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July 13, 2001/Tamuz 22, 5761, Vol. 53, No.40
Israeli-Palestinian separation plan posed as solution
GIL SEDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - Even as attempts to save a fragile U.S.-brokered cease-fire continue, a "solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is quietly being implemented.
Local councils along the Green Line - the pre-1967 border between Israel and the West Bank - are building local "agricultural security fences."
The short-term idea of the fences is to cut down on Palestinian infiltrators. But the fences are also part of a longer-term idea of separation between Israel and the Palestinians that is gaining in popularity among disillusioned supporters of the Oslo peace process.
The Israeli government has refrained so far from adopting an official decision to erect a wall along the 200-mile border, for both financial and ideological reasons.
While the idea has long been floated as a possibility, the specifics of a possible plan were presented last week by scholars at a conference here.
Israel should announce the unilateral withdrawal from Jewish settlements in Gaza, where some 2,200 settlers are surrounded by close to 1 million Palestinians, said Shlomo Avineri, a scholar who was a passionate supporter of the Oslo accords - and who now backs the separation idea.
As far as Jerusalem goes, former Internal Security Minister Moshe Shahal, who seven years ago proposed the creation of the separation line, proposes that Arab neighborhoods outside the Old City should be turned over to the Palestinian Authority, with checkpoints into Jerusalem proper.
Proponents of the plan say that while Israel's borders would not be final, a certain truce could be achieved, such as the quiet on Israel's current border with Syria.
staunchly oppose the plan for ideological reasons, albeit different ones: They fear the fences will lead Israel to ignore the precarious situation of West Bank settlers.
But these voices not only are becoming a minority - they now fly in the face of the fence-building work.
"Sometimes you pay dearly for financial savings," Shahal said. "By failing to erect the separation line in time, we have not saved money, but we continue to pay the heavy price of human lives."
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