Crisis in the Middle East: The Israeli Barrier
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now to the Middle East, a suicide bomber blew himself up on a crowded bus during rush hour this morning, killing at least seven people and wounding some 50 others. Sources say the al-Aksar Martyrs Brigades has claimed responsibility for that blast. That is a militant group loosely affiliated with Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. The blast comes a day before the World Court is to begin hearings on the Israeli barriers being built in the West Bank. Also today, on the eve of that hearing, Israel is removing one of those barriers. It's a five mile section of the fence that has isolated more than 7,000 Palestinians from the rest of the West Bank. It's only a fraction of the whole network of barriers Israel claims is needed to keep Palestinian suicide bombers out of Israel. We have the view from both the Israelis and Palestinians this morning. First, CNN's John Vause has the Israeli perspective.</s>JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Arnold Roth, it's an agonizing question which can never be answered. Could this fence have saved his daughter's life?</s>ARNOLD ROTH, FATHER OF BOMB VICTIM: My daughter died as a result of a very well planned massacre, which took place right in the center of Jerusalem. And we continue to live in very dangerous times. So it's difficult to say that any particular measure would have been enough to save her life.</s>VAUSE: Nocka (ph) was 15-years old, killed by a suicide bomber, along with 14 others, at a pizzeria in Jerusalem almost three years ago.</s>ROTH: She wasn't caught in any crossfire. She wasn't a bystander. She was the target. People outside of this country have to understand that, that whatever we do to protect our lives has got to be seen as being our prerogative and perfectly legitimate. We want out government to do whatever is necessary to keep our lives safe and our children safe.</s>VAUSE: The suicide bomber came from Jenin, a Palestinian city in the West Bank.</s>LT. COL. DOTAN, BRIGADE COMMANDER, JENIN: On the left, that's Jenin.</s>VAUSE: Lieutenant Colonel Dotan Rasala (ph) is brigade commander for the Jenin area. A chain link fence now stretches past the city about 20 miles to the east and west. By next year, Israel plans to have finished building its barrier more than 400 miles long. But already, according to Rasala, this section is working. No suicide bombers, he said, have made it into Israel from Jenin since May last year.</s>DOTAN: This is the path. This is the favorite path the terrorists used. And the security fence stopped it.</s>VAUSE: The fence is surrounded by barbed wire. It has sensors. And there's constant video surveillance. Now a lot of people have said that the fence is electrified.</s>DOTAN: OK, it's not electrified. We can walk over to the fence.</s>VAUSE: We can walk up to it?</s>DOTAN: Yes, we can walk up to it and touch it. Actually, it's a fencing...</s>VAUSE: So if I do this, this sets off an alarm or...</s>DOTAN: Yes, this sets off...</s>VAUSE: Here, the fence runs closely between the West Bank and Israel. But elsewhere, Palestinians say it's a land grab, jutting into the West Bank, isolating villages and dividing families. Often, their only way in and out is through gates. Open and closed, they say, at the whim of Israeli soldiers.</s>DOTAN: We have farmers. We understand those farmers and we try to correct them.</s>VAUSE: It's a learning process Rasala (ph) says for both Palestinians and Israelis.</s>ROTH: The kind of inconvenience and discomfort and suffering that they're going through simply doesn't compare with the murder of 15-year old and three-year old and 90-year old people. It doesn't compare.</s>VAUSE: Arnold Roth says the barrier isn't the only answer. He wants both sides to keep talking. But the barrier, he says, will help keep Israelis alive until there is a lasting peace. John Vause, CNN, Jerusalem.</s>HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: In the Middle East, Israel says a controversial barricade is meant to keep suicide bombers out of Israel, but Palestinians say that explanation makes no sense if you look at the wall's location in some areas. CNN'S John Vause once again to see for himself.</s>JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With each new day, the concrete slabs are moving closer together, 28 feet high, a foot thick, slowly cutting the West Bank village of Abu Dis in half.</s>SALAH AYAD, ABU DIS RESIDENT: This</s>VAUSE: Yes?</s>S. AYAD: And he will be separated by the wall.</s>VAUSE: Salah Ayad has lived in the same home for more than 40 years. The land, he says, has been in his family for 700 years. Right now, his brothers, sisters, father and cousins all live within a few short minutes. But soon, months maybe less, the wall will cut them off completely. He'll be left on the so-called Israeli side. Most of his relatives on the Palestinian side.</s>S. AYAD: OK, let's say that they want to build the wall for security. Is it? So why to put it here? The question is the place not the purpose.</s>VAUSE (on camera): And that's the question most Palestinians are asking. If this barrier is truly for security, to stop the suicide bombers and militants like Israel says, then why can't the Israelis build it on their own land? (voice-over): Israeli officials say the route is determined by security in places, for example, needing the high ground. But they insist the final path may still change.</s>MAJ. SHARON FEINGOLD, ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES: We will learn as we go along. And in places where we need to improve, or perhaps change the path, we will do that. We are not afraid to admit that we may have made mistakes.</s>VAUSE: Terry Ayad, Salah's wife, says she'll believe that when she sees it. She's a principal of this school in Abu Dis. Right now, she walks to work, climbing over a small concrete barrier the Israelis build three years ago.</s>TERRY AYAD, ABU DIS RESIDENT: I'm now in the West Bank.</s>VAUSE: It's busy two way traffic, old men and women, young children. But soon, this too will stop. No one will be able to make it over the new wall. In the coming days, the International Call of Justice at the Hague will begin hearing a case against Israel's barrier. Terry Ayad plans to be there.</s>T. AYAD: To inform the whole world that we are human beings being now incarcerated behind the wall and to inform the world that this wall is really undermining any peace process.</s>VAUSE: Israel has already rejected the court's authority to hear the case and isn't sending a legal team. To Salah Ayad, that confirms what he already believes. Nothing will slow the huge slabs of concrete. John Vause, CNN, Abu Dis in the West Bank.