The Middle East: The Israeli government has approved the central section of the controversial West Bank fence it is building but has decided to leave gaps a few kilometres wide in the barrier to circumvent a possible showdown with the Bush administration.
The cabinet yesterday gave the go-ahead, 18 to four, for a $120 million section of fence which will run from the West Bank settlement of Elkana, located close to the 1967 border, down to an area just north of Jerusalem. A 130-km stretch of fence, along the northern section of the West Bank, has already been built.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, sandwiched between the settlers, many of whom have backed him in the past, and the Bush administration, has come up with a hole-in-the-fence solution.
Settler leaders, who fear that if the fence goes up along the 1967 line it will ultimately serve as the border of a future Palestinian state, have been putting pressure on the Government to run the barrier deep into the West Bank around many of the settlements, so that they will remain on the "Israeli" side. One of these is the second largest settlement of Ariel, which has 18,000 residents.
However, the the US, which fears that if the fence juts deep into the West Bank it will make a future Palestinian state untenable, has been pressing Israel to ensure the barrier hugs the 1967 border. While much of the central section of the fence will be built close to the 1967 border, the Government decided yesterday that a hole will be left in the barrier, opposite where Ariel is located.
Another hole will be left opposite the settlement of Kedumim, also in the heart of the West Bank. Large numbers of soldiers will patrol these gaps in the fence.
Small sections will also be built on the eastern side of the two settlements, but will not be linked to the main fence so as not to invoke US ire. Mr Sharon told his ministers that when it came to linking the fence around Ariel and Kedumim to the main security fence in about eight months, it would again be discussed with the US.
The Israeli leader attributes primary strategic importance to his relationship with the US and does not relish a showdown. The US has also said it will deduct the cost of those sections of the fence which bulge deep into the West Bank from $9 billion in loan guarantees to Israel.
Mr Sharon reportedly told the cabinet that if he had to choose between "confrontation with the Americans now or a possible confrontation" further down the line, then he preferred the latter.
The cabinet decision yesterday did win the Israeli leader some time, but with many Israeli security experts and the majority of the public supporting the fence - they point to a much more primitive fence around Gaza which has frustrated suicide bombers - he cannot delay construction indefinitely. The barrier is a 50m wide land strip which includes barbed wire coils, ditches, a strip of sand to detect footprints and an electronic fence sensitive to touch.
Many in the Israeli peace camp initially backed the fence, hoping it would go up more or less along the 1967 line and would effectively mark the future border between Israel and a Palestinian state. Under Mr Sharon however, who has expressed support for a shrunken Palestinian state in only part of the West Bank, the fence has veered away from the 1967 line and into Palestinian land.
Angry over the potential political ramifications, Palestinians have also watched as their land has been expropriated to build and as the barrier has severed Palestinian farmers from their land.
"This barrier is a deliberate attempt by the Israeli government to sabotage President Bush's vision of a two-state solution, to undermine the peace process and to destroy the road map," said a senior Palestinian official, Mr Saeb Erekat.