Activists in Gush Etzion won a small victory against the Partition Wall Thursday, preventing the destruction of a nature preserve and winning a court-order freezing construction of the wall.
Citizens of Gush Etzion were alerted that Defense Ministry contractors intended to begin construction of the Partition Wall Thursday morning in the Suda Forest, adjacent to the Gush Etzion Junction. They arrived this morning with signs decrying the building of the wall they say will cut off and constrict Gush Etzion’s communities.
In mid-protest, the Supreme Court ordered work on the wall to be halted for five days. Demonstrators stayed in the forest until the Defense Ministry representatives acknowledged receipt of the order, at which point the crowd dispersed.
The Partition Wall, confirmed by Justice Minister Tzippy Livni as the current government’s planned border of the State of Israel, is being built around the eastern side of Gush Etzion. A second barrier, referred to by some as the “security fence,” is being constructed along the 1967 Green Line.
Gush Etzion residents are divided on whether to oppose only the route of the wall, or to reject it outright, telling the government to suffice with the fence already being constructed along the Green Line. As of now, both walls are being built – one along the 1967 border, and one slated to closely hug many of Gush Etzion’s communities and leave others out altogether.
At the protest Thursday, both approaches were represented, working together to prevent the construction of the wall in the middle of the nature preserve.
Click here for a photo essay of the protest
The Defense Ministry chose to start construction in the middle of the pastoral Pine trees of the Suda Forest (pictured above) in order to avoid Supreme Court petitions from local Arabs, who are unable to claim a nature preserve as their farmland.
The Defense Ministry suspected that petitions would be filed by Jewish groups – one was indeed filed by the Kfar Etzion Field School and joined by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel – but attempted to begin work before a court-order to halt work could be issued. A group of six Arab workers, accompanied by two Jewish security guards, were revving their chainsaws and heading toward a large pine tree when the protestors, who had gathered at the Gush Etzion Junction, crossed Highway 60 (the Jerusalem-Hevron Road) and climbed the hill to the nature preserve.
An off-duty soldier rushed to the threatened pine – planted by Jews prior to the founding of the State – and stood up against it. The Arab workers, seeing the 300 protestors entering the forest, put down their chainsaws and moved away from the trees.
Soon after, police vehicles pulled up and 50 border police with riot gear, wearing the notorious black uniforms used during the Gaza expulsion, began climbing the hill toward the forest.
It became clear that the police would either back down or forcibly raze the forest - pending the imminent response of the Supreme Court.
While both sides awaited word on the verdict, Yaron Rosenthal, of the Kibbutz Kfar Etzion Field School, gave a history lesson about the Gush Etzion region to the riot police gathered. At one point - with a nod of approval from the commanding officer - he even told them to get up, and brought them on a short walk through the forest, explaining its significance.
Rosenthal told those gathered, “Our goal is to prevent, by any means, the building of this fence. There are many red lines regarding the route of the fence to which we object. In some cases the very lives of the residents are at stake, putting them in sniper range and worse. Here, it is a matter of simply drawing the line elsewhere. Why cut down a [British] Mandate-period forest in order to include a few meters of vineyard, especially when a new road is being built that will cut into the current route and render it useless in just a few months?"
Rosenthal also said that the forest is home to hundreds of large oak and cedar trees, in a region where trees are scarce. A range of rare plants grow in the forest as well, due to the unusually cold climate.
Meanwhile Nadia Matar, of Women in Green, addressed the handful of adults and hundreds of youth and said that the wall must not be built around Gush Etzion at all. “We will fight against this fence whether it is here or a kilometer and a half south. The route fences out Hevron, Kiryat Arba, Karmei Tzur and other communities – but even if those communities were not there, we would still oppose it. A mother does not give away parts of her baby, and the Jewish people don’t fence out parts of the Land of Israel.”
Some of the youth held signs decrying the cost of the wall while poverty is rampant in Israel. Each mile of the Partition Wall costs the state $3.5 million.
A tour of the route of the Partition Wall in the region of Efrat and Migdal Oz will take place Friday morning at 8:30, starting from the Gush Etzion Junction.
“Thank you all for coming out,” Matar told the crowd, “but in five days, they will be back, and we will need you to bring your parents, friend and siblings from all over to stand in the way of the division of the Land of Israel.”