The New "Disengagement Plan" Map shows the completed sections of the Apartheid Wall in the northern West Bank (in black) and the remaining planned sections in blue. The Occupation’s first phase of the Wall in the northern West Bank, from Zububa village in the Jenin district to Masha village in the south of the Qalqiliya district, resulted in 51 villages losing most of their agricultural lands behind the Wall. In villages like Jayyus in Qalqilya and Qaffin in Tulkarem, the Wall annexed some of the most fertile lands in the West Bank, leaving Palestinians with nothing. Here Israeli settlements like Alfe Minashe are expanding on lands isolated behind the Wall, while a new settlement is now under construction just behind the Wall on the isolated lands of Jayyus.
The Occupation Government, in an attempt to conceal its colonial expansionist plans behind the building of the Wall, claims a new route for the Wall has been designed. However, although some changes in the Wall route were made in individual villages like Zawiya in Salfit, and Biet Inan and Beit Surik in northwest Jerusalem, and in the southern, and western Hebron areas, the Wall route continues as before in the rest of the West Bank, annexing some 47% of the West Bank. It will leave Palestinians in ghettos or semi-ghettos, linked together with tunnels and bridges under Occupation control. What is new in this fresh Wall route is that it is done under the title of a “disengagement plan” approved by Americans and Europeans who chose to consider it as part of the “road map”. What is “new” now is that the Wall is built in line with the Israeli /western visions of “peace”, while in reality perpetuating the Zionist, colonialist project.
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Download The New "Disengagement Plan" Map Press Here.
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The blue line on the map shows the uncompleted planned phases of the Wall as approved by the Israeli cabinet on February 20th, 2005.
1. The completed parts of the Wall are some 145 kms, while the second phase in which work for the new sections of the Wall has started since last year extends some 210kms on the West bank lands in addition to more than 90kms for the so-called Jerusalem Envelope.
2. The Wall annexes large areas of lands, cutting through the middle of the West Bank in Salfit to annex Ariel and the Shomron settlement blocks, and in Jerusalem annexing the Etzion, Giv’at Ze’ev and Ma’ale Adumim settlement blocks leaving Palestinians in ghettos with no expansion potential. Annexing these settlement blocs with the already annexed settlements in the northern West Bank will result in the loss of 554 km2 of the West Bank. This is almost 9.5% of the total West Bank land mass.
3. Close to half the area taken in by the Wall is located in East Jerusalem and its surroundings, leaving the Palestinian City and its suburbs as a fractured cluster of semi-ghettos, robbing Palestinian citizens of their last remaining prospects for urban development in their capital and fatally depleting the West Bank’s capacity for socio-economic rehabilitation.
4. However, Israel does not count Jerusalem as part of its figures regarding the Wall and the West Bank. The Wall as projected around Jerusalem practically annexing all what is included in the current occupation municipal boundaries of East Jerusalem (except Kafr Aqab, North of Qalandiya). Yet in an attempt to mislead the world about the real size of lands annexed behind the Wall, Israel doesn’t include the 70 km2 taken from Jerusalem, totaling 1.2% of the West Bank. Furthermore, Israeli calculations exclude the 46 km2 (0.8% West Bank) stolen in Latrun. Both areas taken together make some 116 km2, or 2% of the West Bank. This 2% of the West Bank should be added to the 7.6 % of land annexed by the Wall.
5. The so-called “Jerusalem Envelope” extends form Beit Horon in the northwest of the city to the southwest Kfar Etzion settlement in the Bethlehem district. The Envelope will annex the Ma’ale Adumim settlement block, to the east of Jerusalem city, annexing 62 km2 (just over 1% of the West Bank), 71 km2 from Etzion West in southwest Jerusalem, and 31 km2 in the Giv’on block northwest of Jerusalem. Altogether this adds up to 237 km2.
6. In the west Bethlehem area and in northwest Jerusalem two main settler road bypasses cut in the middle of the West Bank Highway 60 (Beit Jala-Khadr) and Highway 443 (South of Rafat), functioning as separation and ghettoizing tools. Both roads, already parts of them are, will be walled in on both sides.
7. In the Etzion settlement block the wall is projected to extend from Har Gilo moving around the Palestinian villages of Walaja (including Ain Juwaizeh) and Battir isolating them behind the Wall toward Wadi Fukin where it ends, leaving a huge gap with where the Wall is coming from (Bethlehem). This gap can be best explained by the huge expansion plans Israel has for its settlements in this area, both West and East of the Green Line (Zur Hadassah, Geva’ot and Bat Ayin) which it does not want to become unlinked by a Wall in this area.
8. The Ariel settlement finger, will upon completion annex 123 km2, totaling 2.1% of the West Bank.
9. The Jordan Valley, as shown in the map, remains, with or without a wall, under Occupation’s control except for Jericho. Settlements built to the east of almost every Palestinian city establish a “belt” isolating these cities from their eastern lands and from the Valley. This is in addition to settlements inside the Valley itself. Moreover, the presence of occupation military training camps, settler controlled water resources and the isolation of Palestinian villages all strengthen the Occupation’s control over the Valley. Annexing the Jordan Valley will mean the further annexation of 28% of the total West Bank land.
10. The Wall as completed and with the planned sections, form part of the Israeli “disengagement plan”, considered by the Europeans and Americans as part of the “Roadmap” and the Israeli/western vision of a “viable state”. It will lead to the creation of a Bantustan state. In principle the Israeli rhetoric around “viability” serves to legitimize the illegal activities of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank. The West Bank is one unit. It forms one piece of territory. Yet in the realities being carved out on the ground the term continuity or contiguity will never apply except within the misleading rhetoric of the United States and Europe, whose support for the Apartheid system that Israel is creating is vital. They are willing to accept the creation of this Apartheid with its cantons, ghettos and bantustans and call it a state.
Download The New "Disengagement Plan" Map Press Here.
Download The New "Disengagement Plan" Map in JPEG Press Here.