Jerrold Kessel: More security barrier controversy
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CNN's Jerrold Kessel
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CNN's Jerrold Kessel reports the Israeli Cabinet's vote to continue building a barrier in the West Bank will displease Washington and the Palestinians. (October 1)
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SPECIAL REPORT
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NEAR QALQILYA, West Bank (CNN) -- The Israeli Cabinet voted Wednesday to approve construction of the next phase of a controversial security barrier that leaves some gaps but goes deep inside the West Bank.
Israel says the barrier will help stop terrorists from entering the country from the West Bank. Palestinians view the move as a land grab and note that construction around Jewish settlements does not follow the so-called Green Line, the frontier between Israel and the West Bank before the 1967 Mideast war.
Facing U.S. pressure not to complete the project, Israel decided to start the construction of some segments but not connect them to the main security barrier at this stage.
CNN Correspondent Jerrold Kessel spoke Wednesday from the West Bank with Anchor Heidi Collins about the Israeli Cabinet's decision.
COLLINS: Jerrold, tell us, how are the Palestinians reacting now to this decision?
KESSEL: ... No doubt [it's] with a good deal of anger and dismay because they say this will kill off any kind of hopes of getting back to the peace negotiations and they call it a land grab.
The Israelis, however, say it isn't about land, it's about security. They have built already 100 miles or so of this security barrier, but that's been less controversial because that was mainly along the Israeli border with the West Bank, slightly in the West Bank at places, but mainly along the border.
The reason this decision, taken by the Cabinet this morning over the objections of the hard-line ministers, is controversial is that they are planning to have a whole four or five prongs of the security barrier deep into the West Bank to encompass some of the major Jewish settlements, including one major town near here, the town of Ariel. And that has really brought about the objection of the United States, which says it shouldn't do that -- Israel shouldn't do that.
The Israelis have tried to come up with what they call a compromise. ... What they say they will do is they will build the fences around those settlements and they won't, in the first instance, for the first year or so while they're building the rest of the fence, link it up, link those settlement fences up to the main security barrier more or less along the West Bank-Israel border.
But it's likely to draw a good deal of ire not only from the Palestinians but a good deal of dissatisfaction in Washington.
