Steve Niva

The case for Israel’s wall and fence barrier rests an endlessly repeated and passionately defended premise: only such a barrier can provide Israel security from the waves of Palestinian suicide bombers who have brutally maimed and killed hundreds of Israeli civilians in buses and café’s over the past four years. Given the devastating impact of Palestinian suicide attacks on Israeli society, it’s not hard to see why many have embraced the barrier as a remedy to stop the carnage. Unfortunately, in this case the proposed cure may actually be worse than the malady itself. Steve Niva examines the facts.

A year has passed since Rachel Corrie, a 23 year-old American peace activist from Olympia, Washington, was killed by an Israel army bulldozer while nonviolently trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian house in the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip. During this time, the Israeli government has strenuously sought to obscure the circumstances of Rachel’s death and prevent an independent investigation. It has even refused to release its June 2003 military police investigation final report to the United States, only allowing an American embassy official to read and take notes from selected parts.

Palestinian suicide bombings are vicious and grave abuses, clearly war crimes under international law for intentionally killing civilians. They have also been a strategic disaster for Palestinian national aspirations, souring the Israeli public on peace and damaging the Palestinian cause in the court of world opinion. Nevertheless, it is nearly impossible to avoid concluding that the current Israeli government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has either deliberately provoked a number of them or at least undertaken actions that would clearly risk them. Either way, it is complicit in the deaths of scores of Israeli citizens. Steve Niva comments.

With media coverage so tightly focused on the diplomatic maneuvering surrounding President Bush’s Road Map peace initiative, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that Israel continues to implement a devastating set of policies that are endangering the social and national existence of the Palestinian people. In fact, Israel’s grudging participation in the Road Map process is little more than an effort to buy time for these policies to achieve this outcome. Professor Steve Niva reports after returning from Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories as part of a trip organized by Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace.

“The Israeli bulldozer that ran over and killed American peace activist Rachel Corrie, 23, in the Gaza Strip today had killed before. A few weeks ago, on March 3, an Israeli bulldozer killed a nine-month pregnant Palestinian woman, Nuha Sweidan, while destroying the house next door in a dilapidated Gaza refugee camp. Palestinian witnesses said that Mrs. Sweidan, 33, bled to death under the rubble as she cradled her 18-month-old daughter. Her unborn baby also died.” Steve Niva, a faculty member of Evergreen State College, makes an important call for action.