Friday, September 10, 2004

Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's approval of a less invasive route for the barrier his country is building to deter suicide bombers is cosmetic at best, says Bert de Vries, a Calvin College history professor.

The Israeli prime minister announced his change of mind Thursday amid growing criticism of the wall, which runs along the entire western border of the occupied West Bank.

While Sharon's move has been hailed by some, it is really "playing fast and loose" with the dreadful facts of what the barrier is doing to the Palestinians, de Vries told members of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Greater Kalamazoo on Thursday night.

"The amount of acres and people being affected won't change very drastically. Only a small amount of the map is being changed."

De Vries had been scheduled to give his talk at the downtown Kalamazoo library long before Sharon announced the shift in plans.

Since the topic of his presentation was on the impact of the wall, de Vries found it fitting to include remarks on the latest development of a project that he has been chronicling in photographs and conversations during frequent visits to the Middle East.

"The Palestinian people are still being walled off," de Vries said. "The people are very depressed because the wall represents a permanent separation and permanent inability to move."

After pressure from U.S. officials and the Israeli Supreme Court, Sharon this week gave the go-ahead for the concrete barrier and electrified line of fencing to follow more closely the Green Line, the 1949 line that separated Israel from Palestine.

On the surface this looks like a breakthrough for Palestinians who have been complaining that the wall was cutting too deeply into their neighborhoods and agricultural lands, de Vries said.

But the reality remains that Israel is in the midst of building a $2 billion barrier that will run more than 400 miles and in the process cut more than 150,000 Palestinians off from their fields, their friends and facilities such as hospitals, supermarkets and schools.

"Violence isn't just in shootings or suicide massacres," de Vries said. "It is the construction of this wall that collectively punishes an entire population."

The wall runs through some of the holiest spots in the world for Christians, Jews and Muslims, including Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

The International Court in the Hague, Netherlands, recently ruled that the wall was a violation of human and legitimate territorial rights. The Israel Supreme Court was also critical of the project, although its focus was more on the path of the wall than the wall itself, de Vries said.

De Vries was joined in his presentation by his wife, Sally, an expert on traditional woven clothing and other products from the area of Jordan, Syria, and Palestine.

She and her husband have been traveling to the Middle East since the 1960s.

In her talk, she spoke of types of clothing worn by Palestinian women -- dresses and other items that are very colorful and often unique to residents of various villages.

In contrast, her husband said, "the dresses may change from one place to another, but the wall remains the same. Viewing the concrete slabs is boring and ugly."

Topping 24 feet in places, dotted by guard towers and checkpoints, the wall in some instances divides families. From the tops of hills, it looks like a coiling road, much of it dividing the best farming land that is found in the valleys.

"I'm sorry that mistreatment like this has become acceptable in American society," Bert de Vries said.

When a woman in the audience asked why Israel itself is so committed to this project of separation, de Vries answered, "Not all Israelis are in favor of it. Some of the most frustrated voices come from Israeli commentators."