'Sharon Wall' shy on cement
2003-07-23 08:03
Jerusalem - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is continuing to defy Washington on the project for a massive fence dividing Israel from the West Bank.
The project is strongly opposed by the Palestinians and not fully accepted even within his own camp.
A vote due to take place on Tuesday in the Israeli parliament to decide on extra funding to complete the structure was postponed until further notice, said a Knesset spokesperson.
Public radio said the delay was caused by members of Sharon's Likud Party, who defied their leader's call on Monday to approve the 750m-shekel (about R1 288m) package and demanded the route of the fence be discussed further.
On Monday, defence minister Shaul Mofaz confirmed the 350km fence - aimed at preventing infiltrations by Palestinian militants - would penetrate about 15km into the West Bank to take in Ariel, one of the largest Jewish settlements there.
According to public radio, Mofaz argued the fence - which he said would cost $2.2m (about R16.7m) a kilometre - was "vital" for Israel's security.
If it was not completed, the deployment of extra army reservists would be even more costly, he warned.
Leaves villages cut off
The fence loosely follows the 1967 Green Line division between Israel and the West Bank, but it dips deep into occupied Palestinian territory at several points in order to protect settlements.
It also leaves several Palestinian villages cut off from the rest of the West Bank.
The Palestinians accuse Israel of using the fence to unilaterally determine the borders of a future Palestinian state - scheduled under the United States-backed peace roadmap to be in place in 2005 - and of wanting to "ethnically cleanse" the West Bank with a de facto annexation of its most-fertile regions.
Construction of the fence was launched in June 2002. It is also expected to cut annexed east Jerusalem off from the rest of the West Bank and a first 145km section is due for completion in July.
Even although prospects for peace are better than they have been for years, Sharon told his followers on Monday the best possible fence must be built as quickly as possible.
Opinion polls show a majority of Israelis are in favour of it, although the religious right and settlers, paradoxically, are opposed, saying the biblical Israel includes the West Bank and should not be divided.
US President George W Bush's national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, on a visit to Jerusalem at the end of June, asked Sharon to revise the line of the fence.
Cost will run into billions
Sharon refused to compromise, but assured Rice it was not a frontier.
A second section, of about 60km to 70km, is under construction in the northeast of the West Bank, to prevent infiltrations in the north of the Jordan Valley.
Government spokesperson Avi Pazner said: "We envisage this barrier will run along the length of the Palestinian territories."
The Israeli daily, Maariv, for its part, said the various meanderings of the fence, which in one part near Jenin consists of a high concrete wall, would bring its total length to between 800km and 900km.
At the price a kilometre given by Mofaz, this would cost a staggering $1.8bn (about R13.6bn), at a time when Israel was in severe economic straits.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas will raise the question of the fence when he has his first White House meeting with Bush on Friday. And Bush is almost certain to raise it with Sharon at their talks, four days later.
A foreign diplomat, however, said Sharon still appeared to be ambivalent.
"Sharon was elected at the beginning of 2001. So, he has been around for 2½ years and he hasn't built the wall.
"So, I think he is delaying it as much as possible... hoping he can push it to the back burner."
- AFX