wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Israeli and Palestinian issue warning on Israel's

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ECUNET.ORG>]

Note #8498 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

04430
September 28, 2004

Israeli and Palestinian issue warning on Israel's security barrier

by Cedric Pulford
Ecumenical News International

LONDON - Israel's security barrier sealing off the country from Palestinian
lands in the West Bank is bound to fail, writers from the two communities
have stated in a new publication.

	"There is no barrier on earth that can stop the one determined
suicide bomber," said Rami Elhanan, a Jewish peace activist who lost a
daughter to a suicide bomber. "The more we fortify it, the more they will
look for the inevitable crack."

	Alex Awad, an ordained Palestinian Christian, said: "This barrier
will embitter and impoverish Palestinians and add fuel to militancy and
terrorism."

	The two men are co-authors of Barrier to Peace?  - a pamphlet
published by Britain's Christian Socialist Movement and World Vision, a
Christian relief and development agency with projects in Israel and the West
Bank.

	Israel says it is building the 730 kilometer-long barrier, which cuts
across Palestinian territory, to protect its citizens against suicide bombers
and terrorist attacks, but Palestinians have said it is a punitive act of
land encroachment.

	In places the barrier is a wall 9 meters high and elsewhere it is a
security strip up to 100 meters wide. It frequently runs inside the pre-1967
boundaries of the West Bank, where most Palestinians live. In July, the
International Court of Justice, part of the United Nations, ruled that the
barrier is illegal.

	Elhanan, a member of the Forum of Israeli-Palestinian Bereaved
Families for Peace, wrote: "As a Jew, the most alarming thing for me is that
my people are getting back into the ghetto. We are creating our own ghetto,
which will not protect us."

	In an appeal for the two communities to keep talking, Elhanan said:
"If we who lost loved ones and paid the highest price possible can talk to
one another, then anyone can."

	Awad, dean of students at Bethlehem Bible College, suggested that
"hidden intentions" behind the wall were to destabilize the emerging
Palestinian state. In many areas the wall split neighborhoods and separated
people from their farms, schools and hospitals, he said.

	Palestinians were being thrown into "fenced in, isolated islands of
historic Palestine," he wrote. "It did not work for the apartheid regime of
South Africa and it will not work for Israel."

	Israel argues that the security barrier is a temporary, defensive
measure and not a political act. Israeli foreign minister Silvan Shalom said
in March: "We are keenly aware of the impact of the fence on the lives of
Palestinians. We are constantly reviewing the humanitarian arrangements and
the routing of the fence, and have already introduced changes."

To subscribe or unsubscribe, please send an email to
pcusanews-subscribe-request@halak.pcusa.org or
pcusanews-unsubscribe-request@halak.pcusa.org

To contact the owner of the list, please send an email to
pcusanews-request@halak.pcusa.org