United Press International
July 27, 2004 Tuesday 18:28 PM Eastern Time
Israel reconsiders barrier’s route
By JOSHUA BRILLIANT
JERUSALEM, July 27 (UPI)
The crossing point between Jerusalem and Abu Dis seemed very busy. A
Palestinian woman approached it holding her little boy’s hand, a man
using a cane went over slowly, while in the other direction a
Palestinian waiter carried a tray with small cups of coffee and
another man carried pipes on his shoulder.
It would be a normal crossing point at the end of a short East
Jerusalem street except that it ended with a gray concrete wall
forcing people to climb over it.
A green Border Police jeep was parked at the intersection, a few feet
away. Armed policemen milled around, one of them holding a fat gray
canister — a stun grenade. No one seemed to stop and check the
Palestinians who came across and boarded taxis.
Retired Col. Shaul Arieli, who devised an alternative separation
line, said the guards usually know the people.
Down the road a 9-meter-high (30-foot-high) gray wall cuts across the
old Jerusalem-Jericho road. Its sheer height prevents people from
jumping over it. And that area, indeed, looks like a dead end would,
the road to it covered with dust and garbage.
The wall is part of the barrier Israel is building in and around the
West Bank, which the government says will prevent militants from
crossing. The defense establishment opted for a wall inside Jerusalem
because it takes up much less space than the system of triple fences
and patrol roads that Israel has been building elsewhere in the West
Bank.
Eventually the wall will cover 3 percent of the barrier and most of
it will be in Jerusalem, Ariel said.
Graffiti already covers part of it, and it seems as though all sides
have had their say there.
“All the respect to the Border Police,” someone scribbled in Hebrew.
“From the Warsaw Ghetto to the Abu Dis Ghetto,” someone wrote in
English, alluding to the Palestinians who find themselves fenced in.
A visiting Scotsman painted his blue flag with a white X adding,
“Scotland supports Palestine.” The lower part of two of the wall’s
slabs was painted white, and Arieli said the Defense Ministry was
testing a type of paint that would make it easy to erase graffiti.
Meanwhile in Tel Aviv, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz approved proposed
amendments to the barrier’s route.
The barrier, which Palestinians charge is a land grab, has drawn much
criticism from international and Israeli human rights groups. In a
non-binding advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice at
The Hague on July 9 ruled the barrier illegal and said that it should
be torn down and compensation given to Palestinians for any damage
caused by its construction.
Last Wednesday, a non-binding resolution passed by the U.N. General
Assembly after a 150-6 vote with 10 abstentions demanded that Israel
destroy the barrier in accordance with the ICJ’s ruling.
Last month, Israel’s High Court of Justice ordered the government to
reconsider the a portion of the route and take into account not only
Israel’s security needs but also the effect the barrier would have on
the lives — and livelihood — of the Palestinians living there.
Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim told United Press International the
newly approve route “accords more weight” to Palestinian access to
work and agricultural fields and the way of life. In some places, the
barrier will now run closer to the pre-1967 war lines.
Now the Justice Ministry will consider the plan to assess whether it
fits the criteria the judges have set and whether the state stands a
good chance of defending its actions should the Palestinians appeal
again.
No decision was taken with regard to 10 sections, including the
village of Azun Atmeh, at the western edge of the West Bank, near
several settlements. Mofaz would like to hold on to Beit Iksa, north
of Jerusalem, but other officials recommended not to.
Nor has there been a decision on the area surrounding Jerusalem
itself and the southern West Bank, the Defense Ministry said.
Israeli officials maintained parts of the barrier already built led
to a dramatic drop in the number of suicide bombing attacks,
casualties and even car thefts.
However, Israeli doves are advocating more changes in the barrier’s
route.
Arieli, who helped draw the Geneva Initiative’s maps, Tuesday took
reporters to a roof at Nebi Samuel, north of Jerusalem.
That vantage point overlooks the entire area between Jerusalem and
Ramallah, the Arab villages there, the settlement towns Israel has
built, the highway linking Israel’s coastal plain to Jerusalem, and
Camp Ofer where Palestinian detainees are held.
Ariel showed the barrier’s route could be redrawn to surround the
Jewish settlements, link them to Jerusalem on an existing four lane
highway that would be part of a 250-meter-wide (1/2-mile) corridor
and thus leave the Palestinian villages and fields outside Israeli
control.
Jerusalem, too, should be divided so that Israel would control only
the Jewish neighborhoods, he said.
If that were done, Israel would keep only 7,120 acres of East
Jerusalem’s area compared with almost 15,000 acres under the
government’s original plan.
Instead of having to rule over 230,000 Palestinians, it would have no
Palestinians. Its area would encompass the homes of 195,000 Israelis
who have built their several East Jerusalem neighborhoods.
The Geneva Initiative proposes a land swap in which Israel would keep
some West Bank areas in exchange for an equal amount of land near the
Gaza Strip.
The alternative of pulling all the 400,000 Jews out of the West Bank
and East Jerusalem is “almost impossible to do,” Arieli said. Nor
would it be possible to keep all the occupied territories and leave
the settlers everywhere, he added.
According to the Geneva Initiative the Old City of Jerusalem would be
divided so that the Christian, Muslim and half the Armenian Quarter
would come under Palestinian sovereignty, the Jewish Quarter and the
other half of the Armenian Quarter where Jews live would come under
Israeli sovereignty.
The Temple Mount would be Palestinian, the Western Wall Israeli and
there would be no physical boundary lines within the walled area.
A force of Israelis, Palestinians and international troops would be
headquartered near the Jaffa Gate, at a building which has served
successive police forces of the powers that ruled in Jerusalem, Ariel
said.