In the village of Jayyus, close to Qalqilya, 30% of the village's land is on the other side of the wall. In order to get to their land, farmers have to go through Gate 34, which is only open for 3 short periods a day. At the time we visited, there had been a new military order which meant that the gate had been closed for the past few weeks. Farmers were staging protests at the gate.
Qalqilya itself is now surrounded on three sides by the wall. Going in we passed through three tunnels under roads for Israeli settlers, with gates that could be closed quite easily. Even in apartheid South Africa, they never had separate roads for blacks and whites. The mayor of Qalquilya is currently in prison.
We heard a presentation from a farmers' representative. During the period of Jordanian rule (1949-67) the Israelis made repeated attacks on the across the border, damaging wells and petrol stations.
Since it came under Israeli rule in 1967 settlements have been built in the area, not at random, but on top of access to water resources. In the Qalqilya area 35 square kilometres of land have been confiscated to build the wall, and 38 square kilometres are under military control, as are 19 wells. 1500 trees have been uprooted, 927 000 square metres of irrigation systems damaged.
The wall has damaged people's health as patients now need to take long detours to get to hospital, and in one incident a doctor had to give a patient an injection through the fence.
We had some discussion about whether the Israelis are simply trying to get the Palestinians to leave for other Arab countries, or trying to drive them off their land to turn them into a cheap labour source, the former explanation seems more likely.
In Jerusalem we visited Mordechai Vanunu, who is now largely confined to a Christian religious centre, I said to him "Hope to see you in Glasgow soon." Some of us went and painted an SPS mural on a stretch of the wall in East Jerusalem.
Most Israeli settlements in the West Bank are set apart, like nice suburbs on strategically important hillsides. However, in Hebaen you have a small group of Israeli settlers right in the city centre, with large numbers of soldiers guarding them.
This was a bizarre place, we saw streets with grilles above them, containing the rubbish which the settlers throw down on people from the houses above.
What used to be the market in the city centre is now deserted, a new market has sprung up some distance away.
We got into a confrontation with a soldier who objected to one of the group taking a photograph. This was the hairiest moment in the whole trip, but we eventually persuaded him to give the camera back.
We are now writing a formal report on the trip, which we intend to present
various bodies in including all MSPs. We hope to take a larger delegation out next year. I am available to give a report on the delegation anywhere, if my expenses are paid. See also: www.alternativenews.org www.jenincharitablesociety.org Terry Conway The withdrawal of Israeli settlements from the Gaza strip will undoubtedly result in some improvement in the lives of the 1.3 million Palestinians who eke out a miserable existence in the most densely populated place on earth - and as such is to be welcomed.
The settlers were around 0.5 per cent of the population of Gaza, but occupied about a quarter of the land. Each settler consumed on average of about 1,000 cbm of fresh, clean water annually, much of it coming directly from Israel - compared to the 123 cbm of brackish and polluted water used by each Palestinian from an over-pumped and therefore polluted aquifer.
But the dismantling of the settlements does not mean that the Palestinians will now have access to clean drinking water. The population of the strip has more than doubled since 1970, and the aquifer itself cannot meet the needs of the population.
But Israel adamantly refuses Palestinian requests to transport water to the Strip from the West Bank. And according to the Oslo Accords, Israel is required to sell the Strip 10 million com annually. For years, five million cbm have been sold. The Palestinian Authority cannot afford the cost of the rest.
This is one of the ways in which Gaza itself remains a hellhole. The settlements have gone but Israel still remains master of Gaza. Israel controls all access to the strip by land, sea and air. Gaza remains cut off from the West Bank.
Israeli Jewish journalist Amira Hass puts it like this:
"A big, well-fed goat was removed from the Gaza Strip this Sharon has made previous promises - for example to freeze settlements -which he has broken week. And therefore, the sense of relief felt by many of the 99.5 percent is understandablealthough it is a far cry from the reality emerging from the sosuperficial media reports that are focusing on the celebrations of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. In the words last week in the Khan Yunis refugee camp of a former worker at one of the settlements: "The settlements divided the Strip into three or four prisons. Now, we will live in one big prison - a more comfortable one, but a prison nevertheless."
Further Ariel Sharon has made it clear that Israel will not dismantle settlements in the West Bank let alone negotiate over the status of Jerusalem or allow the right of return for Palestinians expelled from their homeland since 1948.
So why did Sharon withdraw from Gaza in the first place, given the opposition it unleashed including within his Likud party, with Benjamin Netanyahu challenging him for the leadership?
A recent article by Tanya Reinhart on Z-net (www.zmag.org/content/showart icle.cfm?SectionID=107<emID =8540) argues convincingly that Sharon never expected that the withdrawal would actually take place. Sharon has made previous promises for example to freeze settlements which he has broken, using variously pretexts about the supposed unreliability of his Palestinian "partners" whether Arafat or Abbas.
What has changed this time round is the attitude of the American administration. Its not of course that George W has become a champion of the Palestinian people. However, as he has his hands increasingly full in Iraq, he cannot afford more trouble in the Middle East.
These shifts are shown not only in the unfriendly visit of Condoleeza Rice in July but more tellingly in the freezing of military aid to the Israeli state.
Such an argument is given even more credence by reports in the Guardian on September 3 that the Israelis have also been forced to promise to at least a temporary freeze on the expansion of the 30,000 strong West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim which it had planned to incorporate into Jerusalem.
This may also help explain why in the end the resistance of the majority of the settlers was less prolonged than many had feared. Socialist Resistance has always argued that the support of American imperialism is the life-blood of the Zionist project.
In this context too, Netanyahu's challenge for the leadership of Likud may be less successful than he is hoping. While Bibi is the closest thing Israeli politics as to the model of neo-liberalism that US imperialism would love to see in office, George W no longer holds all the cards.
The biggest blow we could strike for Palestinian liberation is to force the US and their allies to withdraw from Iraq - a prospect that looks more possible than it did before Bush's popularity was shaken by the twin blows of the resurgence of the anti-war movement at home after the inspired campaign of Cindy Sheehan and the fall out from the hurricane in the Southern Gulf. A massive turn out on September 24 will add to this pressure. From the end of September 2000 until today 1,719 Palestinians