Children oppose Israel's apartheid wall

More than a thousand Palestinian schoolchildren, boys and 
girls from age 6-14, wearing their school uniforms and carrying 
books and supplies, demonstrated on September 13 in the shadows 
of the 15-foot-high concrete "separation barrier" that is being 
built in a-Ram, the bustling town of 60,000 on the West Bank near 
East Jerusalem.

The students, who carried posters reading, "Let us learn!" were 
protesting against the wall for its role in cutting them off from 
their schools on the "Israeli side", only a few dozen yards away. 
Although about 60 percent of a-Ram's residents hold Israeli 
identity cards, the wall will confine many of the town's 
residents to the "Palestinian side" and split up neighbours, 
families, students and teachers.

The 435-mile-long "apartheid wall", as peace and justice 
activists have dubbed it, is being built by the Israeli 
Government of Ariel Sharon to supposedly enhance Israel's 
security. However, Palestinians charge the wall is merely a 
thinly disguised land grab. The World Court at The Hague ruled 
July 9 that the wall is illegal under international law and 
should be torn down.

The Israeli Supreme Court, however, has permitted the government 
to continue building the wall, albeit under some restrictions. 
Since the Court's decision to give the go-ahead, the wall here 
has been going up at great speed. Only a few "holes" remain.

Local officials note that, when the wall is completed, many 
students will have to drop out of school altogether, since there 
are insufficient places at schools remaining on the Palestinian 
side. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that a similar 
situation exists in nearby al-Issawiya.

According to the Oread Daily news service, Abu Rajab is one of at 
least 13 al-Issawiya pupils from kindergarten through sixth grade 
who have been prevented from attending school due to the 
separation barrier. The 10-year-old has been spending his time at 
home or in his yard, occasionally going to the village school to 
see if it will take him in, and then returning home.

Last year, Abu went to Al-Quds al-Islamiyah, a school belonging 
to the Muslim Waqf in Dahiyat al-Barid, but in recent months, the 
wall has sprung up between the school and his home in Issawiya, 
in northern Jerusalem. His parents registered him for the 
Issawiya village school, but were informed at the beginning of 
the year that its classrooms are full.

For the past two years, Issawiya students who attended schools 
elsewhere have had trouble getting to school on time  even before 
the separation wall went up. An Israeli checkpoint at the main 
entrance to Issawiya, which operates irregularly in the morning, 
holds up school buses, so students are sometimes forced to 
transfer to another vehicle waiting on the other side to take 
them to school.

Would-be fifth-grader Karim Mustafa previously attended a school 
in Shuafat and would occasionally arrive two hours late because 
of checkpoint delays. His parents registered him at the local 
school this year, "so he wouldn't keep arriving at different 
times", and he too was barred for lack of room.

Some schools, like that in Issawiya, are filled beyond capacity. 
Others can expect to empty out. Students and teachers on both 
sides of the fence going up will be cut off from their schools, 
placing the fate of some schools in question.

"The problem will reach its height in a month or two, when the 
fence is complete", said a-Ram council head Sirhan Salima, 
warning that "a disaster is coming".

Throughout the demonstration, which was joined by 150 Israeli 
peace activists from Gush Shalom, Ta'ayush, Bat-Shalom, Rabbis 
for Human Rights and others, giant cranes continued to lift 
concrete slabs into place, and a large contingent of the Israeli 
Border Police was deployed along the path of the wall to prevent 
any interference with its construction.

The school crisis is only one of the problems created by the 
wall, which is cutting off a-Ram residents from their businesses 
and workplaces, hospitals, universities and even their cemetery, 
according to Gush Shalom.

In a related development, the US Campaign to End the Israeli 
Occupation and other groups have called on Congress to reject US 
Senate Resolution 408, which endorses Israel's construction of 
the apartheid wall and condemns the World Court's decision.

For more information, visit:www.endtheoccupation.org

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Peoples Weekly World, Communist Party USA