Hafrada

1990s Yitzhak Rabin was the first to propose the creation of a physical barrier between Israelis and Palestinians in 1992, and by 1994, construction on the first barrier – the Gaza-Israel barrier – had begun. In January 1995, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad carried out a double suicide bombing at the Beit Lid Junction near Netanya, killing 22 Israelis. Following the attack, Rabin specified the objectives behind the undertaking, stating that The first Israeli politician to campaign successfully on a platform based explicitly on separation, under the slogan of "Us here. Them there," was Ehud Barak. In the U.S.-based journal Policy Review, Eric Rozenman wrote: The adoption by the Israeli government of a policy of separation is generally credited to the ideas and analysis of Daniel Schueftan as expressed in his 1999 book, ''Korah Ha'hafrada: Yisrael Ve Harashut Ha'falestinit or Disengagement: Israel and the Palestinian Entity''. An alternate translation for the title in English reads, "The Need for Separation: Israel and the Palestinian Authority". In it, Schueftan reviews new and existing arguments underlying different separation stances, in order to make the case for separation from the Palestinians, beginning with those in the West Bank and Gaza. Schueftan favours the "hard separation" stances of politicians like Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak, while characterizing the stance of politicians like Shimon Peres, as "soft separation". As a result, the Israeli government abandoned hopes for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict and embraced a strategy of unilateral disengagement. In February 2001, Meir Indor, lieutenant colonel in the Israeli Defense Forces, submitted that "hafrada (separation) – they are there and we are here" had become the "new ideology" and "new word for those who fantastize about peace". Indor aimed strong criticism toward Ariel Sharon's proposed peace agreement put forward during the 2001 elections in which Sharon claimed he would provide "peace and security" by making "a hafrada the length and breadth of the land". The barrier has been described by Daniel Schueftan as constituting "the physical part of the strategy" of unilateral separation. Schueftan has explained that "It makes the strategy possible because you cannot say 'this is what I will incorporate and this is what I will exclude' without having a physical barrier that prevents movement between the two." In 2005, Israel carried out the disengagement from Gaza (), a unilateral dismantling in 2005 of the 21 Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and the evacuation of Israeli settlers and army from inside the Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had originally dubbed his unilateral disengagement plan – in Hebrew, or – the "separation plan" or before realizing that "separation sounded bad, particularly in English, because it evoked apartheid." Telling The Jerusalem Report in 2005 that he could "even pin the dates on it", he suggested that in 2007 or 2008, there would be another major disengagement in the West Bank; and that before 2015, Israel would unilaterally repartition Jerusalem along lines of its own choosing. Schueftan argued that the "underlying feature" of disengagement is not that it will bring peace, but rather that it will prevent "perpetual terror". 2010s == Analysis and debate ==

In October 2000, Ha’aretz journalist Gideon Levy commented in the Courrier International that public support by an overwhelming majority for "hafrada" was an outgrowth of the average Israeli's indifference to the history and lot of the Palestinians – which he contrasted with Israel's demand that Palestinians study the Holocaust to understand Jewish motivations. In 2002, a television broadcast of The McLaughlin Group on the subject of Israel's separation policy opened with the words: "Jews call it hafrada, 'separation', in Hebrew. Critics call it apartheid. The more technical neo-nomenclature is, quote, unquote, 'unilateral disengagement'. It's an idea that has gained ground in Israel." According to Smith and Cordell, implementation of the Hafrada policy is considered to use cultural autonomy as an excuse for enforced segregation. ==Notable usage examples ==

By Israelis • Eitan Harel, professor of biology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, told Le Monde Diplomatique in May 1996: "Our priorities have changed. The dream of a Greater Israel has been replaced by the reality of a small Israel. What matters to people is to live better here, and if you ask them what they wish for and wait for, the majority response is : hafrada, separation." • Esther Zandberg described an art exhibition entitled "Hafrada (Separation)" in a June 2005 edition of Ha'aretz as consisting of pictures of 12 separation sites photographed by Yair Barak, Orit Siman-Tov and Amit Grun that represent, "apartheid walls between Caesarea and Jisr al-Zarka and between Nir Zvi and the Arab neighborhood of Pardes Snir in Lod; the architectural monstrosity of the Carmel Beach Towers in Haifa, which stick up like a raised fist opposite the distressed neighborhood of Neveh David; the threatening wall surrounding the luxury residential Holyland neighborhood in Jerusalem; and several other sites." while noting its similarity in meaning to the word apartheid. • In a 2006 discussion on the prospects for peaceful resolution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict sponsored by The Institute of Strategic and Development Studies, Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, a former Yale professor and geneticist and advocate for a one-state solution, said: "Now, Israel today uses a new word. You probably have heard it mistranslated. In Hebrew it's called hafrada. Hafrada means literally segregation or separation. But in the worst Israeli propaganda machine at CNN and other news outlets, they use the word 'convergence'—you heard about Olmert's convergence. Convergence doesn't mean anything. What is convergence? It's not a translation of hafrada. Hafrada means segregation, separation; that's what it means." By activists and advocacy organizations • The Israeli West Bank Barrier or ''Geder Ha'hafrada'' is known in some activist circles as the Hafrada Wall. • In 2006, James Bowen wrote in an opinion editorial in Haaretz that he and fellow activists from the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign see, "hafrada (separation) [a]s the Zionist form of apartheid" and argued that "Israel should be treated like the old South Africa." By journalists • On 26 May 2006, David Pratt, Scottish Sunday Herald Foreign Editor wrote that: "Even among Israelis, the term 'Hafrada', 'separation or apartheid in Hebrew' has entered the mainstream lexicon, despite strident denials by the Jewish state that it is engaged in any such process." • In a January 2007 article entitled "Further footnotes on Zionism, Yoder and Boyarin", Alain Epp Weaver wrote that it was, "strategic demographic and territorial goals" that gave birth to "a policy of hafrada, Hebrew for separation." == See also ==