Ghajar as a Test Case?

Yaacov Lozowick
Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
18 November '10

The significance of the ongoing Ghajar story is that it tests all sorts of assumptions about Israel's conflict with its neighbors.

Last night I had a discussion with a luminary of Israel's so-called human-rights firmament. The kind of person who generally puts the right of the individual above - or at least, balanced against - the right of the government to pursue policies in the national interest. I was of the opinion that the Ghajar case is a fine example: the Israeli government is about to shunt some 1500 of its citizens into a country they have no identification with, while probably negatively impacting their ability to lead normal lives, in the name of a national interest. My interlocutor, however, had no patience for my pleas to take consideration of personal needs of citizens: They are free to move anywhere else inside Israel (and by implication: why do they think it's their right to remain in the town of their forefathers). For my interlocutor, the overriding consideration was ending a piece of Israeli occupation.

When I tried to apply the same logic to other hypothetical cases, such as for example the idea that Israel will swap Israeli-Arab towns along the Green Line for settlement beyond in a future peace agreement, the discussion got too slippery for me to be able to follow it. But perhaps I wasn't trying hard enough.

This article in Haaretz postulates how the reality on the ground will in a few months: Ghajar will be fenced off from both Israel and Lebanon. Sounds jolly to me:

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Guardian peddles baseless ‘new Berlin wall’ claim

Middle East correspondent gives undue prominence to unsubstantiated claims about Ghajar pullout.

Just Journalism
The Wire
18 November '10

Harriet Sherwood’s coverage of Israel’s plan to pull out of land deemed by the UN as occupied Lebanese territory offers a unique twist on events. ‘The battle to prevent a ‘new Berlin wall’ on the Israel/Lebanon border’ – accompanied by a picture of cement blocks in Ghajar – leads:

“At the end of a dusty track, through an Israeli checkpoint and beyond a slalom of concrete blocks, Ahmed Khatib stood on land claimed by three countries, where he fears a new Berlin wall will soon be built.”

She then showcases comment from Ghajar villagers incensed by the alleged plan and threatening to ‘resist’ it by all means:

“Civilised Europe destroyed the Berlin wall,” said Ahmed Khatib, the deputy director of the village council. “Now it will be rebuilt in Ghajar.”

“Other residents echoed this fear, pledging to resist any attempt to construct a physical barrier along the “blue line” drawn by the UN 10 years ago to mark the border between Lebanon and Israel.

“We will stop it by all means,” said Shahada Khatib, 26, who travels daily from his home in the north of the village to his job in a bakery in the Israeli town of Kiryat Shimona. “We are ready to sacrifice our souls for that.”

So what is The Guardian Middle East correspondent’s source for the claim that any such barrier will be erected by the Israelis? It certainly is not the Israeli government, whom she herself quotes, categorically denying the idea:

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