Haaretz
Tamuz 6, 5765
The government's decision
Sunday to speed up preparations for completing the "Jerusalem envelope"
project exposes anew the attempt to use the security fence for issues that
have no connection to the security of the citizens of Israel.
In a
statement to the High Court of Justice, the state prosecution did not hide
that the government is taking political, and not just security,
considerations into account.
Yet, out of the 130 kilometers of the
fence in the Jerusalem area, 102 kilometers are on West Bank territory, to
a depth of up to 10 kilometers. Only four kilometers are within the
municipal border established with the annexation of East Jerusalem. Twelve
kilometers effectively remove from the municipal boundaries the areas
housing 55,000 Palestinians for whom the government now wants to do the
right thing.
The experience of the last 38 years was necessary to
teach the decision makers that every attempt to separate East Jerusalem
and the territories via a municipal border, roadblocks, administrative
injunctions or concrete walls is destined to fail.
Now the
government wants to insert a wedge in the heart of Jerusalem's Arab
neighborhoods, in addition to establishing a physical barrier between
190,000 East Jerusalem residents and their brothers living in Ramallah and
Bethlehem.
It's difficult to tell how this particular route will
be a burden to the terror organizations, which, according to the
prosecution statement to the High Court, "used the direct connection
between the Judea and Samaria population and East Jerusalem, and from
there to Jerusalem itself, in order to carry out dozens of terror
attacks."
After all, the concrete walls, which will further
disrupt the close connection with East Jerusalem residents on the social,
political and economic front, are likely to increase their hostility
toward the State of Israel and their motivation to harm its
citizens.
Even if, by some miracle, the government ministries and
the municipality manage to complete their preparations for carrying out in
53 days 34 tasks that are meant to minimize the damage to the quality of
life of tens of thousands of Jerusalem residents who will be moved outside
the fence, it's doubtful whether the move will suffice for the High Court,
or blunt the criticism of the international community.
Previous
High Court rulings on changing the route of the fence, where the court was
persuaded that doing so would not damage security, should have led the
government to delay construction in controversial areas of the "Jerusalem
envelope," pending a court decision. The Bush administration's resolute
opposition to the E1 plan, which effectively annexes Ma'aleh Adumim to
Jerusalem, should have prevented the politicians from acting in a way that
seems to be an attempt to violate its commitment to refrain from
unilateral annexation of West Bank land.
One may find some comfort,
and even encouragement, from the decision made by a Likud-led government
to use the concrete walls to stray (on both sides) from the municipal
border of the city, thereby chipping away at the taboo of "dividing
Jerusalem."
Ehud Barak was the first Israeli leader who put the
borders of Jerusalem on the political agenda. Ariel Sharon is the first
Israeli leader who has proven, in an official government decision, that
the borders established hastily and arbitrarily in 1967 are not
sacred.