Firstly, the West Bank is a very small area of land, approximately a quarter the size of Wales with an almost equal population size. Palestine has a population of 2.5 million – this includes east Jerusalem - compared to Wales’ 3 million. 

On top of this…, since 1967 over 25% of the west bank has been expropriated by the state of Israel for settlements, highways, by-pass roads, military installations, “nature reserves” – ill explain in a minute what actually constitutes a nature reserve - and infrastructure. 

Further, more then half the west bank, 60% in fact, is under full Israeli control 
 

Map

Now, if we consider the remaining 40%, under Palestinian Authority autonomous control, what we see is by no means a contiguous land mass. Firstly this line - the green line as it is called (bold line around west bank) - represents the 1949 armistice line between the west bank and Israel – beyond which any Israeli incursion is in fact illegal under supposed international law. 



However, the reality…only the darker brown areas on the map are areas under full Palestinian control. As you can see these are relatively small, dislocated enclaves, surrounded by barriers – even between neighbouring communities - between which the movement of Palestinians is extremely restricted.

If this is considered in terms of ecology, the situation is potentially disastrous for the viability of the west bank population as a whole.

Prof. Jeff Halper refers to the geopolitical tactics as those use in the ancient Japanese game “GO”. This is a game that samurai warriors were taught in using minimum presence to achieve maximum effectiveness on the battle field. If we refer this to the map we can see the finger like projections of land under full Israeli control separating isolated Palestinian Authority controlled land – minimum presence with extremely effective control. 

And as for nature reserves – these are areas of confiscated land, labelled conservation areas for a period of three years, after which under an old ottoman ruling land deemed deserted can be claimed by the state of Israel and the developing can begin.….

Military checkpoints and roadblocks

A combination of the wall, military checkpoints and crude road blocks renders the flow of people, traffic and goods in the west bank statistically negligible. The west bank has over 700 road blocks imposed by the Israeli military, some permanent, some semi-permanent, and others on a “no warnings” spontaneous basis. These constraints have obvious implications / repercussions as regards the social and economic workings of the West Bank.


Picture: Bethlehem’s oil supply. 

This picture shows a Palestinian oil tanker driver, waiting at a crude roadblock on the outskirts of Bethlehem district for an Israeli oil tanker to make a delivery. Oil is pumped across the roadblock. 

So we see the potential for constriction that the Israeli geopolitical system has upon the Palestinian economy, especially in light of today’s oil based markets. 

Picture: boy at checkpoint


And on a more personal level – the day to day ritual humiliation that everyone has to endure and even grow up with. – suspicion .

The West Bank entity is in fact a fallacy in terms of freedom of passage permitted to the Palestinians. All areas in between Palestinian cities, towns, even villages are under Israeli control, effectively carving up the west bank and leaving communities totally isolated into what have become open air concentration camps. 

And this is no exaggeration.

The wall.

When you stand next to this austere, malignant artefact, something of the Palestinians’ oppression hits home. It really is like something straight out of science fiction: the cold grey wall and its intermittent overtly oppressive turrets, black tinted windows obscuring Big Brother’s omnipresent gaze, would lend themselves realistically to a film set for George Orwell’s “1984”. 

The wall is responsible for Israel’s largest land grab since 1967, is taller than the Berlin wall, and is expected to snake through the west bank at a length of approx. 650 km upon continuation. Although deceptively referred to as a security barrier between Israel and Palestine, the wall runs from 6 to 16 km within the West Bank – within the green line - its extremely tortuous path unashamedly expropriating Palestinian land, sometimes all but encircling and separating neighbouring communities, stripping many of age old farmland. 

Map Qalquilya region

This map shows the route of the wall in the Qalqiliya area of the west bank. 

Israel and the West bank separated by the 1949 Armisitce line – bold black. 

We can see the wall’s highly convoluted path; where some Palestinian communities have become totally cut off; where Israeli settlement clusters take up vast areas of land and by being walled in effectively act as military installations penetrating deep into the west bank – the creation of fenced in highways connecting these settlements to each other as well Israeli cities further adds to the carving up of the west bank. Professor Jeff Halper describes the west bank as an archipelago of some 190 bantustan-type islands encircled by the Israeli “matrix”. – Bantustan in reference to the partially autonomous S. African communities that existed before the cessation of the apartheid system.

What land is taken effectively becomes part of the state of Israel. This aggressive policy of land expropriation of course forces the Palestinians into smaller land areas with less farmland, therefore further increasing the dependence of Palestine upon the Israeli economy for food.

Settlements

It really is quite disconcerting to see the number of settlements popping up all over the west bank. Ariel Sharon’s emphatic invitation to settlers to take the hill tops has evidently been met with much fervour. The hill tops either side of the valley road that runs the short distance between Bethlehem and Ramallah are inundated with the tell-tale signs of newly established settlements - static caravans and temporary building-site cabins. These are the domain of the hard-core.

While the typically white washed, holiday resort-like, modern settlements offer all the trimmings of any western city, the more zealot Zionists don’t wait for luxury apartments: they are at the forefront of the Israeli push into the west bank, and are generally the most right-wing, militant of the settlers – these are type you see walking down highways, from or to settlements in the middle of nowhere, or waiting at bus stops with M16 semi automatic rifles slung over their shoulders.

These hard-core settlers hitch-up huge caravans on the backs of 4X4’s and drag them up dirt tracks to commanding hill tops on Israeli controlled land where, with the backing of the Israeli establishment, as well as the laws of gravity, they tend to spread at an alarming rate. 

