[R-G] Kibbutzniks offer land to Palestinians to protest Israel's 'Berlin Wall'

[ProletarianNews]

Independent. 13 October 2002. Kibbutzniks offer land to Palestinians in
a rare protest over Israel's 'Berlin Wall.'

WEST BANK -- Under the hot sun, a metal railing snakes its way
incongruously through the hills. On one side are olive groves. On the
other, huge banana plantations rear up. This is the Green Line, the 1967
border between Israel and the occupied West Bank -- and the setting for
a very unusual meeting between Palestinian farmers and Israelis from a
nearby kibbutz.

The Palestinians are not allowed to cross the railing into Israel, the
Israelis are not supposed to cross it into the West Bank, but they meet
here to talk together across the barrier. The olive groves belong to
Palestinians from the village of Kafin, the banana plantations to
Israelis from Kibbutz Metser. Although they have been neighbours for
half a century, few could remember ever meeting like this before.

The reason for this extraordinary gathering is that the Israeli
government is planning to build a wall to separate them completely. Not
a metal railing like the small section here, which was begun a few years
ago to stop cars crossing, but a full Berlin-style concrete wall that
will carve its way through the hills, complete with pillboxes and
Israeli snipers to shoot anyone who tries to cross it. The official
reason is to prevent Palestinian suicide bombers crossing into Israel.

The wall will not run along the path of the Green Line, however. Here it
will be some 400 to 800 yards east, cutting off the Palestinian farmers
completely from their land -- for most of them, their only source of income.

But the Israeli government has run up against an unexpected source of
opposition -- the people of Kibbutz Metser. There are few more potent
symbols of Israel than the kibbutzim, the communes of Jewish families
which encapsulated the spirit of the young country in its early days.

"We think if a wall has to be built here it should be built on the Green
Line," said Dov Avital, a leader from the kibbutz. Dressed in the
scruffy grey T-shirt and work trousers of a no-nonsense kibbutznik, he
stood side by side with the neatly groomed Palestinian Mayor of Kafin,
who was wearing a tie despite the intense heat.

"If land has to be destroyed, we offer our own land," Mr Avital went on.
"If a wide strip of land has to be uprooted, we say it should be shared
equally between both sides." In the distance the Israeli army had
already begun cutting down Palestinian olive trees to make way for the wall.

The facts are stark. The planned course of the wall will cut off 80 per
cent of the farming land from the village of Kafin. Most of the
village's 10,000 people will lose all their income. 

There are supposedly plans to issue permits for Palestinian farmers to
cross. But according to the Mayor of Kafin, the nearest gate in the wall
will involve a six-mile detour. And there are no guarantees they will
all get permits.

Kafin is not an isolated case. Throughout the West Bank, the wall will
be a disaster for Palestinians. 

Long sections of it will not follow the Green Line, but will cut swathes
out of Palestinian territory, permanently cutting off thousands of
farmers from their land. Some Palestinian villages will be stranded on
the Israeli side of the wall, but the villagers will not be allowed into
Israel proper.

"My father's land used to be over there, on the other side of the Green
Line," said Ibrahiam Suleiman, one of the Palestinian farmers. "Now they
are taking away what was left after 1948 [when the Palestinians were cut
off from their land in the new state of Israel]." He has six children to
support and no means of income other than his olive trees.

One of the Israelis from the kibbutz, Yohanan Margalit, was translating
for Mr Suleiman, who spoke no English. We asked the Palestinian farmer
what he would do. 

Mr Margalit, the translator, was visibly shocked at his answer. "He says
all that is left for him is to die," he translated. "If they take your
land from you, what else can you do?"

The Israeli shrugged. "I feel a little powerless to do anything about
this," he said. "You can speak to your government, but they don't listen."

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