raise objections in the law court against land confiscation. The legal services were funded by PARC and the UPMRC in the first place, and then the PA assumed the financial responsibility.

3. Conducting awareness raising campaigns among farmers on the social, economic and political impacts of the Wall on the future of the Palestinian people.

4. Mobilizing and hosting foreign delegations and organizing international solidarity campaigns so as to form a supportive international public opinion that would pressure Israel to stop building the Wall by using various means including divestments and boycott.

5. Holding tens of pickets and protest actions in cooperation with farmers and international solidarity groups additional to Israeli peace movements which are active against the Wall.

6. Adopting a week of solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle against the Wall between 9 and 16 November each year, when protest actions are held world wide. Last year, 62 protests and pickets were held in 22 countries additional to local demonstrations and actions.

7. Activating the role of the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian Legislative Council and the political parties in the fight against the Wall and pressuring them to place this issue on top of their priorities.

8. Enhancing farmers’ steadfastness and perseverance to work their agricultural lands which are isolated by the Wall through providing them with assistance and financial aid.

9. The issue of the Wall occupied the right place on the agenda of the Palestinian Authority additionally more and more international leaderships explicitly expressed their denunciation and rejection to the Wall.

Sustainability:

Sustainability is conditioned by distancing the Popular Committees against the Wall from reaction and random thinking.  The committees must be based on systematic and accumulative work additional to well-developed plans. Sustainability includes the following components:

• Administrative sustainability, which can be achieved by expanding the popular participation based on specialization, responsibility distribution, continuous planning, monitoring, and evaluation.

• Financial sustainability that can be achieved by accurate financial planning based on the periodical assessment of actual needs additional to preparing project proposals for funds mobilization and the enhancement of the local contributions.

• Community sustainability that can be attained by the wide participation of all socio-economic strata, gender and age groups of the local community.

Strengths:           

1. High level of volunteering and participation in the Wall resistance actions.

2. The ability to communicate with official and grassroots movements across the West Bank additional to international and solidarity groups.

3. Good coordination and networking with media and local communities.

4. A close relationship with farmers.

5. The ability to mobilize advocates and lawyers to legally assist the committees.

6. Implementing some projects that alleviate affected farmers’ distresses.

7. The success to stop the Wall’s construction or change its route in some locations.

Weaknesses:   

1. Lack of attention to farmers’ pressing needs and issues.

2. Weak documentation of experiences and sharing them with one another.

3. Unsystematic meetings and progress reports.

4. Absence of a well identified structure and responsibilities distribution.

5. Constraints of building a massive and broad base resisting the Wall.

6. Lack of planning due to the Israeli accelerated measures.

7. Weak media and fundraising action additional to poor efficiency of the committees’ members.

8. Weak recruitment of women in these committees.

9. Competition among various committees and organizations that are working in the same locations.

Opportunities:

1. A large scope of the international and popular support in which solidarity groups, the World Social Forum, anti globalization movements, etc are actively involved.

2. The Palestinian Legislative Council can play a very important role in contacting and mobilizing parliaments across the world.

3. The Palestinian Authority has a great potential to contact and mobilize governments across the world additional to the United Nations.

4. The Advisory Ruling of the International Court of Justice, which demanded Israel to stop erecting the Wall and to dismantle the completed parts additional to fixing the damage resulted from the Wall. It also asked Israel to cancel all laws issued to validate the Wall. The ICJ appealed to all countries to de-legitimize the de-facto situation emerged in the wake of the Wall and not to give any kind of support to Israel in this respect.  It also appealed to all signatories to Fourth Geneva Convention to oblige Israel to abide by the International Law. On the other hand, it called the UN various bodies to adopt necessary measures to put an end to the illegal situation which resulted from the Wall erection.

5. The established popular campaign and national committee against the Wall.

6. Potential participation of the private sector, village and municipal councils, and Palestinian communities abroad and in Israel in the resistance process of the Wall.

7. A media plan issued by the Arab League on 13/01/ 2004 pertinent to the Wall.

8. The readiness of the local and international media to cooperate with Palestinians in their resistance of the Wall.

9. Good cooperation by the foreign diplomatic missions to the Palestinian Authorities as far as the Wall is concerned.

10. The UN resolution number A/RES/ES-10/15 issued on 20/08/2004, which demands that Israel must abide by the ICJ Advisory Ruling additional to requesting the UN Secretary General to compile a record of damage that hit the Palestinian people because of the Wall and to present the file to the UN General Assembly.

11. An established national plan to resist the Wall.

12. An established yearly solidarity week (9-16/11) with the Palestinian people in their resistance of the Wall.

What to do?   

The Palestinian people and their leaderships are requested to do a lot on the national and international levels. The Advisory Ruling of 9 July 2004 by the world’s supreme legal assembly has provided a suitable atmosphere to work hard so as to isolate Israel internationally. A strategic plan is badly needed and all stakeholders are requested to adopt and implement it. The Palestinian Authority is requested to fight against the Wall on two tracks:

1. olitically, the PA should form a powerful and a clearly articulated political agenda based on the world legitimacy resolutions which can mobilize Palestinian masses around it and which can spare our people divisions and splits. The PA must work hard towards establishing a national unity to break out the siege and blockade imposed against our people and to put an end to the unilateral disengagement solution.

2. Internally, the PA should allocate funds to the ministries that provide services to people and should find an immediate solution to the civil servants’ strike additional to seriously handle the top urgent files pertaining particularly to unemployment and poverty.  The PA is requested to establish a national plan to combat corruption and those who are involved in it so as to provide uncorrupted ground that will restore people’s confidence and will consolidate their determination to fight against the Wall. On the other hand, the political parties and other civil society organizations are requested to deal with the Wall’s issue as an emergency and top priority.  They must mobilize and invest all of their resources in the resistance against the Wall.

3. Externally, the Palestinians are requested to work on two levels; the international organizations such as the United Nations Assembly, Security Council, and the Arab League on one hand, and the governments and parliaments on the others. The PA must activate the Advisory Ruling in the Security Council even though the USA is expected to use the veto. The latter will not undermine the legal weight of the Advisory Ruling. The PA must use all of the options to bring the Wall’s issue to the international bodies and assemblies. Regarding the international non-governmental organizations, we must consolidate our efforts to persuade them to impose divestments against Israel and to boycott Israeli products similar to the boycott campaigns adopted by academics. These actions will surely pressure Israel to abide by the international law.       

 

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