Tuesday, February 18, 2003

Palestinians Fear Being Trapped by Israeli Wall

Claire Anastas spent most of last week trying to keep her four children playing or studying while they were cooped up in their home here under Israeli Army curfew.

Then, on Sunday, the army informed her that it would soon build a new wall, at least 25 feet high, outside her house. The wall will separate her neighborhood from the rest of Bethlehem, and her children from their schools.

Under the plan, Palestinians like Mrs. Anastas will be left on the Israeli side of the wall, and they will have to pass through an army checkpoint inside it to reach the rest of Palestinian Bethlehem.

The family's predicament underscores the difficulty Israel is having untangling the knotted populations, and their intertwined political and religious traditions, as it builds a new barrier fence in the West Bank.

According to the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Israel must build the wall through the northern outskirts of Bethlehem to protect Jewish worshipers at the shrine they revere as the Tomb of Rachel, wife of the biblical patriarch Jacob.

The tomb, now hidden by 15-foot concrete barriers, topped by guard towers and patrolled by soldiers in battle gear, is just across Yasir Arafat Street from Mrs. Anastas's house. Less than 500 yards inside Bethlehem, it has been a flash point for years. Worshipers arrived there today in an armored bus.

"There's a very important historical and religious site which has been the target of repeated attacks," Raanan Gissin, Mr. Sharon's spokesman, said. "The main purpose here is not to annex that land, but to provide security."

The new wall is a segment of a barrier fence of concrete and wire that Israel is building in what it says is an effort to safeguard Israelis from Palestinians. The government says that the snaking path of the fence is being guided not by politics or religion but by security needs.

But the blurriness of those categories is at the very root of this conflict. Right-wing Israelis have been pushing to fence Jewish settlements and holy sites into the Israeli side. The proposed path of the fence already means it will include thousands of Palestinians on the Israeli side, to some extent undermining the fence's stated purpose — separation.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/18/international/middleeast/18MIDE.html?pagewanted=all&position=top

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