ABSTRACT
In 2000, Ariel Sharon, then the leader of the opposition party in Israel, visited the Temple Mount, a site in Jerusalem that is holy for Judaism and Islam alike. His visit was widely viewed by Palestinians as a provocation designed to affirm that under a Sharon government, Israel would retain permanent sovereignty of the site. The Palestinian protests—known eventually as the Second Intifada (or al-Aqsa Intifada)—erupted about the time of the visit, though it is a matter of debate whether the visit itself was a primary cause of the uprising or one of many factors in a time of already volatile passions. When Sharon was elected prime minister in early 2001, one of his responses to the ongoing violence was to begin construction of a controversial “security fence”—consisting of roads, electric and barbed wire fences, and concrete walls as much as thirty feet tall—more or less around the borders of the West Bank. (The deviation of the wall from recognized borders is itself a matter of controversy.) The ostensible purpose of the wall is to protect Israeli citizens from attacks by Palestinians. However, Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar contend here that it is obvious that the wall does not serve security considerations but instead, “like a blind monster,” snakes its way across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, swallowing Palestinian land and villages and separating Palestinians from their means of livelihood. In the view of Zertal and Eldar, the wall outlines a future border of Israel that leaves the Palestinians less than two-thirds of the territory for their future state. Likewise, “amoebic chains” of new settlements take control of strategic areas and the aquifer of the West Bank as another part of Sharon’s plan to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state. Even Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, Zertal and Eldar assert, was intended by Sharon to divert international attention from the West Bank, where Sharon planned to deepen the Israeli occupation.
