Israeli moves aimed at easing tension

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Israel took several steps this week designed to ease growing tensions with Palestinians, in the face of criticism from Israeli as well as Palestinian activists and allies in the United States.

But Palestinians in the West Bank answer that an increasing web of Israeli rules and regulations limiting movement into and within the territory undercuts the Israeli officials' assertions that they are trying to improve quality of life for Palestinians.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military froze a measure scheduled to go into effect yesterday that would have banned Palestinians -- other than laborers and immediate family members -- from riding in the same car as Israelis. The measure drew fire and a civil rights lawsuit from Jewish groups who described it as an "apartheid measure."

Late Thursday, a government official announced that the Ministry of Defense had reversed course and canceled plans to build a permanent settlement called Maskiot in the Jordan Valley, a decision that had elicited criticism from Washington and European governments.

The pair of decisions marked a victory for Israeli and Palestinian advocacy groups that campaign against settlement expansion and the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank. At the same time, Israel said yesterday that it had released $100 million in withheld revenues to President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority. Israel started withholding taxes and customs duties last year after the militant Hamas movement took control of the Palestinian government.

US officials have urged Israel to reduce pressure on West Bank Palestinians, most recently during Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent two-day visit to Israel and the West Bank. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, who plans to meet with Abbas at a peacemaking summit next month, has announced that dozens of checkpoints in the West Bank would be dismantled.

Checkpoints have doubled the travel time between most cities in the West Bank and have almost completely cut off some cities, like Qalqiliya and Nablus. Most of the time, the Israeli military won't let private Palestinian cars travel from such southern West Bank cities as Hebron and Bethlehem to northern cities such as Ramallah, Nablus, and Jenin.

But the flurry of promises has called attention to what is in fact a growing array of limitations on Palestinian movement within the West Bank, including the rules that make it difficult for Palestinians to interact with Arab-Israeli relatives and security measures that make short trips within the West Bank take hours for those Palestinians who have special permits allowing them to travel.

"Whenever they say they're going to make things easier, we know to worry," said Palestinian television reporter Abed Al Hafeez Jawan, 26. His fiancée, an Arab-Israeli, is banned under Israeli law from visiting him in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

An assertive Israeli military command in the West Bank has also angered many Israelis and Palestinians, but has come at the same time as a major reduction in successful militant attacks from the territory. Taken together, the West Bank security measures pose a major obstacle before the new Middle East summit.

The lengthening separation barrier Israel is building in and around the West Bank makes it harder to sneak into Israel. Last year, two Palestinian suicide bombers entered Israel, killing 11 people and wounding 30 others.

Olmert has ordered the military to make the system of checkpoints less onerous. On Wednesday, he toured the West Bank and told military officers to speed up the passage of people and cargo through checkpoints.

"There is a very large population whose quality of life depends on us and we need to show openness and tolerance towards them," Olmert told reporters.

Palestinians entering the West Bank through the Atarot checkpoint outside Ramallah -- one of the main crossing points from Israel -- dismissed the political declarations as grandstanding.

"When they finish building the wall in 2008, I expect the day to come when Israel won't let any Palestinians come in," said construction worker Hussein Ihsan, 42, who travels every day from his home outside Nablus to work in the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon.

Ihsan and five other Palestinian workers were crossing back into the West Bank at sunset Thursday, at the end of another workweek in Israel. He's been working construction jobs in Israel for 17 years and has steadily watched his travel time from the territories increase as security measures and border crossings have expanded.

The round trip takes Ihsan at least six hours a day and costs him half his wages, but he said it's worth the effort to clear the equivalent of $10 a day since there are no jobs at all in Nablus.

In response to Olmert's orders, the Israeli military removed 44 roadblocks this week.

Michael Sfard, the lawyer who filed a legal petition against the driving ban on behalf of a group of nonprofit groups, said the measure was part of a long-term strategy by the Israeli military occupation to build a separate infrastructure for Jewish settlers in the West Bank and minimize any contact between Israelis and Palestinians. There are already, in practice, separate bypass roads for Jewish settlers.

"The problem is that separation, while dominating the separated people, is apartheid," Sfard said.

Much of the military presence in the West Bank revolves around protecting 268,379 Jewish settlers who live interspersed among 2.3 million Palestinians. The Israeli government released statistics this month showing the settler population grew by 5.8 percent last year in the West Bank.

An estimated 200,000-plus Jewish settlers live in Arab East Jerusalem.

Jawan, the Palestinian television reporter, said none of the measures announced this week would make life easier for him and most other Palestinians in the West Bank. Because his wife-to-be is a Muslim Arab, she technically is not even allowed to visit Ramallah, where she currently lives and works, even though she has Israeli citizenship. Once married, she won't be able to bring her husband into Israel or register her children as Israeli citizens.

"We don't know what identity our children will have," Jawan said.