Nothing will stop Israel from building West Bank fence: official

[drewb]

Nothing, including US cuts in loan guarantees, will stop Israel from completing a controversial barrier around the West Bank, the head of Israel's delegation to the World Bank/International Monetary Fund annual meetings in Dubai told AFP Tuesday.

"We have the intention to build the fence as fast as possible to protect ourselves, and I hope that the United States would not punish us for that," said Meir Sheetrit, minister without portfolio at the finance ministry, who arrived in Dubai on Monday with a 40-member delegation.

US national security adviser Condeleezza Rice said Monday after meeting Israeli officials in Washington that the barrier -- which US President George W. Bush has described as "a problem" -- was not "consistent" with the United States' view of the Middle East.

http://www.prolog.net/webnews/wed/cq/Qmideast-israel-barrier.R4Jw_DSN.html

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[drdon326]

2. Is that what you see???

Theres a simple way around that.....

Please ask the PA to DISMANTLE THE TERRORISTS.

[dfong63]

4. an even simpler way - Israel pull back to within their own legal borders

[Muddleoftheroad]

7. What do you consider to be Israel's borders?

Their opponents wildly dispute them even when the UN agrees, as it does in the case of the Israeli/Lebanese border.

[UserNamesAreFree]

8. My understanding

is the 1967 or Green Line is the border. (newbie here)

[Muddleoftheroad]

10. Tell that to the various Palestinian terror groups

Some of whom don't even give Israel as much territory as the 1948 partition did. Then there are posters here who make it clear Israel should not exist. So where should they withdraw to? 1967? 1948? 1900?

Ask Hezbollah about that Lebanese border that is OK with the UN but not them.

[MariMayans]

11. Lebanese border isn't "OK" with the UN

the UN position is that Sheba Farms is Syrian territory occupied by Israel and needs to leave.

Further while I'm disintersted in geopolitical borders if Israel wants to keep the homes and farms they took from Palestinians by force, I feel they certainly need to pay for them to even begin to approach something moral as a solution.

[quilp]

12. Israelis don't have any "borders".

The whole world is "disputed territory" to them.

[Jackie97]

13. As pissed off as I am about this fence....

I do with that you would refer to Israel and not "Israelis" regarding the issue of disputed territory. The majority of Israelis just want to be left alone. They don't want more land.

[quilp]

14. I use "Isrealis" instead of "Isreal". I don't recognized "Isreal".

As far as I am concerned the whole of "Isreal" is the "disputed territory" of Palestine. If "the majority of Isrealis just want to be left alone" how did they manage to get Sharon for a leader? Whom they now hide behind by saying "it is him and not us". I don't buy it.

[UserNamesAreFree]

6. I'd love to see that

but I question if the PA has the ability to do that, even if Arafat or whoever's in charge wanted to...

[Gimel]

3. So?

Nothing new here, and Rice's comment is quite old. There have been more reasonable comments of late.

[UserNamesAreFree]

5. The fence's location

is the problem, as I see it. Along the Green Line, it would be hard for me to quarrel with it.

[vierundzwanzig]

9. Ah

the U.S. is going to finance it when the upper Israeli echelons leave after today's meeting with Condoleeza. Nothing like a good lobby.

We'll pay for the settlements, the army and the fence.