Israelis to petition High Court against Fence

[Gimel]

The upscale Jerusalem suburbs of Har Adar and Mevaseret Zion are to issue a precedent-setting petition to the High Court of Justice against the security barriers' alternate route which they claim unnecessarily disrupts their lives and endangers their communities.

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Out of four alternative barrier routes sketched, the Defense Ministry planners chose "Plan D" which falls on the Green Line, wherever possible. It calls for the barrier to skirt Mevaseret Zion and Har Adar by as little as ten meters, according to the Security Officers of the respective towns. In another first, the new route essentially annexes 120 dunams of Har Adar municipal land to the Palestinians, said Efrati.

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Put otherwise, this move will bring the barrier to within a stone's throw of the homes of Interior Minister Tzahi Hanegbi, Chairman of the Knesset's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, Yuval Steinitz and Meretz stalwart MK Ran Cohen said Mevaseret's Security Officer Gideon Cohen on Tuesday.


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The tables have turned. Virtually everybody in Har Adar and Mevaseret Zion, from security officers to their mayors to local citizens lobbied the government to alter the original route of the fence – Har Adar's Efrati noted his support for the High Court's landmark ruling no less than four times in a telephone interview. About 20 residents even signed Beit Suriq's High Court petition, arguing that a barrier causing bitterness among Palestinians endangers their own lives.

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