The Iron Wall 2006

The Iron Wall 2006

Helga Tarpley

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From that day these words became the official and unspoken policy of the Zionist movement and later the state of Israel. Settlements were used from the beginning to create a Zionist foothold.

The Iron Wall is a 2006 documentary film about the establishment of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which is a strategy for permanent occupation of the territory.

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Transcript

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

the Middle East conflict between the Palestinians and Israel has been raging

for many years over the years there were many attempts to negotiate a lasting

peace but all failed meanwhile the toll

of human life kept rising every year every day and sometimes every hour

finally there was a glimmer of hope starting with the Madrid conference in

1991 two years later in Oslo Norway after a long secret negotiation an

unprecedented Declaration of Principles was agreed upon based on the exchange of

land for peace new hope seemed to be on

the horizon other today with all our hearts and all our souls we did them

Shalom Salaam peace [Applause]

there were many obstacles to peace the status of five million Palestinian

refugees scattered throughout the region the borders between the two sides and

the future control of the borders with neighboring countries the sharing of the

world's holiest city Jerusalem

but a major obstacle was advancing and this put Ramallah and Tel Aviv at odds

the Israeli colonies or settlements in the heart of Palestinian land this

obstacle was a direct threat to the guiding principle for the entire

negotiation land for peace the Israeli

settlement policies started almost with the beginning of the occupation the

different Israeli governments had different understandings of the same

concept of settlements the first

settlement the West Bank had been constructed a few weeks after in 1967 more that was the clarity on a year

later a bit more than half a year later 1968 a group of settlers had moved to

have one and they had moved to to have owned by the agreement back then which

has been which had been done between them in the military they were supposed to stay inside one only for a week and

only June the Passover within two weeks after Israel conquered already there were plans for settlements they were

plans for what we're gonna keep there were plans of giving Palestinian areas back to Jordan the Jordanian option was

the option of the Labour Party so that the idea that this is our country we've now grown our country now the trick is

how do we keep it and keep control of the land and make this all the Land of Israel but get rid of the Palestinian

population that until today from 1967 until today remains the essential issue

even though settlements were deeply rooted within the Zionist ideology no

clear policy within the ruling labour party of Israel had been set on how to

begin the settlement enterprise all

changed in 1974 with the formation of gosh M&M the bloc of the faithful the

ideological settlement movement was born in the settlement of Kfar Etzion by some

fundamentalist rabbis who claimed to be called by God to extend the borders of

Israel from the Jordan to the sea the ideology is that Zionism and the will of

God coincide here on the land of Israel that this land was given to the Jewish

people by God and nobody no government no individual has the right to give a

piece of this land to anyone besides Jew

it comes from the ideology of Rabbi kook the auto-doc Zionism which didn't have

the opportunity in 48 to actually exercise this ideology because the

original Zionism movement was secular gosh Eminem struggled to find its place

within the primarily secular Israeli society and ruling Labour Party but in

1977 with the election of Prime Minister Menachem Bagan and his appointment of

Ariel Sharon as Minister of Agriculture they found their champions

the partnership between the hardline bacon and his settlement bulldozer

Charan changed the face of the occupied territory by the time mr. bagan left

office in 1983 more than 100 settlements scattered throughout the occupied

territory were now home to the most fundamentalist settlers

Sharon was appointed by Beggan to be the head of the Ministerial Committee on

settlements Sharon was charged by beggin with two things one to create facts on

the ground settlements roads infrastructure everything facts on the

ground that make it impossible to disconnect the wire Judea and Samaria

from Israel to make Israel's presence irreversible and secondly to foreclose

forever the establishment of a Palestinian state the departure of bagan

did not signal any significant change his successor Yitzhak Shamir was a

graduate in the same school of thought hardline Zionism

[Music] in 1983 the Israeli Ministry of

Agriculture and the World Zionist Organization published a master plan

that called for 43 new settlements 300

to 450 kilometres of new roads to connect and serve the settlements and

proposed quadrupling the number of settlement residents to 100,000

[Music]

the successive Labour government headed by Shimon Peres continued building settlements

settlement building is not the policy of the left or the right it's the policy of

