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Conflict in the Middle East: Fence in West Bank Raises Concerns

Aired June 17, 2002 - 14:39   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: In the Middle East, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat doesn't like a fence Israel is building along the West Bank. Arafat called the more than 200-mile long project a -- quote --"fascist enterprise."

Israel says the fence is not meant to become a border, but rather a barricade against terror. CNN's Sheila MacVicar went to one West Bank community where the plan raises some complicated questions.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Israel's government says there is no choice. A fence, it says, physical separation, is the only answer. And so construction began on what is intended to be a 110-kilometer, $220-million fence designed to keep suicide bombers out of Israel.

Palestinians see the creation of ghettos. Some Israelis worry that it establishes a border and ends any Israeli claims to the settlements. The government says it's all about security.

BENJAMIN BEN-ELIEZER, ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER: All what we have done and what we have started today aim to bring the maximum, the maximum security to the whole population of Israel.

MACVICAR (on camera): As much as Israel's government insists that the fence is meant only to provide security and not fix borders, there will inevitably be political consequences. And nowhere is there more uncertainty about what those consequences might be than here, in the village of Barta.

(voice-over): This Arab village was divided right down this trash-strewn riverbed back in 1949, when Israel's borders were negotiated. The border guards are long gone since 1967. But the village remains technically divided. On the west is Israel and Israeli Arabs. On the east, the Palestinian Authority and Palestinians.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here is the border between the two Bartas.

MACVICAR: And now the villagers, like Kusay Kalba (ph), an elected counselor on the Israeli side, fear that once again there will be a new physical barrier. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have many questions. We have no answers about that.

MACVICAR: The people of Barta -- Israeli, Arab and Palestinian -- are all part of one extended family, the Kava clan. Every part of life is intertwined here. Electricity from Israel. The mosque on the Israeli side, the imam on the Palestinian. But it may get much closer.

(on camera): So it's all the way across this ridge?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

MACVICAR (voice-over): The new fence, they think, will run to the east of the entire village, putting all of Barta on the Israeli side of the fence. Yassan Kaba is an elected counselor on the Palestinian side.

"We don't know what will happen," he says. "Will we get special permits? Will we become Israelis? Will the government be Palestinian and security Israeli? We just don't know."

At this bakery on the Palestinian side, these Kava cousins, like everyone else, are confused. They have Palestinian identity cards, but they may end up with Israel coming to them. "The fence is bad for both sides," he says, "wherever they put it, on one side or the other, it's bad."

But down the road, the duck and egg seller is pragmatic. "I'd like to be Palestinian," he says. "That's my nationality. But from the economic point of view, it will be better to be part of Israel."

What Israel's government means only to address a serious matter of security, is racing complicated questions about borders and nationalities and to whom the land belongs -- difficult questions that no one is yet ready to answer.

Sheila MacVicar, CNN, Barta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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