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Haaretz, 18.2.2004
The fence: A path to voluntary transfer
Amnon Barzilai
Shaul Arieli, the last Gaza Brigade commander, says the present fence
will exacerbate terrorism.
Colonel (res.) Shaul Arieli has spent recent months traveling Israel
and the world with his laptop, trying to persuade people with a PowerPoint
presentation he crafted that in its present incarnation, the separation
fence can't work.
Last week, he was called in for a closed session with senior officials
of the National Security Council, chaired by Major General (res.) Giora
Eiland. Some close associates of prime minister Ariel Sharon have also
been listening to what he has to say. He tells all the same - the zigzag
route of the fence drawn up by Sharon and the heads of the security
establishment will create enclaves within the Palestinian zone, cutting
off villages from the large Palestinian cities.
This will not only fail to prevent terror, it will propagate terror,
particularly in the close environs of the separation fence. Aside from
that, he makes it clear that there is no chance of the world accepting the
route of the fence in its current version.
The planned route of the fence, part of which is already standing, was fed
by Arieli into a computer, in accordance with updated data furnished by
the defense establishment's Seam Line Authority.
The PowerPoint presentation shows, by maps and aerial photos that cover
the entire West Bank, the alarming truth about the fence. When completed,
some 300,000 Palestinians will be imprisoned between it and the Green
Line, cut off from the large urban centers. Another 300,000 Palestinians
will be adversely affected by being cut off from their fields or wells.
In the Jerusalem area, the fence will separate 270,000 Palestinians, who
would live on the west side of the fence within the metropolitan area of
Jerusalem, away from the rest of the Arab population in the West Bank.
The West Bank is 5,878 square kilometers in area. According to Arieli's
calculations, once the western route of the fence is erected,
approximately 900 sq. km. would be annexed to Israel.
But that is not all - Arieli says, on the basis of maps prepared by Sharon
in 1995, that the prime minister intends to expropriate another 1,543
sq.km. of Palestinian Authority territory in the Jordan Rift, and transfer
them to Israeli control, which would leave the Palestinians with only 57
percent of the West Bank. "Although this is only an estimate,"
he says, "I happen to know the people drawing the maps."
Two large Palestinian enclaves (there are others) would be created by the
two deep-territory barriers that would protect Ben-Gurion Airport and the
Modiin-Jerusalem highway. "Until now, I didn't understand the
connection between the fence and Ben-Gurion Airport," says Arieli.
"For someone who can smuggle in the explosive materials and is really
interested in carrying out an attack, the fence will not present a problem.
The problem is Ben-Gurion's eastern runway. If it's a question of Strella
or Stinger missiles, then the IDF can place observation posts in the area.
There are points from which you can control the territory. To control the
whole area, you can put up a small tactical blimp with cameras and
communication systems, and another two or three rapid interception forces.
End of story."
"Incidentally, I don't believe the Palestinians will be in any hurry
to shoot down with shoulder-fired missiles any passenger planes that have
non-Israeli civilians on board. But what is true is that anything can
happen."
Horrid, stifling jail
"If you take a good look at the map," says Arieli, explaining
what he believes are the real motives behind the fence route, "you'll
see that there are also two settlements, Naaleh and Nili, within this
enclave in the Budrus area. It's all intended to ensure that both of them
will be west of the fence. The enclave in this area captured no less than
nine Palestinian villages in the area between the deep-territory barrier
and the separation fence that runs along the Green Line.
"The objective is for them to not have access to the State of Israel,
for demographic reasons. Conversely, the Palestinian authorities will have
a hard time supplying the residents of this area with health, education
and legal services, not to mention jobs.
"The village residents will not be able to continue living under
these sorts of conditions. They will abandon their homes and go to the big
cities, at which point it will be possible to expand the borders of the
State of Israel without paying the demographic price. It would be
voluntary transfer."
Who said anything about transfer?
"Of course, no one has issued any declaration about it. I say that
the rationale is to create the conditions for voluntary transfer. It's a
question of how you look at things."
Do you believe Palestinians would leave their villages?
"It's impossible to know. There has never been such a horrid,
stifling jail as this. A terrible cry will arise here. I don't believe
that Israel would hold up against it.
How would we connect the settlement of Ariel to the territory of Israel?
"You have to secure Ariel and the bloc of Israeli settlements in the
area in a separate manner. And the Trans-Samaria highway has to be secured
with the means available to us. But we will have to settle the future of
the Ariel bloc through a permanent settlement. Nothing else will work.
Ariel does not meet the criterion of `border adjustments'. The
international community won't accept it."
Arieli, 44, served in the Paratroops brigade and rose up the command
ladder from private to deputy commander of the brigade. In 1993 he was
promoted to the rank of colonel and was appointed commander of the Gaza
regional brigade.
