Israel Won The War And Should Be Able To Build Anywhere, On Any Land Taken In the 1973 War. Palestinians Have To Understand, They Lost! That Is War!

Israel “to build security barrier between West Bank and Jordan”

Robert Tait - telegraph.co.uk,  November 3rd, 2013

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (centre)  (Photo: AP)

Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to build a security barrier between the West Bank and Jordan in a move aimed at asserting Israel's control over the borders of a future Palestinian state.

The fence would extend from the Dead Sea to near the southern Israeli city of Eilat and would reinforce Israel's determination to maintain a presence in the strategic Jordan Valley, despite fierce Palestinian opposition.

The Israeli newspaper, Maariv, reported that Mr Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, had ordered work to begin as soon as another fence currently being built on the country's southern border with Egypt's Sinai Peninsula is completed.

An Israeli official confirmed to The Telegraph that the barrier was under consideration but said that a final decision had yet to be taken.

Addressing Sunday's cabinet meeting, Mr Netanyahu said a continued military presence in the Jordan Valley was “first and foremost” among Israel's security needs “in case the peace frays”.

“These security arrangements are important to us. We will insist upon them,” he said. “First and foremost, the security border of the State of Israel will remain along the Jordan River.”

The proposal provoked an angry response from the Palestinians, who portrayed it as an attempt to undermine John Kerry, the US secretary of state, who is due to visit Israel and the West Bank on Tuesday to bolster stuttering peace talks between the two sides.

“The Israeli premier's statements on building a wall in the Jordan Valley is only a proactive step to foil Secretary Kerry's visit,” Nabil Abu Radeineh, a spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, told the Wafa news agency.

In another development certain to trigger Palestinian outrage, Israel issued tenders for 1,859 settlers' homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank on Sunday, according to Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement group.

The move came after Israel last week approved 5,000 new settlers homes as well as a national park in East Jerusalem in what was depicted as an effort to stave off Right-wing criticism of the release of 26 Palestinian prisoners, freed last Tuesday as part of an agreement concluded last July to re-start long-stalled negotiations.

One Palestinian official said the latest settlement announcement could provoke a Palestinian complaint to the UN Security Council, a decision that would almost certainly scupper the current talks.

“The PLO [Palestine Liberation Organisation} is considering a mechanism to go the Security Council and the UN against these new Israeli decisions, especially as there are international resolutions that consider settlements illegal,” Wassel Abu Youssef, a senior PLO member ,told AFP.

Speaking in Cairo, Mr Kerry acknowledged that settlement-building threatened the talks' prospects.

“I remain hopeful, and we will make every effort in the United States to move the process forward in a fair-handed way, a balanced way that reflects the complexity of these issues,” he said. “There is no doubt… that the settlements have disturbed people's perceptions of whether or not people are serious and are moving in the right direction.”