Israel Woos U.S. by Revising Route of Its West Bank Barrier

Israel intends to shorten the route of its West Bank barrier, cutting out most of the loops around Jewish settlements in a bid to secure U.S. support for the controversial project, political sources said Sunday.

The barrier, a towering concrete wall in some places and a razor wire-tipped electronic fence in others, has restricted Palestinians’ access to fields, schools and neighboring villages. Israel says it is intended to stop extremist attacks.

Launched in 2002 after a string of suicide bombings, the barrier approximated Israel’s boundary with the West Bank before the 1967 Middle East War. But it was also intended to encircle settlement blocs deep in occupied land, a path opposed by the United States and seen by Palestinians as a land grab.

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat, responding Sunday to the news that Israel plans to alter the route, urged Washington to press Israel to halt construction completely for the sake of the U.S.-backed peace “road map.”

Israeli political sources said the revised route would be presented to U.S. officials visiting Israel this week to hear about a plan by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to separate unilaterally from the Palestinians if the now-stalled road map plan fails.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague is to hold hearings on the legality of the barrier this month. And Israel’s Supreme Court was scheduled to hear arguments today by an Israeli human rights group against the project.

“A ruling against Israel in The Hague would likely end up as a vote in the U.N. Security Council,” a source in Sharon’s office said. “We need to make sure the Americans back us, hence the effort to agree with them on the route now.”

According to the source, the new draft route excludes most West Bank settlement blocs. The Haaretz newspaper quoted Sharon’s chief of staff, Dov Weisglass, as saying he believed the final route would be 375 miles long, 63 miles shorter than the original approved by the government.

The road map has been battered by violence. On Sunday, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant and wounded eight others in a Gaza raid. An Israeli airstrike in Gaza on Saturday killed an Islamic Jihad militant leader and a 12-year-old boy.