Israel’s fences negative to peace: Palestinian

Ramallah: The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday in a press statement that the Israeli walls and fences will not make peace with Palestinians.

“It is bridges of peace that bring security to all,” said the statement, which also warned of the consequences and implications of the annexation and “colonialist walls mentality” adopted by Israeli government as a policy to anchor the occupation, Xinhua reported.

The ministry’s statement came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supported a plan to surround “the entire State of Israel with a fence” to keep out refugees, drawing the analogy that the people of neighbouring countries are like “predators”.

Speaking during a tour to a construction site of the border fence with Jordan, Netanyahu reportedly said that he wishes to surround “the country” with fences and barriers “to defend ourselves against wild beasts” that surround Israel.

The ministry described Netanyahu’s statements as “discriminatory and seeking to deepen the notion of the external enemy in the Israeli consciousness,” adding that it aims to draw more Israelis towards Netanyahu’s right wing ideology which are based on extremism and justifying his anti-peace positions.

The ministry accused Israel of taking advantage of the deteriorating regional circumstances to isolate the Palestinian cause and impose security solutions unilaterally.

The statement also called on the international community to undertake its responsibility and slam Israel’s “intransigence and apartheid walls”.

The Israeli public radio reported Tuesday that the Israeli prime minister is preparing a multi-year plan to surround Israel with security fences to “protect Israel in the Middle East as it is today”.

The plan includes close breaches made in the security barrier in the West Bank.

Netanyahu made the remarks as he toured the 30-km-long eastern fence, still under construction, along the borders with Jordan. The eastern fence is designed to safeguard an airport built near Eilat, south of Israel, at a cost of 288 million shekels (about $74 million).

Israel began constructing the wall with concrete walls, fences and barbed-wire inside the occupied West Bank in 2002, claiming that the wall was crucial for its security purposes.

In 2004, the International Criminal Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion ruling that the wall constitutes a “de facto annexation” of Palestinians land and that it is not justified on security grounds.

–IANS