Israel no matter who is in office one after the other each and every Israeli

Prime Minister since 1967 with no exceptions contributed to the building

up of settlements [Music]

Benjamin Netanyahu shocked the Palestinians when he decided to appropriate one of the most beautiful

hills of the land for the settlement of ha hoo MA this was the strongest signal

to the Palestinians that Oslo was not working

Oslo did not manage to dismantle a single settlement to the contrary Israel

was taking more Palestinian land

ironically after 1993 and the signing of the Oslo agreement Israeli policy toward

the settlements took a drastic turn which led to significant growth in the settlements size and population during

the seven years following Oslo the settler population within the West Bank increased by 90 percent the sharpest

increase occurred in the year 2000 during the term of Prime Minister I

heard Barak in terms of the population growth in the West Bank and in terms of

construction of permanent houses apartments infrastructure in the West

Bank those theories were actually the the mid-90s the years after Oslo

agreement when we were supposed to be building confidence building trust between the two sides to get to an end

of conflict however Israel at something else completely in mind they were trying

to create facts on the ground in an unprecedented pace in order to dictate

the outcome of the negotiations and not reach a negotiated settlement from

minister Barak in Camp David he was claiming is giving everything giving the

moon but what an ugly moon it was following international pressure to stop

settlement construction the Israeli government began new tactics under the

pretext natural growth they expanded and fattened the existing settlements and

connected them to each other and to Israel the result is huge blocks

like the ring of settlements in Jerusalem and the blocks of Ariel and

gush etsion which slice the land and block any possibility of a contiguous

Palestinian state the mastermind of this policy is Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

[Music]

the Israeli settlements started looking like a permanent occupation to the

Palestinians hundreds of settlements and outposts scattered throughout occupied

Palestine make the map of the West Bank look like Swiss cheese the Israeli

policy of creating permanent facts on the ground was working Israel wants the

world to see Judea and Samaria as an integral natural part of the Land of

Israel and then later of the State of Israel and therefore its policy is to is

is defined as one that makes that reality permanent this isn't a tactical

thing is that they were building settlements so we can be stronger we're building settlements as permanent

extensions of our cities Arielle is an extension of Tel Aviv mallya do moon is

an extension of of Jerusalem these settlements along with their bypass road

network and security zones occupy about 42 percent of the land designated for

the future Palestinian state new road construction throughout the world

generally means growth and better accessibility in contrast roads between

settlements can only be traveled by settlers for Palestinians to drive on

these roads they must obtain special permits which are extremely hard to get

the basic human right of freedom of movement within one's own country has

been taken away from the majority of Palestinians and considered a privilege

for a select few

here's where the highway system feeds in and the whole infrastructure because you

create a landscape in which you know you're in Mali I do mean in the middle of the West Bank well but with a

beautiful highway you can go to Mali oh don't even you can go home and back you

work in Jerusalem Hallman back in 15 minutes with a beautiful highway never

encounter an Arab never a Viet you never go through an Arab village or

neighborhood or anything else you stay completely in a Jewish Israeli environment so you come from Jewish

Jerusalem you go down the beautiful Jewish Highway through a Jewish landscape of the Land of Israel which is

all idyllic because you don't see Arabs you get into your Jewish dormitory

suburb go to your Jewish swimming pool at the end of the day and everything is everything is normal its banal it's not

an issue it's not political at all the locations of settlements are chosen

carefully most are located on the tops of hills and between Palestinian towns

and villages the majority of these settlements have no proper sewage system

leaving their wastewater to run through Palestinian agricultural land causing

great damage to the people and to the environment [Music]

settlements squander valuable and needed natural resources especially water water

is an essential commodity in Palestine [Music]

