The Tel-Aviv based civil rights organization, Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center, has filed a petition in the High Court of Justice to compel Defense Minister Ehud Barak not to allow PA (Palestinian Authority) motorists back on Route 443, the Jerusalem – Modi’in Highway. More than 1,000 Israeli commuters who utilize the road, have joined the law suit as petitioners. It is the largest lawsuit filed in the history of the High Court.

Following a wave of terrorist shootings at the beginning of the so-called Second Intifada in 2000, which resulted in the murder of 6 Israelis in eight months, the Defense Minister barred residents of the PA from using the road. The IDF sealed the access roads leading from the nearby PA villages. Many of the terrorists carrying out the murders had come from these local towns or utilized them for safe haven. Route 443, a major traffic artery that connects Northern Jerusalem to Modi’in, has become an important alternative commuter route to the heavily congested  Highway 1, the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Highway.

However, in response to numerous petitions brought by PA, residents and Israeli NGOs in recent years, the High Court, on December 29, 2009, handed down a decision, ordering the IDF to open Route 443 to PA motorists once again. The Court gave the IDF five months to implement its new security arrangements.

In the wake of the Court’s ruling, the IDF has hastily cobbled together a security framework for the Route 443 which involves placing additional checkpoints on the village access roads and erecting barb-wire fences along certain stretches of the highway. Under the new arrangement, PA motorists from Ramallah and other areas throughout Yehuda and Shomron would be able to enter Route 443 north of Jerusalem and drive along side Israeli motorists and buses.

In addition to signing up the 1,000 plaintiffs, Shurat HaDin commissioned an Israeli major-general (reserves), Uzi Dayan, to provide a security assessment of the IDF’s new plan.

In his written opinion Major-General Dayan states that having any Palestinian traffic on the road creates a dangerous threat to Israeli lives. The checkpoints alone cannot ensure that terrorists will not be able to enter Route 443 in Palestinian vehicles from the access roads. The fact that there will be cars with PA license plates on the highway will seriously thwart the ability of the army and security services to determine who is a legitimate PA driver and who is a terrorist. In addition, once there are PA cars on the road, terrorists will be easily able to infiltrate onto the highway through the remaining sealed access roads without alerting the IDF or Israeli motorists. Once having entered onto Route 443 there is an increased danger that PA vehicles will be able to enter Israeli proper through the in-bound Jerusalem and Modi’in checkpoints exposing these population centers to an escalated terrorist threat.

An opinion poll conducted this week for Shurat HaDin by the Sarid Company revealed that more than 70% of Israeli commuters who utilize Route 443 believe that there is a great likelihood of a terrorist attack as a result of the High Court’s decision. In addition, more than 50% of Israeli commuters said they would alter and limit their use of the highway after the PA traffic returns to Route 443.

According to Shurat HaDin Director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner: “By ordering Palestinian traffic back onto Route 443, the High Court is continuing to play roulette with Israeli lives. The opinion poll we commissioned has shown that most Israelis are fearful that there will, G-d forbid, be a terrorist attack on the highway. General Uzi Dayan, who studied the new security arrangement is warning that it is insufficient to stop Hamas and Fatah terrorists from entering in PA vehicles and creating a threat to Israeli commuters who use the road. We are demanding that the IDF continue to bar Palestinian traffic from Route 443.”

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)