The fence will never be a border

[Violet_Crumble]

By Baruch Kimmerling

Ever since 1967, Israel has existed in an anomalous situation - as a state without borders. Although the boundary lines that were established as a result of the 1949 truce agreements in Rhodes (the Green Line) were not considered as borders de jure in the accepted sense, de facto both Israel and the majority of the non-Arab countries related to them as borders in every respect. After the Six-Day War, this situation did not change.

"Border" is a limiting concept: It says "this far and no further;" from here on there is no passage except in restrictive circumstances, if at all. The unauthorized crossing of a border is a violation, and sometimes a real crime, both in the realm of the individual and in the realm of the national collective. A frontier is the opposite of a border. This is an open expanse, seemingly infinite. Its political, social and economic contents are taken from the American myth, the West, which was perceived as a huge reservoir of free, ownerless land that of which it was possible to take possession.

After 1967, and especially after the Yom Kippur War, most of the occupied territories became a settlement frontier, Israel's Wild West. The assumption was that this situation was an outcome of the Jewish-Arab conflict and that the permanent borders of the state would be drawn up in the framework of peace agreements, as indeed has happened as a result of peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, but also with the final withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

A similar view should be taken of the disengagement from the Gaza Strip and the construction of the fence as the start of an attempt by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to determine unilaterally a permanent border between Israel and the Palestinians. This assumption has been reinforced by recent statements by Shimon Peres to the effect that a kind of understanding had emerged between him and Sharon, and even more so between him and Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, that an attempt would be made to arrive at permanent borders during the coming term.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/673436.html

[occuserpens]

1. Most importantly,

According to the Report for 2005 issued by B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, the total length of the fence's route, according to the government's decision, is supposed to be 670 kilometers. As of the end of 2005, the construction of 35 percent of the route has been completed. Twenty-five percent is still under construction, 20 percent has been approved although the construction has not yet begun and 20 percent has not been finally authorized. The route of the fence - which runs inside the West Bank, joins about 10 percent of its territory to Israel, seriously interferes with lives of nearly half a million Palestinians and cuts up the West Bank into at least three enclaves - will never be a recognized border but will only exacerbate and prolong the conflict between us and the Palestinians.

[Tom Joad]

2. "seriously interferes with lives of nearly half a million Palestinians"

will bring peace and security?

[Violet_Crumble]

3. Seriously interferes? Change that to 'termporary inconvenience'...

That's what I've been told many times that the effect of that thing on the lives of Palestinians is. Now if they were Israelis, that'd be a whole different ballgame! ;)

Violet...