the average consumption per capita in Palestine in West Bank actually 140

cubic metre per capita a year while the average consumption for settlers about

600 cubic meter per capita a year for all purposes the Palestinians they pay

four times more than that as Raley's as cost of water in West Bank while we

using the same resources and the same infrastructure and other words we

consume five times less but we pay four times more there are now almost half a

million Jewish settlers in occupied Palestinian territory Israelis did not

stand in line to be residents of the settlements residents were recruited

manipulated and offered many incentives by each successive government of Israel

the main reason for me to buy a house here is economic of course a home house

like this in Tel Aviv would cost I think double price also of course there are

born bonuses there are more things small reasons to go to to come to live here

the nice neighborhood it is built nicely it is quite new the houses are not old

there is a wonderful view wonderful air good air but the main reason of course

is economic the government also gives incentives in very good conditions for

people who buy houses in the settlements most of the people including my friends

including me a few years ago as I said are not aware of the of this fact living

in occupied territories and even they if they are aware they they they would like

to forget it not to think about it what Israel did especially sure owned it was

very smart Sharon saw that there weren't enough ideological settlers the

religious settlers that really see this as the Land of Israel and wanted conquer it from the Arabs there not that many

and you couldn't he couldn't get masses of Jews into the occupied territories on

an ideological basis so what he did is he disconnected ideology from settlement

so you have male Adam and Eve odds eV and Arielle and alpha Menasha a lot of

other cities that have nothing to do with settlement or politics they're normal people living there they don't

even know half of them that they're across any kind of a Green Line which has been completely eliminated from the

Israeli Maps it's a big it's a big problem for me in my eyes that the people of Gaza don't

even know houses demolished nearby and ten

children are without house which happens and just last year most of the people in

because they don't know about it and the few who don't know about it they don't care I think a lot about the difference

of my son and the conditions he lives in and the kids few hundred meters nearby

and I even write about it in the neighborhood newspaper and I would like

people to open their eyes and to see these things it's very hard the sharp

difference geography and in the mind

between the refugee camp just near nearby here and the people who live here

which I complain about such stupid things like the garbage is not moved

every day but only every two days or something like this the government tricked us for buying a

house here is the government tricked so many of Israel citizens if the

government offered me some apartment more or less like this as I have now in

another place in Israel not in the occupied territories and that would make

the piece closer I would live tomorrow

according to the Israeli group peace now the overwhelming majority of settlers

80% of them consider themselves to the economic set list but the other 20% are

ideological hardcore religious zealots they are well-armed and have no

hesitation in using these arms

[Music] [Applause] [Music]

these ideological settlers chose to live deep in heavily populated Palestinian

areas especially the settlers down in have Rome chose to live deep in Palestinian areas because that's where

they would break the Palestinians that's where they would fragment their contiguity surround them lock them into

islands and create these these pathways between the settlements and Israel

father the city of Hebron is now home to the

most violent settlers Hebron is no stranger to violence by the settlers in

1994 an american-born Jewish doctor entered the holy mosque in Hebron and

slaughtered 29 Palestinians at prayer

[Music]

today heaven is a city of a hundred and fifty thousand Palestinians under siege

by 450 religious fanatics with an army to protect them in the 1980's the Hebron

settlers decided to venture out of their settlements and move into the city

itself the Palestinian neighborhood of tell room ADA was their target the

people of Torah maeda enjoy all kinds of settler violence and harassment intended

to force Palestinians to leave their homes and their land they are in a

constant state of siege curfews and checkpoints

according to the United Nations there are a hundred and eighty-one checkpoints in the Hebron area it's difficult and

often dangerous to travel from home to work to the market to visit friends and

family

the brutality of the settlers and the occupation that comes with them prompted

some former Israeli soldiers to break the silence and speak out to their own

society and to the world about their experience in Hebron

we're walking their streets that only

Jews could walk in the streets of Palestinian couldn't go out of their houses they were under curfew and there

are certain streets and have grown that were only for Jews the street is cleaned

from Palestinians I remember myself walking in these streets it was our day

of Jewish Jewish holiday and the city was full of thousands of Jews and we're

walking in the middle of a Palestinian city that has 150,000 Palestinians in

the city and although we see all what we see when we were patrolling there is

Jews we didn't see one Palestinian for hours and I didn't understand what's

going on around me why everything is closed why why it looks like a Jewish

City when I started this to talk with

the settlers there so the answer I got is that this is the way everyone should

look as you see here the playground of my kids as you see it's agile not very ground

