Apartheid Wall

ANN ARBOR, MI September 30th––I was walking out of Hatcher Graduate Library when I noticed Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) holding their annual apartheid wall, the same wall displayed last year, just days before Hamas' October 7 terrorist attack. 

The wall depicted a Palestinian man being arrested by IDF soldiers and passages discussing the history of Palestinians in the West Bank. The component of the wall that seemed most appalling to me was the painting of Leila Khaled that stood alongside the quote, “Power to the Freedom Fighters, Glory to the Martyrs.” Khaled, a Palestinian activist infamous for multiple armed plane hijackings, has long been perceived as a hero in the pro-Palestinian community.  As a member of the PFLP, a designated terrorist organization, Khaled believed it was her moral duty to bomb planes as a form of resistance.

A year ago, I was shocked to see people glorify Khaled, but after October 7th, it became evident that terrorists or “freedom fighters” are normalized as heroes in the pro-Palestinian movement. 

Almost one year later, SAFE and its coalition continue to propagate false information surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Here are four misconceptions that SAFE is propagating: 

1. The wall separating the West Bank from Israel is an “Apartheid Wall” 

The wall that sits between Israel and the West Bank was built in 2002 during the Second Intifada, a series of terrorist attacks that included suicide bombings in restaurants, buses, and other civilian hotspots. These terrorist attacks resulted in the deaths of over 1,000 Israeli civilians.

In response to this violence, the Israeli government built a security barrier, referred to by SAFE as the ‘Apartheid Wall. After this security measure was implemented, the number of suicide bombings fell from 73 (between 2000 and July 2003) to 12 (from August 2003 to the end of 2006).

People like to microscopically look at the West Bank barrier while ignoring hundreds of other countries that have similar walls. For instance, India constructed a border fence on the Pakistan and Bangladesh borders to prevent illegal immigration and cross-border terrorism. In both cases, these countries constructed barriers as a means of enhancing national security, preventing illegal immigration, and thwarting terrorism.

2. There is restricted access for Palestinians to Israel 

During the Apartheid Wall demonstration, many speakers talked about the restriction of movement that Palestinians face in the West Bank. One important distinction is that Palestinians living in Area A, an area that is exclusively Palestinian, do not hold Israeli citizenship because it is controlled by the Palestinian Authority. With that being said, an estimated 110,000 Palestinians have permits to work in Israel. Before October 7th, roughly 18,500 workers from Gaza entered Israel on a work permit. Many of these workers were collecting intelligence to help execute October 7th. In the wake of the October 7 terrorist attack, Israel has tightened restrictions on entry. 

3. Israel has committed “genocide” in Gaza and the West Bank 

The line “Israel’s ongoing genocide” is heard at almost every pro-Palestinian protest. But what does the word genocide really mean? According to The United Nations, "To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group."

Israel's goal is to target Hamas infrastructure –– not to wipe out the Palestinian population. At first glance, it may seem that the IDF is targeting civilian infrastructure; However, Hamas has deeply embedded its terrorist operations within schools, hospitals, and homes, using civilians as human shields. The IDF continues to carry out measures to protect civilians in Gaza, like warning civilians about strikes via leaflets, calls, and text messages.

Hamas’s decision to hide and operate directly beneath the most vulnerable parts of Gaza makes it nearly impossible for the IDF to avoid civilian casualties. Still, the civilian-to-combatant ratio stands near 1:1, marking the lowest ratio in the history of urban warfare.

For context, the Vietnam War saw a civilian-to-combatant ratio of 2:1, with approximately 400,000 innocent civilian lives lost. During WWII, between 50-55 million innocent civilians were killed. Although many wars throughout history have resulted in the deaths of innocent lives, few have faced accusations of genocide.

4. Israel is a colonialist state

SAFE supporters have historically labeled Israel as a “colonist state” or simply referred to it as a “colony.” 

A true example of colonialism is England's colonization of the eastern seaboard of America. In that case, European colonists came to America to establish settlements that were originally inhabited by the Native Americans. Settler colonialism implies settlers coming in and displacing the native population. 

In contrast to the English in America, Jews have ancestral ties to the land that date back 3000+ years. Therefore, Jewish immigration to Palestine before, during, and after WWII was an act of decolonization rather than colonization. Before Israel gained independence, the British Mandate controlled what was then Palestine. Further, the Jews who immigrated entered legally and purchased land from the British.

Israel was able to gain independence through the UN Partitions Plan, which divided Palestine into an Arab and Jewish state. In the end, the Arabs rejected the plan and launched a war one day after Israel declared statehood. The war started by the Arabs resulted in Israel obtaining more land than laid out in the partition plan, as is the norm for how most wars over land conclude. Similar to other historical conflicts, such as the 1846 Mexican-American War, when the United States conquered and expanded westward through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, many wars have resulted in territorial gains for the winning side.

Takeaways: 

We often encounter buzzwords like "apartheid," "genocide," and "settler colonialism" chanted at protests or written on flyers around campus. Don’t take them at face value; understanding the history, context, and full implications of these loaded terms is vital to understanding the complexities of this ongoing conflict.

Anna Jacoby