The Palestinian Authority has warned it will use “resort to all legal and possible diplomatic methods” to stop the planned high-speed train from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem from passing through tunnels in part of Samaria. It is intended to make train travel between the two main cities a viable option for commuters as opposed to the situation today.
The route of the train was changed after objections from residents of the Jerusalem suburb Mevasseret Tzion that the track ran too close to their homes, according to left-wing researcher Dalit Baum. There is no independent or Israeli government corroboration of that accusation. She alerted pro-Arabs with a report that was published by the left wing Coalition of Women for Peace.
The Associated Press reported that the areas in Samaria where the tunnels are to be built pass through “war-won” territory. Judea and Samaria, along with Gaza, were restored to Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967 after Arab armies fled after their threats to destroy the Jewish state backfired in the war itself. Most of Judea and Samaria was occupied by Jordan, which took over areas beyond provisions in the United Nations Partition Plan. Gaza was in the hands of Egypt, which ever since has not expressed any desire to take authority over the volatile region.
The proposed train route includes two tunnels along the nearly 4-mile stretch in two parts of Samaria.
Baum rejected a suggestion by the Transport Ministry that the high-speed railroad one day might connect Gaza with Judea and Samaria, calling the idea “a cynical ploy that is only suggested in order to justify this train route as legal."
The high-speed train will carry passengers back and forth from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv in half an hour, half the time it takes by car today and a third of the time needed for the trip by the current and temporary train that runs through Beit Shemesh.
Russia is helping build the line, and the PA is expected to try to pressure Moscow to stop its work on the line so long as it includes the small sections of Judea and Samaria, which the Palestinian Authority claims as part of its new proposed Arab state within Israel’s borders.