Date sent: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 02:03:08 +0300 From: Jeff Halper Subject: Extremely Urgent Action STOP THE BY-PASS ROADS! Even as I write this urgent action, Israel Prime Minister is on his way to a summit meeting with President Clinton. Just hours ago Barak's government announced that in response to intense pressure by the settlers' lobby it was resuming work on the twelve "by-pass" roads on the West Bank, suspended for the past few months. If this project is allowed to continue it will give new life to otherwise isolated settlements throughout the West Bank, will permanently confine the Palestinians to tiny bantustans defined by those very roads and settlements, and will foreclose forever any possibility of a viable Palestine state. During the Oslo negotiations Israel convinced the Palestinians that it needed modest and temporary roads bypassing Palestinian communities in order to secure safe passage for its settlers on the West Bank during the period of Israeli withdrawal. It soon became apparent, however, that the by-pass roads would in fact become a massive system of 29 highways spanning 450 kilometers (280 miles), designed to make impossible any attempt to detach the West Bank from Israel proper. Since they bypass Palestinian communities, these roads serve only Israeli settlements while creating permanent borders and barriers among all the Palestinian "islands." Moreover, they are defined as "security roads," meaning that they reach a width of 350 meters (50 meters of road plus 150 meters of "sanitized" margins on each side) -- the equivalent of four football fields being ploughed through some of the richest Palestinian farmland, olive groves and vineyards. The impact of such a massive system on an area the size of Delaware is overwhelming, politically, geographically, economically and socially. It represents a major environmental disaster in a fragile and sacred landscape that is the heritage of all the world's peoples. And it is illegal. International human rights law -- and the Fourth Geneva Convention in particular -- defines an occupation as a temporary situation, and therefore prohibits an occupying power from taking any action that makes its occupation permanent, such as building highways and settlements or expropriating land. Even in the Oslo Accords Israel committed itself to "view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit, whose integrity will be preserved during the interim period" (Article IV). To top it all off, the highways are being funded by the American government -- the last twelve roads, approved after the Wye Agreement, will cost American taxpayers some $1.2 billion. How the US can reconcile its support for this project with any kind of viable and just peace process is inconceivable. The by-pass roads are the latest expressions of Israel's long-standing campaign to determine the shape of "peace" through "creating facts on the ground" rather than through good-faith negotiations. If the road system is allowed to be completed, it will end any possibility of a viable Palestinian state from emerging, and will lead inevitably to apartheid, where one people permanently controls the lives of another locked into tiny, disconnected and impoverished bantustans. What can be done? We urge all of you to -- * Join our URGENT APPEAL to the American government to halt this project whose only aim is to perpetuate the Israeli occupation while foreclosing any just, viable and lasting peace. Write to the President Clinton (President@whitehouse.gov) and Secretary of the State Albright (secretary@state.gov) expressing your grave concerns that, unless halted immediately, the by-pass road project on the West Bank will end any hope of real peace between Israel and Palestine. If you are American, contact your Congressperson and Senators, protesting the use of your tax-dollars in such an enterprise. * Appeal to your governments and representatives to stop this project, write to your newspapers, organize protests and forward this message to as many people and organizations as possible. * Send urgent messages to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (we do not have the e-mail address at this moment) and to High Commissioner Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Fax: +(41-22) 917- 9016; e-mail: webadmin.hchr@unog.ch). * Send letters of protest to Prime Minister Ehud Barak (pm@pmo.gov.il) and to the Israeli Embassies and consulates in your area. Let us join forces to mount a campaign against the by-pass road system and all other efforts to perpetuate the Occupation. Your help is urgently needed. We must all act NOW! In Peace, Jeff Halper -------------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about Gush Shalom visit the website: http://www.gush-shalom.org/ email: info@gush-shalom.org; Gush Shalom North America