JERUSALEM, March 13 (JTA) The first major challenge of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s young tenure is shaping up over Israel’s blockades of Palestinian cities in the West Bank.
Israel defends the blockades as necessary for security reasons, citing an alleged plot by Ramallah-based militants to carry out a massive terror attack in Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Authority this week renewed a call on the U.N. Security Council to send in peacekeepers to protect the Palestinian people.
For its part, the U.S. State Department said Israel’s attempts to end the violence through economic pressure only provide economic hardship and do not enhance security.
U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher on Monday urged Israel to ease economic restrictions on the Palestinians, reiterating that Israel should also release tax revenues it has withheld from them.
The United States “opposes any measures that make it impossible for ordinary Palestinians to survive economically,” said Boucher.
Faced with criticism from the United States and the European Union, Israel on Tuesday eased its blockade of Ramallah, opening two roads to the city. Palestinian officials, however, complained that the move was only cosmetic and was intended to deflect international criticism.
On Monday, Israel’s defense minister eased the blockades around four other Palestinian cities in the West Bank.
Benjamin Ben-Eliezer told Jewish settler leaders that because of a recent period of relative quiet, Israel was lifting restrictions imposed around Kalkilya, Tulkarm, Hebron and Bethlehem.
He defended the blockade around Ramallah, saying there was intelligence information that terrorists there are trying to infiltrate Israel with a car bomb.
“We have very clear indications” that terrorists are trying to get into Israel for a “very big operation,” Ben-Eliezer told Israel Radio.
Israel Radio quoted senior Palestinian security forces as denying that any terrorist cell was planning such attacks from Ramallah.
Meanwhile, the first planned ministerial-level meeting between Israel and the Palestinians since Sharon took office was canceled because Israeli security officials did not want Israel’s minister for regional cooperation, Tzipi Livni, to travel to the Palestinian side of the Erez crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, The Associated Press quoted Livni’s office as saying.
On Sunday night, Israel finished tightening the closure of Ramallah, cutting the city off from surrounding Palestinian towns and villages with trenches, roadblocks and tanks.
Some 1,500 Palestinians joined a protest Monday aimed at breaking the Ramallah blockade. One protester was killed during clashes with Israeli troops.
The Palestinians claimed the man was hit by live fire. The Israel Defense Force said only rubber bullets were used in the incident.
The sole fatality at the protest was later identified as a Palestinian intelligence officer. He was killed by a single shot to the chest as he was standing near the leader of Palestinian militias in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouti.
IDF officials denied Palestinian accusations that Barghouti had been the real target.
Meanwhile, Sharon defended the blockades, telling Likud officials Monday that Israeli security forces had recently arrested a number of Palestinian terrorists who planned to carry out a large-scale attack in Jerusalem.
However, several members of the cell are still at large in Ramallah, Sharon said, and Israel had to do what is necessary to thwart an attack.
Sharon said the Palestinians are responsible for the closure on Ramallah, according to the Jerusalem Post.
“If they really wanted to make things easier for their citizens, they would simply deal with the network of terror, as they obligated themselves to do in all agreements they signed to date,” Sharon said.
Sharon said he opposes collective punishment against the Palestinian population, which prompted him to lift the closures in areas that have been relatively quiet.
“I think that I made it very clear that the policy of the government will be to ease the conditions of life of Palestinians not involved in terror and violence, and harden positions” against “terrorists and those who support them and dispatch them,” he told Israel Radio.
Some Israeli politicians questioned the value of the blockades.
Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit, a dovish member of Sharon’s Likud Party, told Israel Radio that “starving” the Palestinians and depriving them of essential services would not serve Israel’s interests and would only foster support for terror.
Several senior Labor officials including Science Minister Matan Vilnai and former Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, both retired generals said the blockades would deepen Palestinians’ despair and make them feel they have nothing to lose, pushing some toward terror acts. In addition, they warned, the blockades hurt Israel’s image internationally.
Also Monday, Defense Minister Ben-Eliezer said he would not use tanks and helicopters in attacks on Palestinian areas, as was occasionally done under former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
At Monday’s Cabinet meeting, the first since the new Israeli government was sworn in last week, Sharon set out his principles for dealing with the Palestinians.
Sharon said he would make sure the Palestinians would not succeed in squeezing concessions out of Israel through violence. Among other principles, Sharon said he would not allow the conflict to spill over to neighboring countries.
Israel’s partial easing of the blockades came as Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo appealed to the U.N. Security Council to send international forces to the territories to protect the Palestinians.
The Arab foreign ministers met to prepare for an Arab summit later this month that is expected to focus on the Palestinian uprising.
The ministers of the 22-member Arab League, convening Monday to discuss the agenda for a March 27-28 summit in Jordan, were also expected to discuss financial aid for the Palestinians and consider a resolution calling for Israeli officials to be tried for alleged war crimes.
