Don't politicize West Bank checkpoints
THE JERUSALEM POST Apr. 1, 2008
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On Monday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the removal of numerous
roadblocks throughout Judea and Samaria. One of the first to go was the
Rimonim barricade on Highway 60, a major north-south thoroughfare linking
Jericho to Ramallah.

Some two weeks earlier, Barak appeared before the Knesset Foreign Affairs
and Defense Committee defending Judea and Samaria roadblocks as essential
impediments to terror. "Each removal of any roadblock is tantamount to
gambling with Israelis' lives," he said. "No roadblock was positioned where
it was without a very cogent reason. No roadblock is without clear security
value. Each roadblock is there only because it's necessitated by
indisputable security contingencies."

Nothing changed between Barak's committee appearance and the visit of US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier this week. In response to
intense American pressure - and lobbying from within his own Labor Party -
Barak presented Rice with a 35-page list of "confidence-building measures,"
including the dismantling of roadblocks and checkpoints even in areas
directly adjoining the Dan and Sharon regions, where most of Israel's
population is concentrated.
A short while after the Rimonim roadblock was cleared a stabbing attempt
took place near Shiloh, which is about 30 minutes north of Jerusalem and a
few minutes' drive from Rimonim. This time the attacker was shot by one of
his would-be victims. But our citizens cannot always count on good fortune.
The feeling among many Israelis living over the Green Line, and in the IDF,
is that the downed roadblocks have triggered a time-bomb. The only question
remaining is whose lives will be lost as a result.

THIS ISN'T the first time roadblocks have come down. Indeed, this has become
a ritual "good-will gesture" to bolster Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas's standing vis-a-vis his Hamas rivals.

Five years ago, the same Rimonim barrier was removed. Two weeks later
mother-of-seven Esther Ge'alia, of the adjacent Kochav Hashahar settlement,
was slain there. Soon afterwards young Shuli Harmelech was murdered nearby.
Ultimately the barricade had to go back up.

Odds are the latest experiment won't end any differently.

When the roadblocks do go back up, there's bound to be an outcry, with
Israel taking flak for "hampering movement and access" in the West Bank.

It's true that there are hundreds of checkpoints, roadblocks and barriers in
the West Bank - and, yes, some have been set up since Annapolis. But
wholesale, politically-inspired removal of such barriers doesn't only risk
Israeli lives. It is also acutely counterproductive to the rationale for
doing away with them in the first place - promoting negotiations and
bolstering Abbas.

If anything sabotages the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian accommodation,
it's attacks on Israeli civilians, wherever they may be. Thus moves - no
matter how well-intentioned and theoretically desirable - whose unintended
consequences facilitate terrorism are likely to torpedo whatever peace
prospects still conceivably remain.

No Israeli discerns any benefit in deliberately imposing hardship on
ordinary Palestinians. We know that most simply want to get to work or
school, seek medical treatment or visit with family. If Palestinians have
anyone to blame for the undeniable inconvenience caused by roadblocks, it's
the terrorist organizations, whose popularity seems to skyrocket - among
ordinary Palestinians - the more Jewish lives they take.

It's also significant that factions affiliated with Abbas's own Fatah
movement have claimed responsibility for the Shiloh attack. This Fatah
connection does not instill confidence about what will happen to the
equipment and armored vehicles Israel has earmarked, under US pressure, for
pro-Abbas forces.

If there are checkpoints without further security value, let them be taken
down - but Israelis need reassurance that someone has given lots of thought
to each and every instance. To protect its citizens against the killing
sprees that obstacle-free roads expedite, Israel will eventually find itself
having to reconstruct many of the roadblocks dismantled because of political
pressure - and doubtless face censure for it.

Israel has every interest in bolstering a Palestinian leadership committed
to peaceful coexistence and capable of imposing effective security control
on those of its own people who oppose this. Withdrawing Israeli security
precautions in the absence of such effective control may be
well-intentioned, but unfortunately is a recipe for bloodshed.