Even as the five women who spoke at Notre Dame across from the New Gate in E. Jerusalem presented their views of how to get -'beyond the fence', Hanan Ashrawi's absence gave substance to the picture her co-panelists painted of life in the territories with 'the fence'. Ashrawi was unable to attend as scheduled because of the closure of Ramallah, and the whole West Bank. With this backdrop to the evening, Galia Golan, Rema Hammami, Inas Haj, Tanya Reinhart, and moderator MK Naomi Chazan, raised the many issues involved in the various plans currently on the table for unilateral separation, unilateral withdrawal, and transfer.

Professor Galia Golan, a Bat Shalom Board member, laid out the various options for unilateral action, giving a critical perspectives on each. While 60-70% of Jews in Israel support 'separation', everyone has a different idea of what that means, Golan said. Still, the fence is not the main feature of most plans, except Ben-Eliezer's, she claimed. While Sharon probably agreed to the fence as a 'psychological sop' to the public (in the face of continuing suicide bombings), despite right wing opposition to a fence along the Green Line, the one potentially positive thing about the fence, Golan argued, is that it does partially follow the 1967 borders. On the other hand, she cautioned, referring to a map printed in Ha'aretz, the fence will be mostly to the east of the Green Line rather than directly on it. Adding the 'buffer zones' (which we are familiar with from Lebanon, Golan noted), a substantial percentage of the West Bank will be swallowed up by these 'security measures'. This keeps the IDF in the territories and the Palestinians in a cage, or many cages because of the land taken up by settlements and settlement roads, Golan warned.

Another prominent plan is that proposed by Haim Ramon, one of Ben-Eliezer's rivals in the Labor Party. According to Ramon, Israel should decide where it wants its final border, withdraw to it, put up a barrier, and dismantle all settlements beyond it. Similar is the plan of the Council on Peace and Security, the main difference being that CPS wants to hold on to the Jordan Rift Valley and Ramon does not specify what to do with the valley. The problem with these proposals, according to Golan, is that the plans are unilateral, meaning that Israel decides without negotiation with the Palestinians. These plans encourage the racist notion that negotiated settlement with the Palestinians is not possible, Golan said. Alternative to the Ramon, CPS, and Ben-Eliezer plans, are plans that call for 'some unilateral steps' until negotiations can be resumed. For example, 'Gaza First' style steps (dismantling all settlements in Gaza and withdrawing completely from the Strip), and taking down some settlements in the West Bank, are possible unilateral steps. Dismantling even one settlement might go a long way toward showing the Palestinians that they really do have a partner for peace in Israel, but these steps are still unilateral and not about negotiation. Finally, Golan mentioned the possibility of 'unilateral withdrawal', which looks similar to separation, she said. The bottom line is we (on the left) do not want to create 'facts on the ground' that we will regret later (i.e., only partial withdrawal, to less than the 1967 borders, that might create a fixed border), nor do we want a plan which is decided upon without consulting the Palestinians.

The second speaker, Rema Hammami, professor in the Institute for Women's Studies at Birzeit University, and a Jerusalemite, explained that there is not really a Palestinian discussion about unilateral separation or withdrawal, but only a debate among Israelis, concerning what the stronger side will decide to do to the weaker side. The whole concept of unilateral separation is met with distrust among Palestinians because separation is understood by Palestinians as closure - either like Gaza, one big prison - or like both Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian communities separated from each other (lots of mini-Gazas). Nevertheless, Hammami had felt some hope in the original Ramon plan (at least as outlined in Ha'aretz) because it suggested a way out of the current impasse, with Israel handing over 80% of the West Bank to an international mandate. Israel would not be giving the PA a 'reward for terrorism' and the PA would not be given 'control' over Israeli security. In addition, the plan would give Palestinians the protection of an international force, which has been wanted and needed, and a space to rebuild civil institutions and infrastructure. Hammami admitted that perhaps this was her subjective reading of the Ramon plan, but if it was carried out that way, she felt it would be worthwhile. However, Hammami said, Ramon's plan dropped the international force and added a fence, and in any case, Ramon's idea was not taken up by the recent Labor Party convention, which instead adopted Ben-Eliezer's plan.

Hammami then described the situation as it stands now. Bush's speech delivered Palestinian destiny fully into the hands of Ariel Sharon for the foreseeable future, and there are not going to be changes in political leadership anywhere (the PA, Israel, or the United States) soon. Reoccupation, which Sharon wants, is the furthest thing possible from separation - it only further involves the Israelis and the Palestinians together. Yet separation without negotiation can only happen through the intervention of an outside international force, as in Ramon's original proposal.