but we call it playground because my kids they play here and because if they go outside they will be in dangerous

they've got attacked by these lads and also a soldier they don't care they play here because they go outside they will

feel afraid because always their depth by stones and dying glass bottles they flew

that their kids when they play at the road so they should come and we use this

fence to protect them from the stones because when we were sit here also we

was attacked by the Ziegler's and the soldier they come protect the settlers only it's our fault on our whoring our

crime just because we are homeless tenían and we one did not want to leave

this house the real situation behind the headlines of the newspapers what I

didn't grow in the head room every night shoot firing grenades into a banana

neighborhood that's what they Israeli press called IDF forces returned fire -

the first of two the source of fire I don't never once that I recognize the

source of fire [Music]

people just argued I mean I want to shoot now I would shoot no I don't you

just like stood in line behind a grenade machine gun I want you to shoot the

grenades for something like 2,000 meters it's hard [ __ ]

I mean civilized neighborhood and you can't see [ __ ] I mean it's night and you don't see any

snipers don't see nothing just the buildings you feel lighting is inside of a computer game and then and then your

mother calls you see if you're okay can't tell her this is what been doing

and she hears the shots all the noise the explosions in Emily you said it's

just like no it's okay just the drill it's very society has no clue no John

can use it's the most the most something you kill us always we have here curfew

any problems in all of Iran we have a curfew here believe me if we hear an

explosion in London we have here in teleMed we have

the story of the settlers violence in Hebron is an untold story that most

media outlets including Israeli media would not dare to cover due to the

settlers hostility towards them

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

the city of Hebron is losing its residents at an alarming pace especially

in the old city walking the streets of Hebron you would think you were walking

in a ghost town before the settlers invaded the city was a major tourist

attraction due to its holiness for Jews Christians and Muslims as the burial

place of the patriarchs but now the city

is experiencing an organized process aimed at forcing the Palestinians out of

their homes roof and hearing drilling

from under of you inside the settlers

houses and you call on the radio collar Patrol and you say yeah hearing drills under me please check what it is and the

patrol comes in the middle of the night and he founds a settler that decided to expand there is his living room so he

drilled into the wall he broke into a Palestinian shop they have the same wall

he threw everything that was in the shop the streets he locked doors

police in Hebron is afraid to miss it lers it's frightening I mean it's really

frightening to to live here when your neighbors want you gone they want your

land they want your home and they're willing to intimidate and to threaten

until they get their way and the army and the police the security opera the

Israeli security apparatus that is here is primarily mandated to protect them they're armed they're violent

there's been years and years of absolutely unrestrained settler violence

a settler Canela phallus video with impunity there's no fear whatsoever of ever being

tried or brought the court or anything and I've witnessed this with my own eyes

settlers can go and eye witnesses as well into Palestinian houses and and

take over the houses or come in and burn the house down with the police all

around [Music]

how can you do to other people what was

done to you people you know just 60 years ago

you know I visited the South Africa recently and I spoke to black people who

still remember their apartheid this is the South African apartheid this is Rhodesia actually the the

Palestinians in the best case are transparent they don't see them they don't exist

the latest chapter of the Israeli policy and especially that of Prime Minister

Ariel Sharon father of the settlement movement is in its final installment to

create permanent facts on the ground and shape the future of the Palestinian

state in June 2002 Israel decided to

encircle the West Bank including East Jerusalem with a wall or a fence

depending on who you ask the International Court of Justice calls it

a wall in some areas it is indeed a 25

foot high concrete wall while in other areas it is a fence surrounded by razor

wire trenches patrol roads and surveillance cameras Palestinians call

it an apartheid wall Israelis call it a security fence you can't explain the

major elements of the occupation by security you can't explain 200 settlements by security Israel did not

go out and build Mali or the mean for security reasons it never claimed to you can't explain

the highway system you can't explain the policy of house demolitions you

can't explain land expropriation you can't explain really the closure the way it's done because most of the closure is

internal within the West Bank and within Gaza not between them and Israel and you

can't explain the root of the wall by security security simply does not explain these things something else is

going on just look at the root of the world and the picture definitely will

become clearer the border between Palestine and Israel between the

Palestinian territories and the Israeli territories is 315 kilometers long

meanwhile the root of the world is 670 kilometers definitely it is more than

double the length why the district of cackler is home to

about a hundred thousand Palestinians and both some of the richest agricultural land in the West Bank but

