The "gestures" that weren't
The excellent Machsom Watch, an Israeli NGO that monitors IDF checkpoints in the West Bank, have released a report refuting the Israeli government’s claims to have removed 24 roadblocks as a “gesture of goodwill” to Mahmoud Abbas:
“Only two of the 24 roadblocks that Israel claimed to have removed recently were in fact removed; many never existed to begin with, the Machsom Watch watchdog organization said Tuesday.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Israel had removed 24 West Bank roadblocks in order to bolster the Palestinian Authority by making life easier for Palestinians.
However, Machsom Watch activists conducted their own check and concluded the following:
* While the army reported removing 11 dirt roadblocks around Hebron, most of them never existed to begin with.
* Three dirt roadblocks near Salfit also never existed; the same is true of two roadblocks between Al-Abed and Anabta, near Tul Karm.
* The checkpoint near Herodion, which was also on the list, was actually removed two years ago.
* At the Jitt Junction near Kedumim, two roadblocks were supposedly removed to allow pedestrian (but not vehicular) traffic through the junction.
However, Machsom Watch said, pedestrian traffic is still not being permitted.
The organization noted that since the Israel Defense Forces refused to give it the list of removed roadblocks, it relied on information from a third party that obtained the list from the IDF.
No response was received from the IDF spokesman by press time.”
This isn’t the first time this has happened - earlier this year, the IDF was forced to admit that none of the 44 roadblocks it claimed to have dismantled had ever actually existed in the first place.
Here’s the World Bank on Israel’s network of roadblocks in the West Bank:
“Israeli restrictions have divided the occupied West Bank into 10 economically isolated enclaves, severing financial links and denying Palestinians access to some 50 percent of the land, the World Bank said…
But the World Bank said Israel’s West Bank barrier and system of road and zoning restrictions were aimed at “protecting and enhancing the free movement of settlers and the physical and economic expansion of the settlements at the expense of the Palestinian population”…
“Palestinian economic revival is predicated on an integrated economic entity with freedom of movement between the West Bank and Gaza and within the West Bank,” said David Craig, the World Bank’s country director for the West Bank and Gaza.
According to the World Bank report, Israeli restrictions deny Palestinians access to large segments of the West Bank, including all areas within the municipal boundaries of settlements, the Jordan Valley, East Jerusalem, restricted roads and other “closed” areas.
These restrictions have “fragmented the territory into ever smaller and more disconnected cantons,” the report said. “Estimates of the total restricted area are difficult to come by, but it appears to be in excess of 50 percent of the land of the West Bank.”
“While Israeli security concerns are undeniable and must be addressed, it is often difficult to reconcile the use of movement and access restrictions for security purposes from their use to expand and protect settlement activity and the relatively unhindered movement of settlers and other Israelis in and out of the West Bank,” the World Bank added.”