David Bloom says that he believes David Makovsky of WINEP misrepresented to Congress the Palestinian position on the Israeli fence crossing their lands when he said that they would accept it, with compensation. Bloom sent me the following links.
Here is Makovsky's testimony before Congress in 2004:
I happened to speak to the mayor of Qualqilya, and I saw the wall on
the Palestinian side, and I asked him, I said, "If there was a
compensation program to offset some of these hardships, would you be
for it?" He said absolutely. And I think we need to think creatively
for that minority of people who live west of the fence, and we'll get to that in a second — how to create these jobs.
Bloom writes:
Having spent three months in Qalqilya district, including Jayyous, I never met a Palestinian who would accept compensation for their land–regarding it as their ancestral and cultural heritage, the selling of which amounts to collaboration with the Israeli occupiers. Marouf Zahran, the mayor of Qalqilya, told me in a Feb. 9 e-mail:
"It is with deep regret that I learn that David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy implied that I would accept 'compensation' for the impoverishing and destructive effects of Israel's Wall as built around the West Bank town of Qalqilya, the town of which I am Mayor. As I made clear to Mr. Makovsky during his visit that while I would welcome any relief offered to the suffering residents of Qalqilya, such relief would not be necessary if Israel builds its Wall on the border [the Green Line] between what became Israel in 1948 and Occupied Palestinian Territory. I made it very clear to Mr. Makovsky, with the express intent that Mr. Makovsky not misconstrue my statements for his own purposes, that under no conditions would I or the residents of Qalqilya accept or otherwise acquiesce to the construction of the Wall in exchange for compensation. Our property and our human rights are not for sale."