Building is of course actively encouraged by the Israeli authorities. So, in a few years, wealthy investors in tow, building contractors move in and, the result…. 

Har Homa as seen from Bethlehem

An illegal Israeli settlement built on occupied Palestinian land in the Bethlehem district, as seen from nearby Church of the Nativity. Har Homar settlement is an oppressive, overbearing example of Sharon’s “take the hill tops” settlement ethic. Conveniently built over the all important aquifer rock that sustains the surrounding area, water beneath Har Homa is now fully under Israeli control and unashamedly sold back to the Palestinians who are allotted just 11% of water pumped from wells in the rock.

As with the majority of western society, Israeli adherence to consumerism and the usual blatant myopia as regards sustainability is a serious threat to regional survival.

As our guide quoted somebody – I can’t remember who, “This is all Moses fault. When he came out of the desert he landed in a place with no water and no oil”.

Water use in settlements can be compared to that of any temperate developed area that of course have substantially longer wet seasons. Settlement sprinkler systems keep lush verges and flower beds well watered, flamboyant water features adorn roundabouts, and swimming pools as well as golf courses are common as in any affluent society. 

Picture – settlement surrounded by dry desert.


So, the types of people that live in these settlements… Well, I’ve already mentioned the hard-core armed pioneers…sadly you get these in urban city areas as well, especially East Jerusalem and Hebron. In Palestinian areas of cities, these hard-liners, will brake into houses, barricade themselves in, barbed wire across windows, round the rooves, cctv cameras everywhere, stick a Shield of David flag out the window, and hold out. Some even seem to get military assistance, with armed guards in barricaded huts on roof tops.


Picture – settler behind cctv – east Jerusalem

Some of these settlers are not in fact permanent inhabitants of the west bank but may share newly expropriated houses with other like minded folk, forming co-ops whereby the occupied properties are upheld whilst others are free to go back to their city jobs. 

The majority of west bank settlers are, however, far from hard line right wingers. As settlements grow governments provide housing subsidies that are all but irresistible to first time buyers. Up to 80% of residents in the larger settlement areas are secular. Currently there are an estimated 430,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank. That is 200,000 in East Jerusalem and 230,000 in other West Bank areas.

Picture of West Bank Settler, Ardi – Efrat


Ardi – from Efrat we met on day three of our expedition. He was good enough to come and receive a grilling from a bus load of by now pro-palestinians. A father of 6, who left Chicago 24 years ago and migrated to Israel. He opened our meeting by reading what he informed us was a quote from the official Hamas web site – an Arabic – Hebrew translation obtained from an Israeli web site. 

“We will not stop until we have drunk the blood of the last of the Jews”

A shocking quote yes, but one whose validity he would not deem to consider. – one interesting fact we learnt from our guide is that the Israeli media is owned by just 2 families so it is easy to appreciate the power of propaganda especially in a situation such as this where emotions run high and instabilities all too easily escalate into full blown violence. 

Although Efrat is behind the green line, deep into the west bank, he believed that Efrat belonged to the land of Israel as did the whole of the west bank – a claim he backed up with the bible – that god gave this land to the Jews and that the state of Israel and the promised land were in fact one and the same thing – on top of this snubbishly insisting that King Hussein of Jordan has secretly given permission for Israel to take the entire West Bank.

However, speculation as to the rights for these lands could not change the fact that he denied many things that you cannot fail to see even in a brief visit to the west bank. 
He denied houses had been destroyed during the erection of the separation barrier. He denied the Israeli regime inflicted poverty upon the Palestinians, as well as even going as far to praise all the good that Israel did for Palestine even after Arabs continue to build on Israeli soil.

Considering that this settlers political persuasions were, in his own words, moderate centre-right, it is worrying to even contemplate the views of radical settlers. 

Picture of Ahmed: Wadi Faquine


And the people that lose out to this continual surge, political and popular, to dominate the west bank.
Ahmed, 3 from Wadi Faquine village nr Bethlehem. One image that will always stay with me is the mother of Ahmed rushing inside her small home and returning with a loaf of bread that we broke and shared amongst ourselves, while behind us on the hill tops above this small farming community the ominous drone of bulldozers and dumper trucks levelling land for a new development – an extension of the Betar Illit settlement - was hard to ignore. Building waste and displaced earth are maliciously bulldozed down the hill at the foot of which olive groves are being steadily covered and suffocated. The land surrounding this new development site is a mess. The very land that the farming custodians of wadi faquine have passed from generation to generation has been taken from them and treated with utter disrespect under their noses. Villagers here also told us of raw sewage released down the hill sides, contaminating farmland, and crops, Israeli incursions into their village to demolish family homes built without impossible to obtain permits – on their own lands – their youths protesting at the creation of isolating roadblocks at the extremities of the village shot at by soldiers. All this and we still question what it is that creates the anger to spark fanaticism.

Conclusion.

The problem with the Israel – Palestine conflict, in terms of it being resolved is the labelling of any backing of the Palestinian peace movement as the new anti-Semitism. We must always remember the horrific experiences of Jews in Europe, culminating just over 60 years ago. Israel is still in a state of post traumatic stress and needs to achieve a reputable identity with the help of other nations. It is very important that we see the conflict as a result of our western economy not solely as the Israeli – Palestine conflict – after all if the UN really cared would it not step into a more dominant role in the west bank?

by Nickmcrofton: 15th April 2006