PLO Negotiations Affairs Department

Bad Fences Make Bad Neighbors - Part ii

Focus on Qalqilya

 

  When Ariel Sharon was asked by Winston S. Churchill III, grandson of the former British prime minister, in 1973 how Israel will deal with the Palestinians, he responded:  
“We’ll make a pastrami sandwich of them, we’ll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank, so that in 25 years’ time, neither the United Nations nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart.”

 Fact Sheet:

 On April 15, 2002, Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon announced that he will “isolate” Palestinians from Israelis by erecting “walls” and “buffer zones” in a plan styled “unilateral separation.”    The strategy is to expropriate as much Palestinian land as possible while militarily caging in as many Palestinians as possible, all in an attempt to continue Israel’s colonization and occupation of Palestinian land and water resources.  At the same time, Israel will effectively isolate Palestinian population centers from one another.  One of the cities most affected by this plan is Qalqilya where the wall highlights Israel’s increasingly visible apartheid regime.

For a map of the Qalqilya wall, visit
http://www.nad-plo.org/maps/Qalqilya_land_grab.htm.

Facts on Qalqilya

• The governorate of Qalqilya is comprised of 32 villages with approximately 72,000 Palestinians and 19 illegal Israeli colonies with an estimated illegal Israeli settler population of 50,700 (as of January 1, 2000).
• The city of Qalqilya has approximately 40,000-45,000 Palestinian residents living on approximately 3,500 dunums of developed land (4 dunums = 1 acre).  An additional 6,500 dunums of Qalqilya’s agricultural land surround the city.
• Qalqilya sits atop the Western Aquifer Basin, one of the three major aquifer basins in the occupied West Bank. This aquifer basin, which stretches along the Green Line, generates  an average sustainable yield of 362 million cubic meters of water annually, and produces approximately half of the Occupied West Bank’s water resources.  The Qalqilya Wall, together with the rest of the "security wall", is built in such a way as to give Israel near total control to the highest productive zones of this aquifer basin.
• Prior to September 29, 2000, the start of the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, 22% of Qalqilya’s economy was based on agricultural produce, including fruit and vegetable orchards, apiaries, greenhouse nurseries and livestock.  Today, that figure is 45%, with 2000 agricultural workers supporting approximately 15,000 residents of the occupied city (representing 37.5% of Qalqilya’s total population). 

 Facts on The Qalqilya Wall

 On August 15, 2002, the Sharon government announced its plans for the wall surrounding Qalqilya:

• The wall will not be on Israel’s border (the Green Line), but will surround the city on 3 sides on land clearly within the Occupied West Bank.

• The 8 meter high wall will be surrounded (i) first by a trench 4 meters wide and 2 meters deep, (ii) then barbed wire and (iii) lastly, a military road that will be patrolled by the Israeli Army.

• All Palestinian property (including homes, farms, fields and greenhouses) within 35 meters of the wall has been or will be destroyed by Israel.

• Four entrances to the city have already been militarily blocked and the remaining entrance has been turned into a military fortified gateway.

 Effect of the Qalqilya Wall

 The ultimate goal of erecting this wall is to confiscate and expropriate Palestinian land as well as forcibly impoverishing the Qalqilya residents by denying them means to a livelihood and access to natural resources.  The Qalqilya wall has little to do with security:

• Approximately 3,000 dunums of agricultural land have been or will be confiscated.  This figure represents nearly 50% of the city’s agricultural land.   Qalqilya was once known as the West Bank's "bread basket".
• Approximately 19 wells in the city will be confiscated, representing approximately 30% of the city’s water supply.
• Residents of Qalqilya will be imprisoned in the town, cut off from neighboring Palestinian villages and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Given that 45% of the city’s economy relies on agriculture, land and water confiscation will coerce migration of Qalqilya’s residents eastward, eventually making Israeli annexation of Qalqilya demographically "acceptable".

 The Qalqilya Wall Violates the Fourth Geneva Convention  

·         The construction of the Qalqilya wall violates the Fourth Geneva Convention’s prohibition of extensive destruction and expropriation of property located in occupied territory not justified by military necessity.  Such destruction and expropriation constitutes a war crime. 

Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or co-operative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.  (Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 53, in conjunction with Article 147) 

Israel has often claimed that its “security” mandates the violation of Palestinian rights enshrined under the Fourth Geneva Convention.  However, Israel’s reliance on “security” as a means to circumvent the Convention does not relate to the security of the occupying forces or to that of its administration, but to that of the illegal settlers. “Military necessity” cannot be invoked to defend violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, such as Israel’s implementation and maintenance of illegal Israeli colonies.  To turn violations into rights and consequently invoke the underlying principles of the Fourth Geneva Convention, such as military necessity, to legitimize and even defend the establishment and expansion of the violation is an affront to international law in general as well as to the Fourth Geneva Convention in particular.  

·     The Qalqilya wall violates the central obligation of the Occupying Power to guarantee the well being and basic sustenance for the occupied civilian population. 

It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, …whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.  (Fourth Geneva Convention, Protocol I, Article 54)

 

The extensive appropriation and destruction of land and property, especially fertile agricultural land and water, deprives and effectively dispossesses the Palestinian population of their basic sources of income and livelihood 

·         The Qalqilya wall violates the Fourth Geneva Convention’s prohibition of collective punishment. 

      No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed.  Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.  (Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 33) 

The Qalqilya wall punishes the entire population of the city and therefore violates the Convention’s absolute prohibition of collective punishment.  According to the authoritative Commentary of the Fourth Geneva Convention: “During past conflicts, the infliction of collective penalties has been intended to forestall breaches of the law rather than to repress them; in resorting to intimidatory measures to terrorize the population, the belligerents hoped to prevent hostile acts.  Far from achieving the desired effect, however, such practices, by reason of their excessive severity and cruelty, kept alive and strengthened the spirit of resistance.  They strike at guilty and innocent alike.  They are opposed to all principles based on humanity and justice…”

 

• The International Community is obligated to enforce the Fourth Geneva Convention:

The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances.  (Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 1)        

The international community has failed to fulfill its obligation to enforce international law, promoting Israeli intransigence by teaching Israel that it may violate the law with impunity and reinforcing the sense of abandonment prevalent in the Palestinian population. It is time that the international community stop tacitly recognizing and accommodating continuing Israeli violations which target an increasingly helpless civilian population.  

The Qalqilya Wall Violates the Oslo Agreements:  

• The Qalqilya wall violates the Oslo Agreements’ prohibition of denial of free movement:

      Without derogating from Israel’s security powers and responsibilities in accordance with this Agreement, movement of people, vehicles and goods in the West Bank, between cities, towns, villages and refugee camps, will be free and normal and shall not need to be effected through checkpoints or roadblocks.”  (Interim Agreement, Annex I, Article IX, para 2(a)) 

      Israel’s security powers, with respect to freedom of movement, extend only to prohibiting or limiting the entry into Israel of persons and of vehicles from the Occupied Palestinian Territories.  The Qalqilya wall affects Palestinian freedom of movement not only into Israel, but also within the Occupied Palestinian Territories. 

• The Qalqilya wall violates the Oslo Agreements’ requirement to preserve the territorial integrity of the Occupied Palestinian Territories: 

The two sides view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit, the integrity and status of which will be preserved during the interim period.  (Interim Agreement, Chapter 2, Article XI)

 The Qalqilya wall will cut off Qalqilya from other Palestinian cities thereby destroying the territorial integrity of the West Bank

• The Qalqilya wall violates the Oslo Agreements’ prohibition against either side changing the status of the Occupied Palestinian Territories:   

Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.  (Interim Agreement, Chapter 5, Article XXXI)  

The Qalqilya wall constitutes an Israeli unilateral action that changes the status of the West Bank by de facto annexation of West Bank land on the western side of the wall and by imposing a de facto border prior to the conclusion of permanent status negotiations.             

For additional information on Qalqilya and the wall, please visit:  

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article571.shtml (article)

http://www.lawsociety.org/arjan/movies/qalqilyawall.mov (video coverage)

http://MondeDiplo.com/2002/11/05wall (article)

http://www.qalqilya.com (general information)