US ends efforts to halt Israel's security wall (We Won - State Dept Loses!)

The Financial Time ^ | October 24 2003 | Guy Dinmore

[Pubbie]

The US has dropped its opposition to Israel's construction of security barriers through the West Bank and is involved in detailed negotiations over project that has divided communities and disrupted the lives of thousands of Palestinians.

The US administration, which had called the wall "a problem", says it wants to minimise the impact on Palestinians of Israel's efforts to protect its settlers on occupied land and stop infiltration by militants into Israel itself. Officials insist the Bush administration is seeking to keep the barrier close to the pre-1967 border.

Commentators close to both sides said yesterday that negotiations over the wall, which may eventually cover several hundred miles at a cost of $1.5bn, had become the central element of US policy in the region following the collapse of the "road map" peace process.

"The fence is now the name of the game," said Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Privately, US officials concede that with a US election one year away, the administration is unlikely to confront Israel over the issue and alienate the powerful Jewish lobby.

But diplomats warn that the change in US policy is breaking apart the "quartet" - the US, European Union, Russia and the United Nations - that launched the road map.

This week the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a non-binding, EU-backed resolution calling on Israel to halt construction. Only four countries voted against - the US, Israel, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands.

The Bush administration's threat to reduce $9bn in loan guarantees to Israel in response to the building of the barrier has had a limited impact on Israeli decisions. But plans for the most controversial sections cutting through East Jerusalem and down the Jordan Valley have not been finalised.

US aviation security experts are in Israel discussing a proposed section that is intended to protect Ben Gurion airport from attack but will cut through Palestinian neighbourhoods.

Israeli officials said the US had specifically approved parts of the fence and wall built on the northwest fringes of the West Bank that have left 13 Palestinian villages and nearly 12,000 people virtually marooned on the Israeli-occupied side. The US State Department denied this, but sources close to the administration said opposition had been abandoned.

B'tselem, an Israeli human rights group, estimates that the first stage of the construction, running for about 130km and in most places 60 to 100 metres wide, has consumed 2,850 acres of Palestinian land and will give only limited access for 72,000 people to their farmland. Most sections do not follow the pre-1967 border.

In July, President George W. Bush pronounced the barrier a "problem".

With Mahmoud Abbas, then Palestinian prime minister, by his side in the White House, he told reporters: "It is very difficult to develop confidence between the Palestinians and Israel with a wall snaking through the West Bank."

[freedumb2003]

We need a wall around the state department.

Could we make it watertight?

How about airtight?

[OldFriend]

For once the america hating denizens of the US State Department are on the losing end.

[polemikos]

But diplomats warn that the change in US policy is breaking apart the "quartet" - the US, European Union, Russia and the United Nations - that launched the road map.

The obvious money quote. ;-)

This calls for a "warning" or a "celebration"?

[thinktwice]

The Berlin Wall was one of the dumbest things Russia ever did, and so it will be for the Palestine wall.

Russians were kept busy killing people trying to cross the Russian wall, and so it will be for Israelis.

Police up the Palestinian terrorist leadership; it is stupid to infuriate decent Palestineans AND the entire world.

[Cinnamon Girl]

You = crazy.

[thinktwice]

The wall will mean war, a war that will have most of the world rooting for Palestineans because of the wall.

[RightWhale]

The fence is going to allow a great reduction in numbers of attacks. It might not stop the mad bombers, but casual cross-border assaults are going to be nearly eliminated.

[Cinnamon Girl]

I guess you didn't get the memo, but most of the world roots for the Palestinians anyway. Israel has lost too many good people to the filthy Palestinian vermin scum because of their leftist concern for world opinion. Just as it is a mistake for the U.S. to follow the will of the E.U. U.N. ASSES, it is a mistake for Israel to do so as well.

[goldstategop]

I have to correct a misapprehension here. The infamous Berlin Wall was built by the Communists to keep people in. Israel's security fence is being built to keep homocide bombers out. So there is already a big moral and qualitative difference between the two construction projects. Besides, Israel has said when the Palestinians show they are ready to live in peace with Israel, one day that wall will come down. In the meantime, it will help make the two sides, in Robert Frost's famous aphorism, to be "good neighbors."

