Israel is due to begin Sunday building a security fence on its border with the West Bank to hinder attacks by Palestinians inside Israel.
The electronically monitored fence is to initially measure 130 kilometers, according to Israeli media reports.
Bulldozers are already in place at the Salem checkpoint north of Jenin where construction will start Sunday after injunctions appropriating land in the area were issued last Thursday.
The fence will run from the Salem checkpoint in the north to Kafar Kassem in the south. Another stretch of fence is planned for the Jerusalem area.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government said continuing Palestinian attacks against Israelis made the fence necessary, but the Palestinian Authority has criticized its construction, saying parts of it will lie on Palestinian-controlled land and it will further restrict the Palestinians' already limited freedom of movement.
Opposition appears to be mounting among Israeli Arabs to building the fence.
After meeting Saturday in Umm al-Fahm, the Supreme Monitoring Committee for Arab Affairs in Israel announced its official opposition to the separation fence, Haaretz reported. The committee's statement said the fence would be mainly to "fortify Israel's conquest and sovereignty in the occupied territories."
The committee also said that under the current plan the fence would run through Arab towns and villages. Also, the committee objects to possible expropriation of hundreds of dunams of land from Arab owners. The committee said the fence "is an attempt to impose a reality of conquest on the Palestinian people." It decided to establish a special public panel to monitor matters connected to the building of the fence in various regions where it is to be erected.
Meanwhile, Palestinian officials were dismissive Saturday of a reported plan under consideration by the Bush administration to create a provisional state of Palestine with limited sovereignty on the approximately 40 percent of West Bank and the two-thirds of the Gaza Strip under Palestinian control. Instead, the Palestinians called for a firm timetable to establish a permanent state on all land captured by Israel in the 1967 war.
Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said provisional states simply do not exist in international relations and that Bush should focus on other angles.
"A state is about power, about sovereignty," Erekat said, noting the Palestinians had declared statehood in 1988 — a symbolic move never recognized internationally. "It's time for this state to exercise its full sovereignty, its full independence. But this cannot be done until after the Israeli withdrawal to the June 4, 1967, borders."
According to The Boston Globe, Palestinian officials who were briefed by American officials said a provisional Palestinian state proposed by Bush would be able to conduct foreign relations, sign treaties and join the United Nations. The plan would leave unresolved the issues of borders and a capital, the newspaper reported. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
