MK Yuval Shteinitz (Likud), Chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s decision to reroute the security barrier near Jerusalem imperils the highway connecting the capital to Tel Aviv and the rest of the country.
Olmert decided on Thursday to keep the Arab village, Beit Iksa, outside the barrier going up on Jerusalem’s perimeter. Beit Iksa lies adjacent to the Ramot neighborhood, just outside the municipal boundary, and about two miles from the main highway, Route 1.
Calling the decision “unfortunate, dangerous, and lacking in responsibility,” Shteinitz said Olmert was effectively allowing Arab terrorists to endanger motorists using the road. He said the barrier’s “new route will enable terrorists to fire from the hills of Beit Iksa onto Route 1 and disrupt the flow of traffic between Jerusalem and the center of the country.”
Olmert reached his decision at a meeting in the Prime Minister’s Office attended by Foreign Minister and Minister of Justice Tzippi Livni, Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz, Public Security Minister Gideon Ezra, Police Chief Moshe Karadi, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz, and Tzachi Hanegbi, minister without portfolio who is in charge of the nation’s clandestine intelligence services.
The government’s decision reportedly was reached unanimously, with the full agreement of the country’s civilian and military security agencies.
The government’s decision also affects the Ramot neighborhood of Jerusalem, which will now be bordered on the northwest by the security barrier.
The panel also decided that Olmert will tour a number of points along barrier route near Jerusalem in an effort to resolve problems relating to the route.
Olmert decided on Thursday to keep the Arab village, Beit Iksa, outside the barrier going up on Jerusalem’s perimeter. Beit Iksa lies adjacent to the Ramot neighborhood, just outside the municipal boundary, and about two miles from the main highway, Route 1.
Calling the decision “unfortunate, dangerous, and lacking in responsibility,” Shteinitz said Olmert was effectively allowing Arab terrorists to endanger motorists using the road. He said the barrier’s “new route will enable terrorists to fire from the hills of Beit Iksa onto Route 1 and disrupt the flow of traffic between Jerusalem and the center of the country.”
Olmert reached his decision at a meeting in the Prime Minister’s Office attended by Foreign Minister and Minister of Justice Tzippi Livni, Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz, Public Security Minister Gideon Ezra, Police Chief Moshe Karadi, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz, and Tzachi Hanegbi, minister without portfolio who is in charge of the nation’s clandestine intelligence services.
The government’s decision reportedly was reached unanimously, with the full agreement of the country’s civilian and military security agencies.
The government’s decision also affects the Ramot neighborhood of Jerusalem, which will now be bordered on the northwest by the security barrier.
The panel also decided that Olmert will tour a number of points along barrier route near Jerusalem in an effort to resolve problems relating to the route.