On May 18, 1994, he completed the evacuation of Gaza. Along with a group
of officers and soldiers, he waited at the brigade HQ on Sallah e-Din
Street for the head of the Palestinian security apparatus, Ziad al-Atash.
In the meantime, over 100,000 Palestinians were climbing over the HQ gates.
Thousands of rocks were thrown at them by the mob as they withdrew from
the HQ. Members of the Palestinian security apparatus fired in the air to
deter the mob from attacking the Israelis. As he left, Arieli - Israel's
last brigade commander in Gaza - uttered this line that made the next
day's headlines: "We left them the Strip, for peace."
He acquired his understanding of the Palestinian problems, and primarily
the complex issue of borders in his next military posting, as head of the
interim authority known as "Spectrum of Colors 2." Afterward, he
served as the deputy military secretary to the defense minister. On Ehud
Barak's election as prime minister, the diplomatic contacts with the
Palestinians experienced a resurgence.
Arieli set up the Peace Authority in the Prime Minister's Office, which
was meant to be responsible for the integration between Cabinet ministries
and the security forces on all issues related to negotiations with the
Palestinians. As head of the authority, he accompanied Barak to Camp David
and at the Taba Talks. In late 2001, about one year after Sharon's
election as prime minister, the authority was left without anything to do.
Arieli drew the conclusions and decided that it was time to leave the army.
Shortly afterward, he met an old acquaintance from the peace process days,
Dr. Yossi Beilin, who spoke with him about the need to push ahead a
process that ended in Taba. "We began to start it with the
Palestinians," Arieli relates, with me focusing on the territorial
realm." Together they forged the Geneva accords. Arieli is now
considered Beilin's right hand man on the diplomatic front. He is also a
member of the steering committee of the Geneva accords, which convenes
every two weeks.
No left, no right
Nevertheless, Arieli claims to be non-partisan. "I rule out the
division between left and right in the context of a resolution of the
conflict. I believe in possible solutions. I work with people, some of
whom are identified with the left, some of whom are non-partisan. I am
still in close contact with people who are considered to be right wing. I
am considered a focus of know-how, and I meet with all of the
institutional players that ask me to meet with them."
Arieli stresses that he supports the construction of a separation fence,
but on condition that the route will follow the Green Line. "The
fence provides a partial security response to the terror threats and a
good response to prevention of illegal immigration and prevention of
criminal acts," he explains, "but on the other hand, in its
current format it creates the future terror infrastructure because this
terror infrastructure is precisely those people living in enclaves who
will support acts of terror as the only possible tool that they perceive
as being able to restore them the land, production sources and water wells
taken from them."
Why can't we implement a one-sided separation such as what was done on the
Israel-Lebanon border?
"Someone thinks that determining the route of the fence unilaterally
will gain legitimization out of an assumption that there is no partner on
the other side. And I say to that someone."
Who is that someone?
"Sharon. Israel's legitimization ended in 1967 with Security Council
Resolution 242. The great accomplishment of the Six Day War was getting
Resolution 242, which granted the State of Israel legitimization for its
accomplishments in the War of Independence, which were signed in the
cease-fire agreements in Rhodes. We did not understand that the
significance of Resolution 242 of the Security Council was partition of
the country. Seventy-seven percent of the territory between the
Mediterranean and the Jordan, which is approximately 20,000 sq. km., are
ours, and 23 percent of the territories is the Palestinians."
The legitimization ended Resolution 242?
"Because after the Yom Kippur War, the Security Council passed
resolution 338, which again brought us back to resolution 242. They
weren't giving Israel any prize, even though we were attacked by Egypt and
Syria."
Maybe the decision to evacuate the settlements in the Gaza Strip will
grant renewed legitimacy to Israel?
"What bothers me is that with the idea of evacuating settlements in
Gaza and the idea of disengagement from the West Bank, Sharon succeeded in
diverting attention from the main alternative, which is a permanent
settlement. Therefore, the argument today is over the route of the fence
and not over the question of whether to head toward a permanent settlement.
And I ask: If under fire of terrorism you can evacuate 17 settlements,
then under the fire of terrorism you can't start talking with the
Palestinians? Which is more severe?"
And what's the explanation?
"Sharon has an interest in reinforcing the claim that there is no
partner, and then taking one-sided steps in places that are not really
important for the State of Israel."
What is your opinion of the evacuation of the Gaza Strip?
"Israel now controls one-sixth of the Gaza Strip. Forty-four thousand
dunams (11,000 acres) for settlement and 20,000 dunam for roads and
military facilities. You can relate to the evacuation of Gaza as a
preparatory event for the actual realization of the road map and for
reaching a permanent settlement.
"The settlements that we will evacuate I would hand over to the
Palestinian Authority in order to start the rehabilitation of the refugee
camps here, and not leave them to be taken over by Hamas. Because
otherwise, the outcome of the evacuation will be encouragement of the
terror organizations and harm to the more moderate streams in Palestinian
society."
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