http://nytimes.com/2001/09/02/opinion/02HASS.html
Separate and Unequal on the West Bank
By Amira Hass,
September 2, 2001
RAMALLAH, West Bank- From my living room window in Ramallah, a Palestinian
city, I see the lights of the Israeli settlement Pesagot on the opposite
mountain. Across the eastern road of my neighborhood, there is an Israeli
military base, protecting another settlement, Beit El. Had I wanted, as an
Israeli Jew, born in West Jerusalem, I could have moved at any moment to any of
these settlements. My Palestinian next-door neighbors in Ramallah, whose
grandparents were born in what is now Israel, could not even think of moving
to, say, Tel Aviv.
There is no way to understand the current Palestinian uprising without
examining the moral, economic and social reality that Israeli settlement policy
has created in the last 34 years.
Since the 1967 war, Israeli governments - both Labor and Likud - have built
settlements all over the occupied West Bank and the small Gaza Strip, in the
midst of Arab-Palestinian communities that are centuries old. About 390,000
settlers now live in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and in Gaza. The
construction and development of these outposts have essentially allowed Israel
to create the infrastructure of one state, stretching from the Mediterranean to
the Jordan River. Israel's governments have determined the overall character of
these lands and the fate of their people while the three million Palestinians
who live there and have paid taxes to Israel's Treasury could not vote for
these governments. Yet Israeli Jews in the settlements have the right to vote.
A network of large, well-maintained roads now connects Israeli outposts - even
the smallest and most remote ones - to Israel proper. While Israelis can at any
time move to the West Bank or Gaza, Palestinians are not allowed to live
legally in an Israeli city or settlement, even if this settlement is built upon
their family land.
From the river to the sea, within the contours of what is now de facto one
state governed by Israel, live some 4 million Palestinians. These people are
classified in three different categories: One million of them are Israeli
citizens, who live within Israel's 1967 borders and who have the right to vote.
Some 200,000 Palestinians are residents of East Jerusalem, which was annexed to
Israel's West Jerusalem in 1967. They could become Israeli citizens, but most
have refused, claiming that they live in an occupied territory and they are a
population discriminated against by foreign rule.
Finally, there are the 2.8 million Palestinians who live in the territories
that Israel took over in 1967 and to which Israel has allocated very low sums,
if any, for public infrastructure improvements.
The result: Alongside the flourishing, green and ever-expanding Israeli- Jewish
outposts - well maintained by Israeli policies and laws - is a Palestinian
society subject to the rule of military orders and restrictions, its dense
communities (including those in East Jerusalem) squeezed into small areas,
served by miserably maintained roads and an insufficient water supply system.
With the Oslo accords and the establishment of self-rule under the Palestinian
Authority, one hoped these immense inequalities might be repaired or, at the
very least, that the conditions of the West Bank and Gaza would no longer be
determined exclusively by an occupying government. Yet during the last seven
years, Israel continued to determine major aspects of Palestinian life, like
access to land and water and freedom of movement. The Palestinian self-rule
enclaves are encircled by vast Israeli-controlled areas and cannot develop
without Israeli permits for activities like building water pipelines and new
schools, upgrading a road or building a gas station. To this day, the same
military organ - the civil administration, an agent of Israeli government
policies in the West Bank - prohibits Palestinian construction and planting and
at the same time continues to develop Israeli outposts in the very same
territory.
Access to water is a glaring example of inequality. Since 1967 Israel has
controlled water resources and distribution in the West Bank and Gaza. This has
resulted in a striking difference in per capita domestic consumption of water
by Israelis and Palestinians - an average of 280 liters per day versus 60 to 90
liters per day. No Israeli settler needs to worry about running out of water,
while thousands living in Palestinian towns and villages have no running water
for days at a stretch during summer. When there is no running water in our
building, I drive to Jerusalem to fill my water bottles and to do my laundry.
My neighbors would need a permit to enter Jerusalem.
Any Israeli may travel freely at any time - abroad and in the entire country.
Any Palestinian needs an Israeli- issued travel permit to move from Gaza to the
West Bank, or from these territories to Israel. Only a minority get such
permits. And Israel also determines who will pass through the external borders,
which it controls. My friends in Gaza missed a whole semester of studies at Bir
Zeit University near Ramallah because they did not receive travel permits on
time. No Israeli settler in Gaza would face this problem.
Israelis and Palestinians are in a single geographic state controlled by one
government, but they live under two separate and unequal systems of rights and
laws.
Palestinians wanted to believe that this unequal state of affairs would end or
diminish with the Oslo accords. Instead, the number of settlers in the West
Bank (not including East Jerusalem) has doubled in the past decade - the years
of the peace talks - and the slow pace of Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank
(and the total halt during the years of the Barak government) has left
Palestinians trapped in small, scattered enclaves, making urban and rural
development in Palestinian areas nearly impossible.
The offer made by Ehud Barak at Camp David kept intact the largest Israeli
settlements and their connecting roads. That offer would have split Palestinian
territory into four cantons. My acquaintances in a nearby refugee camp, just
opposite the Beit El settlement, sensed that there would be no real end to
Israeli domination over their lives and future.
Anger has accumulated in every Palestinian heart - over the scarce water, over
each demolished Palestinian house, over the daily humiliation of waiting for a
travel permit from an Israeli officer. A small match can cause this anger to
explode, and in this past year, it has.
Amira Hass, the correspondent for Haaretz in the Palestinian territories, is
author of ``Drinking the Sea at Gaza.''
