Jamal Juma', Drew Penland (ISM) - Confronting the Apartheid Wall (2003)

Speaker 1: Israel is building what many Palestinians and people throughout the world are calling the Apartheid Wall. It has been dubbed a security perimeter between Israel and the West Bank. However, in reality, it will effectively annex 10% of the West Bank Palestinian lands and completely displace thousands of Palestinians from their home. The Apartheid Wall... which is now being built at lightning pace in occupied Palestine, can easily be seen for what it is. Clearly, the apartheid wall is an illegal attempt to steal Palestinian land by force. The International Solidarity Movement is a network of people throughout the world who are active on the ground in the occupied territories, opposing the ongoing Israeli occupation. and the countless Israeli human rights abuses to Palestinians. The International Solidarity Movement engages in non-violent direct action against the Israeli occupation. The ISM is on the ground, actively opposing the construction of the apartheid wall. In Tekarim, the apartheid wall will completely encircle the city, and make the population of the city pass through a gate and security check in the wall every time they travel. The residents of Tikaram are effectively becoming prisoners of the Israeli occupation, subject to the apartheid wall, the reality beginning and ending with the Israeli security wall which will surround their entire community. I spoke with Jamal Juma, the coordinator of the Palestinian Environmental NGO Network, and Drew Penland from Vancouver, who is on the ground with the International Solidarity Movement, taking action against the apartheid wall. Can we start with you, Jamal? Can you speak about the security perimeter, as it's called by the Israeli society, or the apartheid wall, as it's named by Palestinians? What does this mean concretely?

Jamal Juma: You know, the security name for this kind of wall is something like away from the facts. This wall started to be built six months ago along the borders, in some areas six kilometers deep into the West Bank. It is built on the properties of the Palestinians, demolishing for this purpose. wells, water wells, uprooting trees. 80,000 trees until now have been uprooted for this purpose. 15 villages stuck between the wall and the Green Line. The Green Line is the 1967 border. And if this is for security, why to build it on the property of the people living to the West Bank? Why you don't build it on the Green Line? As the farmers told the soldiers when they came to uproot and to build this wall on their lands. If you want it for security, really, and this is interesting for you, which we doubt that any world can do any security for the people. Just a peace process built on justice that can make peace and security for the people. So do it on the Green Line. We will help you in this. But this is... Look into the world, how it is built and how it is... You know that it's not anything for security. It's just... annexing land, controlling the water resources in that area because it's located on the biggest basin underground water there. It's annexing the settlements that Sharon himself started to build in 1978. So in the first phase, it's annexing 10 settlements from north of Jenin until Qalqilya. If this wall is built, it's going to be confiscated 10% of the West Bank. This 10 percent is almost a double-sized gas strip. This is not just that. It's also like maker facilities for connecting the settlements that have been built in the center of the West Bank. So this is the whole colonial projects that they were building to keep, to control, to make full control on the West Bank, not allowing the Palestinian state. I'm sorry to say this is going to reinforce the occupation. This is going to make the conflict much more worse than before. So it is a call from me now. The world should stand strongly to stop this disaster that's going on there. If this is going to be built and we finish it, they will come at the end of the year 2003 to the whole world with the new de facto on the land. This will be considered as borders, whether we like it or don't like it. And the world, as Israel used to do all the time, will put the world in front of a de facto that they have to deal with.

Speaker 1: Drew, you're on the ground with the International Solidarity Movement, Palestinian-led movement of nonviolent resistance. You're originally from Vancouver. Can you speak about some of the actions that the International Solidarity Movement are planning or have taken against the apartheid wall?

Drew Penland: In the past six months, we've held a number of demonstrations in small communities, some of the really affected communities around the West Bank. We have also, in those demonstrations, blocked the actual work, of course, in a nonviolent manner. Now that the wall is being built with lightning speed 24 hours a day, Jamal could tell you how many companies are being contracted, but this is a huge endeavor. Um, So now the wall, essentially the swath of land, which ranges between 30 and 100 meters wide, is essentially in place in most places. So now what we're focusing on in this area is dealing with the reality of the wall. Farmers are being restricted already. The soldiers are saying that farmers are being restricted from going across the wall to the other side, to this sort of canton area between... between the Green Line and the wall. And soldiers that are working on site and private security are already saying, this is part of Israel. This is part of Israel. So, I mean, there's a real sense that once the wall is built, that de facto this will be an annexation.

