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Revision as of 14:01, 26 August 2005

Apartheid wall is a term sometimes used to describe the Israeli West Bank barrier by its opponents. They refer to it this way because they argue that:

• Its extension into the West Bank isolates Palestinian communities and consolidates the Israeli settlements, which, like the Bantustans of apartheid South Africa, are part of a "long-term policy of occupation, discrimination and expulsion," and is effectively a form of colonialism.Template:Fn
• By confiscating Palestinian farmlands and leaving them on the Israeli side, it crowds the Palestinians into as little an area as possible while leaving as much of the land as possible to Israel.
• In distinguishing between Israelis and Palestinians in terms of who can enter and exit the gates along the barrier, it is racist in nature.
• Its main purpose, just like the South African apartheid policy, is to separate two peoples, and they point out that its current route on confiscated Palestinian land is, according to them, hardly one that is based only on security. This is corroborated by Israeli left wing groups such as Gush Shalom and more recently by the Israeli State Prosecution itself (referring only to the part built beyond the 1949 Armistice lines).
• It serves to subjugate the Palestinians by separating them from Israel and the rest of the world, and controlling all entry and exit.
• The barrier is clearly not temporary; at a cost of 12 million NIS or 2.8 million USD per km
• 16% of the Palestinians in the West Bank are on the "Israeli" side of the barrier, and allegedly will eventually be expelled or forced to migrate.

Defenders of the barrier reject both the "Apartheid" and "wall" designations, arguing that:

• Only seven percent of the barrier is walled, 93% is fenced.
• The goal of bantustans was to eliminate the rights of the majority South African black population, while the goal of the barrier is to protect Israeli civilians from terrorist infiltration and attack.
• The Supreme Court of Israel ruled that the barrier is indeed defensive and accepted the Israeli claim that the route is based on security considerations (Articles 28-30).
• Apartheid was a system established to disenfranchise citizens, based on skin color, from their own country; however, West Bank Palestinians were never citizens of Israel, and Jews and Palestinians are not racially distinct.
• The barrier is clearly not intended to separate Jews from Arabs, as over 1 million Arabs on the "Israeli" side of the barrier are full citizens of Israel, and constitute 15% of Israel's population.
• Apartheid involved the forced removal of about 1.5 million South Africans to bantustans, but the barrier causes no transfer of population. None of the 10,000 Palestinians (0.5%) who will be left on the Israeli side of the barrier (based on the latest February, 2005 route) will be forced to migrate.
• South African blacks did not seek the destruction of South Africa, but merely the reformation of the government; however, the majority of Palestinians in the territories dispute Israel's right to exist.
• Bantustans were created in order to force legal borders; however, the barrier is a temporary defensive measure, not a border, which can be dismantled if appropriate.
• Apartheid was an outgrowth of imperialist, colonial policy; Israel's Jewish population consisted mostly of refugees with a deep historical relationship to the land.
• If this separation barrier is an expression of apartheid, then any number of similar defensive barriers around the world must also meet that definition.

Notes

Template:Fnb Peace under fire : Israel/Palestine and the International Solidarity Movement, ed. Josie Sandercock, et al. New York: Verso, 2004, p. 192.