The Wall is a Fence
The pro-Israel lobby likes to refer to the vast concrete and wire wall being built illegally in the West Bank as a fence. This is because of the 205 kilometres that had been built by January 2005, only 24 kilometres took the form of a wall, and the other 181 kilometres were a fenced complex.
But it is important to stress the word complex, because the word fence in itself implies that it can be scaled easily. This is not the case. There are physical obstacles in front of it, including sensors to alert the military, accompanied by signs in Arabic, English and Hebrew warning of “Mortal Danger – Military Zone”. According to these signs, any person who passes or damages it “endangers his life.”
In reality, the structure consists of eight-metre-high concrete blocks with watchtowers in parts of densely populated Palestinian areas such as Bethlehem, East Jerusalem, Qalqilya, Ramallah and Tulkarem. In other words, where the structure passes by Palestinian population centres or abuts Israel, it takes the form of a giant concrete wall.
Where the structure goes through sparsely populated parts of the West Bank (i.e. where there are fewer Palestinian inhabitants), it takes the form of a fenced complex with electronic sensors and surveillance cameras surrounded by rolls of barbed wire, accompanied by ditches, an earth-covered tracer road (so footprints can be seen), patrol roads and “closed military zones” approximately 40-100 metres wide.
According to the head of the Economic Affairs Unit of Israel’s Knesset (Parliament), the structure is estimated to be costing the state $3.4 billion ($3,400 million). The total length of the barrier is projected to be approximately 670 kilometres. It has taken Israel nearly three years to build a quarter of the structure (approximately 209 kilometres had been built by February 2005).
Because of its meandering path into the West Bank, the barrier’s length is approximately twice that of the 1949 West Bank Armistice Line adjacent to Israel, known as the Green Line. Its length is 315 kilometres.
There is no freedom of movement in the West Bank, where there are already more than 700 obstacles separating Palestinian cities, towns and villages. Palestinians have to apply for permits to travel within the West Bank, to Israel, to the Gaza Strip, and abroad. The decision to grant Palestinians a permit is left to the discretion of the Israeli military authorities. Palestinians have to travel to Beit El if they live in the north of the West Bank, and to Gush Etzion if they live in the south of the West Bank, to apply for a permit.
In his report to the UN Commission on Human Rights on 8 September 2003, UN Special Rapporteur John Dugard noted:
“Language is a powerful instrument. This explains why words that accurately describe a particular situation are often avoided out of fear that they will too vividly portray the situation which they seek to depict. In politics euphemism is often preferred to accuracy in language.”
Whatever the actual structure is called, it is designed to be impenetrable. It has the effect of a wall. Calling the structure a fence when it is in parts a wall is misleading and factually incorrect. As the International Court of Justice notes in paragraph 67 of its advisory opinion:
“…the ‘wall’ in question is a complex construction, so that that term cannot be understood in a limited physical sense. However, the other terms used, either by Israel (‘fence’) or by the Secretary‑General (‘barrier’), are no more accurate if understood in the physical sense. In this Opinion, the Court has therefore chosen to use the terminology employed by the General Assembly [which refers to the structure as a wall].”
Arab Media Watch urges journalists to adopt the terminology used by the ICJ, the world’s highest judicial authority, and the UN General Assembly, which represents the international community. There is no need to use language that minimises the level of suffering the structure is causing to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
For further reading:
See the report by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, February 2005.
See the report of the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights, John Dugard, on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, submitted in accordance with Commission resolution 1993/2 A. UN Doc. E/CN.4/2004/6, 8 September 2003.