The Wall and the Gate by Michael Sfard

Author:Michael Sfard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

PERMITS7

What prevents an athletic Palestinian from climbing the fence or the wall and crossing to the other side? What gives a soldier stationed at a gate installed in the fence the power to deny a Palestinian access to the other side, which is also part of the West Bank? What gives the soldier the power to let an Israeli settler cross?

The physical barrier was not sufficient to accomplish full separation, the fence’s underlying purpose. A system was needed for also differentiating between people. For this reason, the separation fence has two dimensions. One is physical, made of concrete, barbed wire, and steel. The other is legal, made up of military declarations, orders, and a permit system. This legal fence is applied to the physical fence to do what the physical fence is not smart enough to do: selection. This legal fence prevents the Palestinian from crossing to the other side. It gives the soldier the power to impose the prohibition against doing so by using force. And it allows free passage to anyone who is not Palestinian. To enforce the separation but also use the fence as a filter, the military had to cast a complicated legal net around it, impenetrable to Palestinians but open to Israelis, tourists, and almost everyone else. This legal fence is known as the “permit regime,” a system that prohibits Palestinian presence in the area between the fence and the Green Line—the seam zone—absent a special military-issued permit. This is a system of separation and discrimination based on nationality.

* * *

IN THE EARLY 2000s, Majed ‘Adwan was about fifty years old. ‘Adwan lives in Azzun, a town east of Qalqiliyah in the West Bank. His father had left him a fifty-dunam plot of land with about two hundred olive trees and sixty almond trees. ‘Adwan says that fifteen of the olive trees date back to the Roman period, meaning they are two thousand years old or more. The rest, with the exception of seventy that he planted himself, were planted by his father fifty years earlier.

‘Adwan worked as a teacher in Azzun and nearby villages. The farming on his plot was done mostly by hired hands. He would visit the plot every day, usually in the early morning, to help out with the cultivation, removing stones, plowing, weeding, but also to just walk among the trees, drink tea, and take in the view. The plot yielded about sixty barrels of olive oil in an average year and provided income for the extended family. In 2003, the IDF finished building the separation fence near Azzun, and ‘Adwan’s land was on the other side.

According to the permit regime, ‘Adwan and his family had to obtain permission from the military to cross the fence to reach their land. To get their permits, they had to submit an application form to the Civil Administration with various documents indicating their places of birth, ownership of the land, where they lived, and more. The family collected the required documents, filled out the forms, and submitted the application.

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