Speaker 1: Maybe, Jamal, can you speak about the ongoing Israeli occupation and how that relates to the construction of this wall, the ongoing movement of Israeli troops, Israeli defensive forces, as they are called, or Israeli offensive forces, as they seem to be in reality, and how a lot of these actions that are taking place, the displacement of communities, the uprooting of olive trees, are moved forward by these security or military forces?

Jamal Juma: I want just to give you some examples and the numbers that we lately did through conducting a study for the areas that are located behind the wall to see what kind of disaster they are running there. We have there 3,183 families that have been stuck in between the green line and the wall, and they don't have any access. to the services, to the hospitals, to the universities. They're totally disconnected from their families on the other side, on the West Bank, or they even can't go to the market in Israel also. So these people, these people are threatened. Definitely they are threatened to be displaced from there. We are talking about... 6,500 job opportunities that this land that had been already now located or isolated behind the wall that provided for the people. 55,000 people were depending on this for their life. So these people who, you are talking about 15 villages until now in the first phase, stuck between the wall and the green line. So definitely their future there is threatened. When you cut the people from their markets, from their income resources, you uproot their trees, you control their water resources. From where they can live, how they can continue their life, how they can go to hospitals, how they can send their kids to schools or even their sons to the university. So it is a plan that these people will find themselves forced to leave from there. And they are already started to consider that areas located behind the wall is security zone areas. Nobody is allowed to be there without special permissions from the Israelis. So it is a plan to displace these people from there. This has happened in the 21st century. Walls have been finished from the wall in the last century.

Speaker 1: Maybe, Drew, can you speak about the importance of having internationals on the ground in the occupied territories to oppose these projects or these massive displacement efforts of the Israeli forces, but also the importance of people to take action on these realities throughout the world?

Drew Penland: Well, firstly, speaking about having people here, it's so essential. The communities are valiantly resisting in a nonviolent way, you know, in these outlying communities, the wall and this new grim reality that's being imposed upon them. But in fact, when the community goes to demonstrate, when they challenge the illegality of the wall itself, There are reprisals. I know on my first day, I arrived two youths. This is the day after a big demonstration in one village called Jayus. The day after, two youths had just been taken and roughed up by security guards as reprisal in that same community. There have been lots of soldiers coming in at night and arresting people, arresting a man, and they'll come and they'll arrest his wife and put pressure on the man. And, I mean, you put two and two together and you know that in the communities where the resistance is strong, the reprisals are also heavy, the punishment, the punitive measures for all the community. And so having internationals here, we can really... uh... draw attention to what it what is going on support the palestinians in this non-violent resistance also send the information back to our home countries and facilitate the media to come here as well. So that's the role here. In terms of internationally, people can support ISM through local chapters. I know there's a really great chapter in Vancouver. You can tell me about the situation in Montreal. I believe there is a chapter there as well. And we are, you know, globally, as an organization, we are spreading out and there's chapters forming all over the world, at least in Europe, North America, and Japan. There are Palestinian solidarity organizations all over the world. And at this critical time, especially as we approach the American war on Iraq, the Palestinians need all the support that anyone can give. And the people that are supporting them, whether they're courageous people in the media going into the territories to find out the reality or international volunteers who are here or others, they really need support. And I mean, the Palestinians... need all the support we can give them. We really need to be supporting them as much as possible at this critical juncture.

Speaker 1: You have been listening to an interview with Jamal Juma, the coordinator of the Palestinian Environmental NGO Network, and Drew Penland, who is on the ground with the International Solidarity Movement, actively opposing the apartheid wall. The apartheid wall, which is being dubbed a security perimeter by Israel, means the destruction of countless Palestinian towns and cities, as much of the land on which the wall is being built is home to Palestinian communities. and in reality, the apartheid wall will effectively annex 10% of the West Bank Palestinian lands. To get more information on the International Solidarity Movement and their non-violent direct action campaigns against the Israeli occupation, visit www.palsolidarity.org. To get updates and information about the ongoing Israeli occupation and the Palestinian resistance, visit www.palestine.indymedia.org and www.electronicintifada.net.