The next speaker, Inas Haj from the National Democratic Assembly (BALAD Party), explained the significance of separation for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and she began with some points about the occupied territories. Israel has a problem with the Palestinians in the territories, she said. Unwilling and unable to give citizenship to them because it would upset the demographics of the Jewish state, Israel wants to get rid of them, either by separation or transfer. Israel's policy toward the territories is based on racial separation, and creates a de facto apartheid. She then went on to argue that apartheid is penetrating into the State of Israel (inside the Green Line). The sole ideology of apartheid is racism, Haj noted, and she described how that ideology is affecting the Palestinians inside Israel. Arab citizens of Israel are perceived as a strategic danger to the state, in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Israel is trying to control the numbers of Palestinian citizens of Israel by preventing family reunification, which means that if any citizen of Israel marries a Palestinian (who is not a citizen), they cannot apply for citizenship for the Palestinian spouse. Another attempt to control the size of the Palestinian population in Israel is through cutting of child allowances, specifically a 25% cut in child allowances for families without members in the army. While this cut would seem to affect the ultra-orthodox and new immigrants as well, Haj pointed out that these groups can be compensated for the loss by the Ministry of Religion and the Jewish Agency.

Israel is trying to control the Palestinian population in Israel through two laws that attempt to prevent Palestinian citizens of Israel from solidifying their national identity, Haj argued. One of these laws forbids any citizen of Israel to support Palestinian resistance to Israel in the territories. The second law says that anyone who directly or indirectly denies the Jewish nature of the State of Israel, or sympathizes with armed struggle against Israel, cannot run for Knesset. These laws constitute constraints on freedom of speech as well as a kind of ethnic insularity, according to Haj, and they are not just a passing mood because they are part of a strategic plan. She suggested that it will not be long before some government official recommends that rather than going back to 1967, Israel should go back to 1965, when Arab citizens of Israel were under strict military administration.

The fourth speaker, Tanya Reinhart, professor of linguistics at Tel Aviv University, pointed out that we only have to look at Gaza to see what Israel might mean by separation. Gaza is a model for separation that Israel is beginning to implement successfully in the West Bank, Reinhart argued. The peace camp made a mistake using the term separation, beginning with Peace Now, according to Reinhart. (Galia Golan, a member of Peace Now, argued with Reinhart on this point, protesting that Peace Now never used the term separation.) Reinhart noted that Israel has three other models (besides Gaza) to follow for what to do in the current situation. The first model is Egypt - settlements given up during the negotiation process. The second model is Lebanon - unilateral withdrawal. The third model is Oslo - eternal negotiations.

Reinhart proceeded to argue for the Lebanon model. In a Peace Now poll approximately a month and a half ago, 60% of Israelis supported immediate dismantling of most settlements and IDF withdrawal from most of the territories. Reinhart argued that there is support in the establishment for this, pointing out that the Council for Peace and Security proposed something similar at first, though they retracted it later. Forty or fifty isolated settlements sit on 42% of the West Bank, and these could be dismantled easily. Over other issues, such as Jerusalem and refugees, negotiations are needed, but why not 'latzet miyad m'hashtachim' (get out of the territories immediately), Reinhart asked. She said that despite the fear that if we do not get out fully, the situation will freeze with a state for the Palestinians on only part of the West Bank, that would be better than the situation is now.

The last speaker was the moderator Naomi Chazan, Member of Knesset from Meretz and Bat Shalom board member. As Chazan noted, the situation on the ground is one of 'Palestans' (Bantustans for Palestinians), and an administrative vacuum is being created in the territories. Unilateral separation is not a replacement for negotiations, but a move away from negotiations, and another pernicious form of occupation, Chazan said. The purpose of unilateral steps is to sanction the situation on the ground, and those who disagree with the situation on the ground cannot support these steps. She pointed out that the original Ramon plan that Rema Hammami longed for was actually the Ramon-Ben Ami plan, and that the international mandate disappeared from the plan with Ben Ami. Finally, she echoed Tanya Reinhart's argument that although withdrawal from 100% of the territories would be ideal, unilateral withdrawal from even 80% is better than what we have now.

An extended and fruitful discussion followed the presentations, and Bat Shalom was asked to provide follow-up forums to elucidate these and other questions on our current political agenda.