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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (435008)	7/28/2003 11:33:04 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 769667

World / Middle East & Africa Israel's wall threatens to wipe Palestinian village off the map By Harvey Morris In the valley below the small Palestinian village of Nu'man, construction gangs were hard at work yesterday on a stretch of Israel's separation barrier that will soon strand its 200 inhabitants in no-man's-land. They are among thousands of Palestinians whose lives have been disrupted by the government's decision to enclose the West Bank. Since construction began a year ago, farmers have been cut off from their land and villages separated from nearby towns. Their plight has prompted the US administration to press Israel to rethink the partially completed project before it becomes an immovable barrier to President George W. Bush's efforts to move the Middle East peace process forward. Mr Bush said last week that the wall was "a problem". "It is very difficult to develop confidence between the Palestinians and Israel with a wall snaking through the West Bank," he said. He is expected to reinforce the message in a White House meeting today with Ariel Sharon, Israeli prime minister. Mr Sharon had widespread Israeli public support for a defensive barrier along the "green line" with the West Bank that would prevent suicide bombers reaching Israel. But as more and more acres of West Bank land have been taken, Palestinians have come to regard the project as a covert land grab. International aid donors said in a recent report that the route of the wall, which brings a number of Jewish settlements on to the Israeli side, will involve the loss of more than 10 per cent of West Bank land. The people of Nu'man, an isolated village in the hills between Jerusalem and Bethlehem are among those who face the prospect of losing their homes. The village occupies an area that Israel regards as annexed east Jerusalem. Its inhabitants, however, carry identity cards that designate them as Palestinian West Bankers. When the nearby electrified fence is completed, they will be stranded on the "Israeli" side of the barrier but denied the legal right to remain there. "They've told us Nu'man doesn't exist and neither do we," says Jamal Dirawi, one of 16 local men taken away in a night raid by the Israeli border police last week. Mr Dirawi, whose family has lived in the village for 150 years, said all 16 refused to sign a declaration acknowledging they were illegal residents. They were freed after four hours with a warning they faced re-arrest. "An Israeli official came around four months ago," said his cousin, Yousef, "and told us that once the wall went up we would be cut off from the water and electricity that we currently get from the Palestinian Authority." The village is near the newly constructed Jewish settlement of Har Homa and villagers believe their land has been earmarked for the settlement's expansion. Nu'man is also a few hundred yards from the designated route of a bypass that Israeli planners boast will cut the road journey from central Jerusalem to Jewish settlements south of Bethlehem to just 12 minutes. "They want the land, but they don't want the people," says Jamal Dirawi. The villagers have retained a lawyer and sought the support of aid agencies and foreign diplomats. They have little hope, however, that today's White House meeting will lift the threat hanging over them. "As long as Sharon is around," says Jamal Dirawi, "he will insist this is for Israel's security and he won't budge."