Jerusalem - Israel Wednesday announced a number of measures
to boost the Palestinian economy, including extending the opening
hours of the Allenby border crossing between Jordan and the West
Bank.
The goods crossing will be open 24 hours a day for a trial period,
announced the government of hardline Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, who has promoted a policy of 'economic peace.'
Thus far, the bridge crossing over the River Jordan was open from
8 am to 8 pm daily except Fridays and Saturdays.
A government statement said it aimed to 'increase the volume of
commercial activity and improve the Palestinian population's quality
of life.'
Netanyahu has said he will attempt to help rehabilitate the
Palestinian economy to ripen conditions for peace, while holding
peace negotiations at the same time. Such negotiations, however, have
not resumed since he took office in March, following elections in
which the right-wing bloc of parties headed by his Likud won a
majority of mandates.
The Palestinians have thus far declined to resume negotiations
from scratch while construction in and at Jewish settlements on the
occupied West Bank continues.
Netanyahu on Wednesday convened a special ministerial committee he
formed to deal with 'improving the economic situation' of
Palestinians.
They discussed ways to expedite three economic projects, some of
which have been delayed for years for 'bureaucratic' reasons: a
French-funded light industrial zone near the southern West Bank city
of Bethlehem for tourism and related services, a German-funded
industrial zone near Jenin, on the northern West Bank, and a zone for
the export and processing of agricultural products in Jericho, in the
Jordan Valley.
The government statement quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Danny
Ayalon as saying that since taking office, the government had removed
key West Bank military roadblocks.
'The large-scale removal of checkpoints and roadblocks is of
long-range political importance due to the position of the
international community and world opinion,' he told the ministerial
committee.
According to the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), however, as many as 614 roadblocks
remain in place throughout the West Bank, including 68 staffed
checkpoints, in addition to concrete obstacles, earth mounds,
trenches and gates.
Settler leaders nonetheless slammed the measures.
'Instead of discussing gestures and easing restrictions for
Palestinians, it is about time the government which was elected with
the votes of our nationalist camp starts granting gestures to the
Zionist-Pioneer settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria,' said a
statement by the Yesha Council, the umbrella group representing local
settlement councils in the West Bank. It used the Jewish Biblical
names for southern and northern West Bank.
The Netanyahu government has said that while it is ready remove
road blocks as well as so-called unauthorized settlers' outposts, it
will not agree to demands for a complete freeze of construction in
its existing, 'formal' settlements.
According to an Israeli newspaper, the US and Israel have reached
a compromise on the issue of settlements, under which Washington will
allow it to continue construction that have already begun.
That means Israel will be allowed to complete some 700 buildings,
amounting to some 2,500 apartments, Ma'ariv said, quoting a 'senior
Israeli political source.'
No new construction would be allowed to begin under the
compromise, reportedly reached in Monday's meeting in London between
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak and US President Barack Obama's
special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell.
Barak, back in Jerusalem, on Tuesday briefed a forum of six senior
Israeli ministers on the outcome of his talks with Mitchell.
A joint statement by the Israeli defence minister and Mitchell
issued Monday in London only called their talks 'constructive' and
said they would continue 'in the near future.'
A spokeswoman for Barak said she would check the report in
Ma'ariv.
Barak, of the centre-left Labour Party, also met with Mitchell in
Washington last week, after a planned meeting between the Obama envoy
and Netanyahu in Paris last month was called off because of the lack
of progress in the settlement stand-off. Mitchell is now scheduled to
meet with Netanyahu in Israel mid next week.
USA
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