Jordan Times
Sunday, August 1, 2004
Foreign minister tells Israeli
daily West Bank barrier a security threat
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AFP) — Palestinians will have no choice but to flock to
Jordan once Israel completes it West Bank barrier, Foreign Minister Marwan
Muasher told the daily Haaretz in an interview published Friday, slamming the
prospect as a “national security threat.”
Muasher said the fence “will divide the West Bank into three parts, and every
Palestinian will need an Israeli permit to go from one part to another.
“In the long-run, they'll have the following options — to seek Israeli
citizenship, which won't happen, to continue living under occupation forever, or
to emigrate to Jordan. It's clear which option they'll choose,” he said.
“This affects our national security. Jordan does have a large proportion of
Palestinians, but it is not an alternative homeland for the Palestinians in the
territories.”
He said the barrier would preempt the creation of a Palestinian state and peace
in the region.
“They tell us in Israel that we are exaggerating, that nothing will happen and
the scenario is extreme. We say that if we look 10 years ahead, the situation
could change and the scenario won't be so extreme, so a Palestinian state must
be established.
“The fence eliminates that option, and the option of peace with other states,”
he said.
Muasher did, however, acknowledge Israel's right to defend itself against
attackers, but stressed the barrier's problematic path that often juts deep into
Palestinian territory.
“Israel must understand that we are not against a fence per se. Israel's need to
defend itself is clear and understandable, but it can put the fence on the 1967
border,” he said, in reference to the 1949 armistice line, before the West Bank
was occupied and settled by Israel along with the Gaza Strip after the 1967 war.
Israel insists the barrier is being built solely out of security considerations
and that it has no intention of predetermining the borders of the future
Palestinian state.
In fact, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon often makes the point that the barrier
could be dismantled in the future, should there be a peace agreement with the
Palestinians.
But Palestinians say that the barrier is a blatant Israeli ploy to grab more of
their land and shrink beyond anything acceptable or viable the territory of
their future state.
Israel's own supreme court ordered a month ago that the path of barrier be
revised along a 30-kilometre stretch north of Jerusalem as the harm it caused to
local Palestinian farmers outweighed any security considerations.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague, meanwhile, said in a
landmark but nonbinding ruling on July 20 that the barrier should be torn down
where it cuts into Palestinian territory.
Israel has said it would respect its own court ruling but ignore that of the ICJ.
It has vowed to finish construction by the end of next year.
Around a third of the barrier, which will eventually stretch some 700 kilometres,
has been completed so far in the north of the territory. It is the Jewish
state's most expensive project ever.