[vbmoneyspender]

The wall will mean war . . .

As opposed to what is going on now, which you would describe as . . . .?

[rmlew]

Isn't the Gaza Strip and West Bank part of Israel?
Historically, it varies. For the moment, I'll just talk about the 20th century.
In 1922, the British colonial outpost of Palestine was divided. 3/4 of the territory, Trans-Jordanian Palestine became the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan, which was to be home for the Palestinian Arabs. The boundaries are roughly those of modern Jordan. The Golan Heights were given to French Syria.
The remainder, or Cis-Jordan became the British Mandate of Palestine for the creation of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine. Unfortunately, the British continued to allow Arab immigration after 1922 and then installed a viciously anti-Semitic Grand Muft, Haj Amin Al-Husseini (Abdul Raouf Husseini, aka Yassir Arafat, claims to be a cousin of this friend of the SS). The Grand Mufti used his position to incite both the pre-1890 Arabs and the immigrant Arabs against the Jews. There were a series of riots and massacres, the worst being one in Hebron where a 3000 year old community was expelled in 1927 after many members were killed. The British responded by arming Arab militia and suspending Jewish migration to Palestine. The inevitable result was a large surge in Arab population to prevent the creation of Israel.
In 1947 after years of terrorism, the British decided to give up and turned the problem over to the UN. The UN divided Palestine roughly along ethnic lines. The Arabs rejected teh plan and invaded. At the end of the Israeli War of Independence, Palestine was divided into Israel and the Egyptian occupied Gaza strip and Jordanian occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem (traditionally Arab my ASS!).
The Gazans became Egyptians adn the West Bank Arabs became Jordanian. (Tranjordan became Jordan in 1949?).
Israel Captured Gaza, the West Bank, Golan Heights, and Sinain peninsula in 1967.

I consider Gaza, the West Bank (also called Judea and Samaria), and the Golan Heights to be part of Israel. Israel annexed the Golan Hieghts and all of Jerusalem. The rest is up for negotiation.

Why doesn't the IDF reclaim these areas and 'deport' anyone that does not want to live by Israeli laws? Heck, are these Palestinians even classified as Israeli citizens?
Arabs who chose to remain in Israel during and after the war of Independence are full citizens. Those in the contested territories are not.
I support deportation with compensation.

[Beck_isright]

" Police up the Palestinian terrorist leadership; it is stupid to infuriate decent Palestineans AND the entire world."

Screw them all. Let's sell the IAF our old B-52's in mothballs so they can carpet bomb them back to the stone age.

[Jumper]

Too bad we cannot just relocate all the Jews to the United States, and then if the Religion of Peace harms any or them or any of "US"A, we could then deal with that community by moving them.

[RightWhale]

Russians were kept busy killing people trying to cross the Russian wall, and so it will be for Israelis.

Completely different. The Berlin Wall was to keep people in. Palestinians aren't driven to escape from Palestine. No comparison.

[Swanks]

The wall will serve as a death blow to any tourism as well if indeed tourism is 'dead' already. Years ago foreigners would travel to Bethlehem and Narareth. Today you would take your life in your hands, going there. Tommorrow the added psychological baggage of a wall and checkpoints keeping you from 'escaping' back to safety will drive any remaining tourists (probably only the French remain) to 0%.

Then again, tourism in Palestine was prob. down to $2.5M yearly anyway. Maybe the Pali's can see their 'stuff' on e-Bay.

[RightWhale]

Maybe. Checkpoint Charlie was a tourist draw in itself; people would find something to vist in East Berlin just for the heck of it. The Zone side was uptight, of course, but that made the experience memorable.

[FreedomPoster]

I don't see that as an either/or situation, but more of a both/and opportunity.

[LittleBoPeep]

Excellent idea! Move the fence after every terrorist attack!!

[gcruse]

Woo hoo. Next, maybe we'll let Taiwan buy whatever she needs to defend herself.