Kirk Ilya has been walled in so that Israel can annex the Israeli settlements

around the district look at what's happened to the city and surrounding

villages how they've been choked cut off from each other Palestinian from

Palestinian caged-in by surrounding walls and fences separated from their

livelihood their land the farmers have

become landless

[Music]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Music]

Ditullio

[Music]

[Music] and olive tree takes between 7 to 10

years to be a fruit and the Israeli bulldozers uprooted and distill it in a

minute the tree for us as a Palestinians

is alive we will keep the planting and we will keep on living the wall of

course does not stop in calculi its path continues 22 kilometers deep inside the

West Bank in circling and annexing the settlement block of arielle the area

block splits the West Bank into almost two pieces it creates small enclaves of isolated

Palestinian communities and destroys any chance of having a future contiguous

state of Palestine the wall continues

its path encircling and annexing more settlements and more Palestinian land

while devastating many farming communities in its path

hundreds of thousands of olive trees have been uprooted 35,000 meters of

irrigation network destroyed more than 40 water wells lost in the path of the

wall there were many trees many homes

many farms many people and every one of

them has its own story [Music]

the story of the wall is a long and painful one and it continues on to the

city most devastated by the wall jerusalem and its twin city Bethlehem

[Music]

[Music] upon completion of the wall in Jerusalem

tens of thousands of Palestinians will find themselves outside the walls of the

city cut off from their city and their livelihood by doing this Israel will

have succeeded in changing the demographic makeup of the holy city it's

heartbreaking what's happening in Jerusalem you know at the beginning of this year it took us months to figure

out how to send thousands of children to their schools and teachers to the classes the walls zigzag in and around

Jerusalem Jews in and Palestinians out mothers unable to reach hospitals to

deliver their babies children unable to reach their schools Muslims and Christians aren't able to reach their

holy places to worship it is a war against our existence that Israel is

waging settlements and the wall are the tools to achieve their obsession of Judaizing the place israel is using its

settlements to fragment the palestinian presence in jerusalem to destroy East

Jerusalem is a coherent urban and economic entity and then that way to destroy the economic heart of any

Palestinian state you have it's like an onion you have concentric circles of

settlements you have huge settlement cities you have more Israelis living

today in Palestinian East Jerusalem in settlements than you have Palestinians

and here is where Jerusalem is really the heart of the struggle in a sense

because without Jerusalem you don't have a viable Palestinian state and and

without the settlements around Jerusalem Israel can't really control the entire

area that it wants to control forever so Jerusalem is really the key the town of Jesus has its own story

Israel surrounded Bethlehem with a concrete wall confiscating half of its

land and placing that land on the Israeli side of the wall for the future

expansion of the surrounding settlements

I wonder what Jesus would say if he sees

his town as a ghetto behind walls and gates oppressing people taking their

land and depriving them of their dignity will never bring security to anybody if

I have anything to say to our neighbors and to the Jewish people please do come

back to your senses think of justice justice is not a foreign concept for Jews or for today ISM let my people free

the wall snakes south of Bethlehem encircling and annexing the huge block

of settlements gush etsion and other scattered settlements along the Green

Line the border upon the completion of

the wall Israel will have succeeded in annexing more than 80% of its settlers

and their settlements into Israel [Music]

