Israeli Defense officials 'fuming' at Tony Blair's demands
Pastor Dale Morgan
Israeli Defense officials 'fuming' at Tony Blair's demands*
Israel removes anti-terror checkpoint under international pressure
Posted: April 29, 2008
10:29 pm Eastern
News From Israel
JERUSALEM – The Israeli defense establishment is fuming over the
government's decision here to remove what security officials describe as
an important anti-terror checkpoint directly responsible for stopping
suicide bombings inside the Jewish state.
Yesterday, visiting Middle East envoy to the Quartet Tony Blair
presented Defense Minister Ehud Barak with a list of checkpoints Blair
said should be removed by Israel to ease Palestinian travel in the
northern West Bank. Barak agreed to remove one key checkpoint outside
the West Bank city of Nablus but rejected the dismantling of other
checkpoints. The Quartet consists of the U.S., Russian, the EU and the U.N.
Defense officials here strongly opposed checkpoint removals, saying the
obstacles impede the mobility of terrorists. Palestinians complain
checkpoints and roadblocks make it more difficult for them to travel
throughout the West Bank. The majority of West Bank checkpoints were
established in the 1990s following repeated terrorist attacks from the
territory.
An Israel Defense Force spokesman said that the checkpoint outside
Nablus was removed today.
The checkpoint in question, between the eastern entrance to Nablus and
the Palestinian villages of Asireh and Ashimalieh, was first erected in
the late 1990s after seven suicide bombings inside Israel were carried
out by terrorists who traveled from Asireh and Ashimalieh. The villages
are known to be heavily dominated by the Hamas terrorist organization.
One of the most famous suicide attacks carried out by terrorists who
crossed through the area of the now-removed checkpoint was a 1997
bombing of the Apropos Cafe in Tel Aviv, killing three women. An Israeli
cameraman captured an image of a crying, bleeding baby girl of one of
the murdered women being saved from the scene by a policewoman. The
image has become iconic in the Jewish state.
Defense sources said the checkpoint removed today at Blair's urging
stopped Palestinians attempting to infiltrate Israel to carry out attacks.
Earlier this month, Israel removed a series of anti-terror roadblocks
reportedly under heavy pressure from Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice. Within hours of the removal of one of the roadblocks, a
knife-wielding Palestinian attempted to attack two Jews near the area
the roadblock had been removed.
Israeli lawmakers charged the roadblock removals were responsible for
the attempted attack.
In that incident, an Israeli man shot and killed a Palestinian armed
with a knife after he approached the Israeli and a teenager at a popular
hitchhiking stop between the West Bank Jewish communities of Shiloh and
Eli, about 20 miles from Jerusalem.
Senior leaders of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group, the
so-called military wing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud
Abbas' Fatah organization, said that the attacker, a Palestinian from
Hebron, worked on behalf of their organization. They said the foiled
attack was not an attempted stabbing but part of a planned kidnapping
operation that included a car waiting nearby.
Uri Ariel, chairman of the National Union-National Religious Party,
explained to reporters, "Hours after the IDF began removing roadblocks
and began easing restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, a
terrorist tried to murder Israelis only a few kilometers west of a
roadblock that had been removed from Shiloh Junction."
The roadblock removals were specifically called for by Rice in a series
of meetings with Israeli leaders.
At a news conference Rice said the U.S. expected the roadblocks would be
removed "very, very soon" and stated American diplomat William Fraser
would oversee the removals.
Fraser was deployed to the region to monitor implementation of
agreements pledged by Israel and the PA during last November's
U.S.-sponsored Annapolis summit, which seeks to create a Palestinian
state before the end of the year.
"Fraser will ensure that 50 roadblocks will be removed and that this
will actually have an effect on the freedom of movement in the West
Bank," Rice said in Jerusalem. "The Israeli Ministry of Defense had
identified the roadblocks that will be removed, but we will ensure that
they carry it out," she added.
Rice announced the U.S. "wants to monitor and ensure that their removal
will begin. This is a very specific commitment on the part of Israel."
She said that while in the past the U.S. did not micromanage the
implementation of Israeli and Palestinian commitments, "this time we
want to be a lot more systematic concerning the territories and what is
being carried out on the ground."
Aside from overseeing the roadblock removal, defense sources said Rice
urged the Israeli government to reopen major crossings between Israel
and the Gaza Strip. The crossings were closed after Hamas took over the
Gaza Strip last year and in response to what Israel said were a high
number of warnings about terrorist attacks at the border.
Terrorists in the Gaza Strip regularly have been firing rockets from the
territory aimed at nearby Jewish communities.
The roadblock controversy is not the first time defense officials here
have been frustrated with security deals brokered by Rice.
In November 2005, Rice brokered an agreement in which Israel transferred
all security control at the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip to
the PA and outside countries.
Israeli security officials said that in 2006 labeled the deal an "abject
failure" threatening the Jewish state's national security.
Rice's deal restricted Israel to monitor the Egypt-Gaza crossing by
camera, called for a European presence at the border station and gave
the Palestinians some veto power on vehicles and persons entering Gaza.
The Europeans many times fled their duties in response to threatened
violence. Israeli security officials charged the Palestinians tampered
with the names of entrants, accusing Palestinian border workers of
deliberately disguising the personal information of terrorists crossing
the border.
Rice's border deal went up in smoke last year when Hamas completely took
over the Gaza Strip and expelled the PA monitors from the border.
Hamas-backed gunmen multiple times breached the border, including an
episode in January when a large chunk of the border fence was destroyed
and hundreds of thousands reportedly passed between Egypt and Gaza.
Egyptian security forces did not interfere as massive quantities of
weapons were transported across the Egyptian border into the Gaza Strip
in January, according to Palestinian militant sources said then from the
border scene.