WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
Posted on 05/23/2005 4:46:42 PM PDT by Alouette
Speakers at a Hebrew University symposium on the separation barrier warned on Monday that the wall currently under construction in Jerusalem could undermine all hopes of peace and trigger a new war.
The symposium was sponsored by the Middle East Unit of the Truman Institute.
Rami Nassrallah, a member of the International Peace Cooperation Center, charged that the current route of the separation wall in Jerusalem is only the first stage in an alleged plan to split the Palestinian population in the area and create a "Jewish Jerusalem" rather than a "united Jerusalem."
Nassrallah warned that in the future Israel might build a fence which would only annex the Old City and the nearby Palestinian neighborhoods such as Sheikh Jarrah and the east Jerusalem commercial district.
"The government will tolerate a maximum of 100,000 Palestinians in [Israeli] Jerusalem," Nassrallah predicted. "Israelis will fall in love with this kind of separation, but it will mean the end of [any chance of] peace."
Kobi Michael, a researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, said the institute had suggested several possible scenarios with regard to the consequences of the construction of the wall. "I call one of them the Fence War," he warned. "We could face war around and because of the fence."
Jerusalem attorney Danny Seidemann, head of the left-wing Ir Amim organization, said there was no way to divide a city of Jerusalem's size in a "good" way.
He said the current wall, with a few exceptions, was planned to follow the boundaries of Jerusalem that were established after the Six Day War, when large rural areas near Jerusalem in the West Bank were annexed to the city. But those borders were a fiction, he continued. There was no logic to them and they arbitrarily cut through villages and neighborhoods, officially separating some Palestinians from others. Now, he added, "Israel is turning the fiction of Jerusalem's borders into concrete."
Seidemann said some Israeli leaders tried to persuade the government to divide Jerusalem along demographic lines, but it rejected the idea. A total of 60,000 Palestinians who live within the Jerusalem city limits according to the official boundaries will end up on the West Bank side of the wall according to the current route.
Seidemann said he represented some of the Palestinians who have been shut out of the city and are fighting in court to get back in. It was not because they wanted to be part of Israel but because they were afraid they would become impoverished, as so many West Bank Palestinians are, if they were cut off from the city.
Seidemann rejected the government's claim that the separation barrier was a temporary measure and could be torn down as soon as Israel and the Palestinians agreed on their mutual borders. According to the construction plans for the E1 scheme in the area between Ma'aleh Adumim and Jerusalem, Israel intends to build massive housing along the route of the fence. The housing, he said, would be the real fence and it would be permanent.
Seidemann warned that the consequences of the fence could be disastrous for Israel. It could radicalize the Jerusalem Palestinian population, which has so far been relatively quiet; it could arouse international censure because of the humanitarian problems it causes the Palestinian population; and it could threaten the chances of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
Good Walls make Good Neighbors.
Nobody is thrilled with this wall, but Israel isn't hellbent on suicide, and dealing with Palestinians who think killing Jews is an Allah-given right makes the wall necessary. It walls off Palestinians into a 'naughty corner'.
Tell rami to ram it..
You got that right.
Tear down the fence; kick out the Arabs.
As thought Israel hasn't been at war.
Here are some things I taunt Leftists with in public (up close and personal)...
Israeli tanks and bulldozers are the armor of God.
Jesus drives a Hummer with the Star of David on it.
Want peace in the Middle East? Nuke Mecca.
Stop praying to a rock.
I've got a bunch more, but I think you may get the idea of where I am coning from...
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