since 1947 Palestinians have painfully

watched year after year the partition

occupation and annexation of their land and their country the dream of freedom

and statehood is as elusive as ever

settlements and their master designers are confiscating the land and ultimately

at the end of each day and each year

confiscating the human rights of millions of Palestinians settlements are

destroying the principle that is the very foundation of the peace process

land for peace and creating a land with

no peace it would be very hard to argue that the

two-state solution is still alive if by that we mean a viable Palestinian state a continuous Palestinian state is going

to be practically impossible and this is going to be not only the end of the

dream of Palestinians of a state but it might also affect the Israeli dream of

the survival of Israel as a Jewish state they are asking themselves a simple

question is Israel is willing to acknowledge our historical collective

rights in 22% of historical Palestine the answer is according to what Israel

have done and this is something which H Palestinian have seen if not from his door then from his window it's not from

his winter from his roof the answer is no now Israel still wants a two-state

solution because we still have the same dilemma we started out with how do we keep control of the country but get rid

of the Palestinians at the end of the day as Prime Minister Shamir used to say

they will get used to it they will get used to the facts on the ground they

could confiscate our land destroy our homes uproot our trees and imprison us

but they will never be able to imprison spirit seeking for freedom walls and

guiteau's will never bring peace justice well in my lifetime if you know I get to

live long enough like Shimon Peres I may be present to celebrate it but if it

won't happen in my lifetime I'm afraid my children will have to forget about it

I spent a good number of years of my life in Israeli jails though I never hurt anybody

never attacked anyone never even touched a gun the only crime I ever committed is

to dream of freedom and state for myself for my kids now after all

those years the state Chiron has in mind for me and my kids is a bunch of enclaves Canton's ghettos it is hard to

be optimistic given the circumstances we live under however I am you know if 70 years ago

you would have asked the Jewish people themselves if they ever thought the nightmare of Nazism would be over they

probably would have laughed at you but not says most defeated and look at

Israel now a strong state prospering now

I'm sure the rest in Ian's will be no exception to that one day we will be

free I have no doubt definitely we will be free no doubt whatsoever

you asked me how it is that I dared take a side you say I loathe myself pointing

out you have lied you say it's tribal warfare but I disagree for the dynamics

of the situation are not difficult to see on the one side is the fighter jet on the other is the stone on the one

side is the slave on the other is the throne for the many there are checkpoints while foreign soldiers rule

streets for the one side there is victory but the people don't accept defeat the word you need to know is

occupation the very definition of a land without a nation and if peace is what you're after

then let us not deceive it'll come on the day the tanks return to tell me

[Music] side there is longer

dalek trees on the other is the army Cree's caterpillars mall streets

destroyable city blocks wild children swallows shrapnel for the crime

around the town stay flat and hurt song phonetics and sleep on sheets of satin

and they water their plantations drilling ever deeper well while the displaced children of the

but are filled with bullets shells

of a land [Music] not to see

[Music]

between the Palestinians and Israel has been raging for many years over the

years there were many attempts to negotiate a lasting peace but all failed

meanwhile the toll of human life kept rising every year every day and

sometimes every hour

finally there was a glimmer of hope starting with the Madrid conference in

1991 two years later in Oslo Norway

after a long secret negotiation an unprecedented Declaration of Principles

was agreed upon based on the exchange of land for peace

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

the Middle East conflict new hope seemed

to be on the horizon other today with all our hearts and all our souls we did

them Shalom Salaam peace [Applause]

there were many obstacles to peace the status of five million Palestinian

refugees scattered throughout the region the borders between the two sides and

the future control of the borders with neighboring countries the sharing of the

world's holiest city Jerusalem

but a major obstacle was advancing and this put Ramallah and Tel Aviv at odds

the Israeli colonies or settlements in the heart of Palestinian land this

obstacle was a direct threat to the guiding principle for the entire

negotiation land for peace the Israeli

settlement policies started almost with the beginning of the occupation the

different Israeli governments had different understandings of the same

concept of settlements the first

settlement the West Bank had been constructed a few weeks after in 1967 war that was the clarity on a year later

a bit more than half a year later 1968 a group of settlers had moved to have one

and they had moved to to have gone by the agreement back then which has been

which has been done between them and the

===