Rice to Israel: Tear down anti-terror roadblocks

Last time Jews were attacked hours after lifting barriers

By Aaron Klein
WorldNetDaily
May 04, 2008

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63380

JERUSALEM – In meetings here today, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Israeli officials to remove more antiterror roadblocks from the West Bank. Upon Rice's previous visit to the region last month, she reportedly urged the removal of specific West Bank roadblocks. Within hours of the elimination of one of the barriers, a knife-wielding Palestinian attempted to attack two Jews near the area from which the roadblock had been removed.

Israeli lawmakers then charged Rice's demands were responsible for that attempted attack. "Let's get to work," Rice was quoted as saying as she sat down with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to discuss the issue. When she was here in March, Rice asked Israel to remove 61 barriers and roadblocks, but a U.N. survey released last week stated only 44 had actually been taken away. "The first thing we are going to do is to review the ones that were supposedly moved," Rice said in a briefing with reporters."Not all roadblocks are created equal," Rice said.

Israeli defense officials strongly opposed roadblock 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 and roadblocks were established in the 1990s following repeated terrorist attacks from the territory.

The barriers have been directly credited with halting scores of attacks. Rice's latest demands follow an incident last month when 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. The attempted attack came just three hours after a roadblock had been removed in the same area.

Senior leaders of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group, the so-called military wing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization, told WND 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 April of meetings with Israeli leaders.

At a news conference, Rice said the U.S. expected the roadblocks would be withdrawn "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.In a news conference with Abbas, Rice also proclaimed a Palestinian state by the end of the year is possible."We continue to believe it is an achievable goal to have an agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis by the end of the year," she said.

The latest 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 speaking to WND 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 who were speaking to WND then from the border scene.