“Facts on the Ground”
Western Coverage of the Wall & the Settlements

In recent weeks Sharon’s Israel has given the go ahead for over 600 hundred new settler homes and the latest stage of the West Bank wall. But no, I didn’t get these facts from a visit to the West Bank, but by sitting in my UK home and reading the British newspapers. Sure there have always been mainstream journalists who understand something of the wider picture in the Middle East, but Sharon is making it steadily easier for them to convey this picture to the British public.

While the image of bloodstained victims of the Haifa bombing are shown to the British reader/viewer, anyone who read the papers earlier would have known of the context in which a 29 year-old woman might choose to cause such death and carnage. Any reader with critical faculties might connect the fact that this young woman came from a bantustan enclosed by ever increasing settlements, surrounded by high walls and watchtowers with no hope of escape in the future.

Israel presents new stage of wall, gives go-ahead to 600 new settler homes

While settlements have doubled throughout the Oslo period, and Labor’s Barak authorized more settlement building around Jerusalem than did Likud’s Netanyahu, Sharon does the least to try and hide it. Many Palestinians have told me that they prefer Sharon in the Prime Minister’s chair than any Labor leader. At least he makes no attempt to hide what he is doing; western journalists have not had to conduct detailed investigations to find out exactly what is going on.

First came the Israeli cabinet approval of the next phase of the West Bank wall, which would lead to further confiscations of Palestinian land. This is in spite of international outcry, including public criticism from staunch allies like the US. The next stage could well see barriers going as far as 24 kilometers into the West Bank, which supports the conclusion that this is not a border between Israel and a future Palestinian state, but part of the ongoing Israeli policy of destroying any viable state for the future. Around 145 kilometers of the barrier has already been built in the north west of the West Bank and about 50 kilometers of fence is materializing in Jerusalem. Current indications suggest that the wall, a maze of concrete slabs, barbed wire and electric fences may reach up to 480 kilometers, not only confiscating farm land, but blocking tens of thousands of Palestinians from places of work, study or health care.

The following day Israel published tenders for 604 new homes in West Bank settlements, which is in direct contravention of the Road Map. An advertisement in the so-called “liberal” daily newspaper Ha’aretz, invited construction firms to bid for building contracts. Negotiators have always hotly disputed the term “natural growth” but Israel continues to insist that such building is only necessary extension for demographic reasons. Few make mention of the large number of empty settlement homes. In several years working in Palestine, it was not a statistic I ever managed to get hold of, but journalistic investigations indicate that many settler homes, used to justify a large military presence, remain empty.

And thus some of the articles and editorials that appeared in the British press were pretty close to the mark.

[T]he wall being built by the government of Ariel Sharon is wrong. It is wrong because it puts beyond reach any conceivable solution to the century-old question of Palestine. It is also wrong because purely as a matter of security it simply will not work. The barrier, moreover, has nothing whatsoever to do with the pursuit of a “two states” outcome to the crisis, in which Israelis would get security behind internationally recognised boundaries and the Palestinians would get an independent state, albeit a very small one…

…the biggest increase in this creeping takeover of Palestinian land occurred during the peace process. The new wall now carves out more land from the territories. Furthermore, if the sole intention of the barrier were to keep out suicide bombers, Israel presumably would not have had to seize the little remaining arable land the Palestinians have left.” Financial Times editorial, October 2

This insightful analysis comes not in a small radical publication, but in a London mainstream daily, the Financial Times. On the same day in the Independent, writer Adrian Hamilton contributes the following on the wall; “It's a compromise that should fool nobody. To all intents and purposes the wall means the end of the road map to peace, and it is dishonest of the Israeli government to pretend otherwise.” Chris McGreal in the Guardian, Justin Huggler in the Independent and across the water, Greg Myre in the New York Times, have all frequently contributed quality reporting on developments in the West Bank.

While many media outlets keep harping on about the road map alongside readers’ polls as to whether or not it can still be revived, there are also other strands of argument finally surfacing. Two years ago I rarely heard the argument about the possibility of a one state democracy for Jews and Palestinians beyond “radical fringe” discussion. Now even Thomas Friedman was prepared to admit that facing up to the end of the road map might lead to a new stage, where human rights campaigners are leading a “one person, one state, one vote” anti-apartheid style campaign. Mainstream newspapers are giving space to commentators who reflect on a potential one state future (whether a position of advocating for, or merely resignation to the possibility).

Before any readers call me naïve, I am not denying that the majority of what comes across in the mainstream British media about the Middle East remains dross. The newspapers are sadly still full of nonsense, whether ill informed or plain propaganda. But Israeli policy is making it harder and harder for an intelligent journalist to rave wholly in their defense. The coverage of settlement building and imprisonment of an indigenous race is making it harder and harder for a British person to defend his or her guilt-free “Gosh, I didn’t know” approach to the Palestinian catastrophe. The truth at one time or another is there in the broadsheet newspaper open on your breakfast table. Just look for it.

Isabelle Humphries is researching the situation for Palestinian refugees living inside the 1948 borders. She has an MA in Middle East Politics and has worked for three years with Palestinian NGOs, and as a freelance writer, on both sides of the 1967 border. You can reach her at innazareth@yahoo.co.uk

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