Israel court stirs fierce debate with Highway 443 ruling

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An Israeli high court decision nullifying a military ban on Palestinian motorists on a Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway is stirring a debate about the army's controversial segregated road system in the West Bank.

The 2-1 decision last week will force the army to remove roadblocks that have sealed off about 55,000 Palestinian villagers along a 14-mile stretch of highway No. 443. The ruling was hailed by Israeli human rights groups as a precedent-setting blow to a policy that some liken to South Africa's apartheid system.

But it has right-wing groups and Israeli motorists from a nearby bedroom suburb upset about the potential security risks. Five Israelis were killed on the road during the first years of the recent Palestinian uprising, and some fear that lifting the ban portends new road casualties.

"Somebody called it Russian Roulette,'' says Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of Shurat HaDin, a counterterrorism legal center that wants the high court to reconsider the issue with a larger panel of justices. "This is a decision that will cost human life, and as such it should not hold."

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/0106/Israel-court-stirs-fierce-debate-with-Highway-443-ruling