Israel Matzav

Route 443 opens to 'Palestinian' traffic

Route 443, the 'back road' from Jerusalem to Modiin, opened to 'Palestinian' traffic on Friday morning from just outside Modiin to the Ofer checkpoint outside Jerusalem.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel might have won a two-year court battle to place the Palestinians on the highway that cuts through 17 kilometers of the West Bank and links Jerusalem with the Tel Aviv road, but December’s judicial victory against what Palestinians have termed “the apartheid road” did not give them the one thing they most wanted: quick access to Ramallah, where they receive essential services.

Now that the deadline is up – the court gave the IDF five months to prepare the road – Palestinians worry that the security checks and circuitous traffic patterns from the creation of two entry points and four exit ones will render the road useless to them.

Israeli motorists, parliamentarians and regional leaders are also unhappy. They fear an increase in traffic jams and accidents, as well as a spike in incidents of Palestinians throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at passing cars.

Worse, they are afraid of fatal terror attacks, such as those that killed six Israeli motorists on the West Bank stretch of 443 during the first two years of the intifada – acts that caused the IDF to ban Palestinians from the road in the first place.

Military sources told The Jerusalem Post the IDF still believed it would be safer to keep Palestinians off the road, but that the court had ruled against it.

As a result, after spending more than NIS 30 million, military sources said, the road will be opened in accordance with the dictates of the court ruling. They were fairly blunt about the fact that their mandate was merely to allow local Palestinian traffic on Route 443, not to turn it into a thoroughfare to Ramallah.

...

Under the new traffic plan, however, the IDF will stop Palestinian cars at a new three-lane checkpoint set up on Route 443 just 1 km. away from the Ramallah exit.

Even if Palestinians could turn left at the exit, their way would be barred within minutes by the Beitunya checkpoint, which is open only to Israeli commercial trucks that deliver goods to Ramallah. Israeli motorists are stopped there are well, because from that point on, the road is under the Palestinian Authority’s control.

Palestinians can’t go there because the IDF believes it is a security risk to allow them passage through Beitunya. The High Court of Justice, in its December ruling, upheld the IDF’s decision.

Read the whole thing.

'Palestinian' traffic on Route 443 was sparse on Friday, and fear of 'Palestinian' terror attacks will likely make Jewish traffic sparse on Sunday (although Route 1 - the main highway from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv - will likely have heavier traffic than any time since 2002). It makes you wonder why they bothered.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:33 PM