City Limits Jerusalem fence poses problems of logistics — and humanitarianism. This is another installment in a series on Israel's West Bank security barrier. The series is in connection with the Feb. 23 hearing at the International Court of Justice on the barrier's legality.. emphasize, Palestinians enjoyed unfet- tered freedom of movement, and the current change has been brought about only by the terrorism of the intifada (uprising). Palestinians say the Jerusalem portion of the fence is a political attempt to solidify Israeli control of the city. The status of Jerusalem is one of the thorni- est issues of the Israeli-Palestinian con- flict. Before construction began on the Jerusalem portion of the barrier, the municipal borders were invisible, not affecting the daily lives of residents on either side in a significant way. DINA KRAFT Jewish Telegraphic Agency Jerusalem 1p J1NT 2/20 2004 24 alestinian schoolboys scram- ble onto cement blocks and climb on the 26-foot-high slabs of concrete forming the towering wall that is blocking off Jerusalem from the West Bank. From their perch, the boys can see both sides of the wall that runs along Shaya Street, the previously invisible municipal boundary between Jerusalem and the West Bank village of Abu Dis. As in other neighborhoods in east- ern Jerusalem, where nearly all of the city's Arabs live, the barrier cuts . through the city and its suburbs — separating relatives, cutting off work- ers from their jobs and students from A heavy crane moves a concrete section of the security fence Israel is building to separate their schools, and separating those on Jerusalem from the village of Abu Dis. the Palestinian side from hospitals, municipal services and cemeteries in Israel. In most places hewing roughly to the and annexed as part of the city — the Israeli political and military officials Green Line — the armistice line from barrier divides Palestinian neighbor- say the wall in Jerusalem, like the hun- Israel's 1948 War of Independence, hoods. Jewish neighborhoods on the dreds of miles of barrier being built to which served as a de facto boundary eastern side of the city are included on separate the rest of Israel from the West until the 1967 Six-Day War — the the Israeli side of the wall. Bank, is a temporary measure to block fence is altering the delicate fabric of life More than half of Jerusalem's Palestinian terrorists. that has grown up between Israelis and Palestinian population lives inside the The two sides' differing views of the Palestinians here over nearly four municipal boundaries — some 200,000 fence are coming to a head as a Feb. 23 decades. people. hearing on the barrier's legality Critics of the fence ask why approaches at the International Court of Jerusalem Stands. Out Palestinians beyond the city limits are Justice at the Hague. Israel has said it The ramifications of such a physical considered a security threat when those will not make arguments in the trial, as divide are seen most starkly in Jerusalem, inside the city apparently are not. the Hague has no jurisdiction in the the only part of the barrier route that Security officials say the government matter. slices through a major urban area. decided to build the fence along the Palestinians argue that the fence is an Elsewhere along the boundary with city's municipal boundaries — and those illegal land grab, taking ground they the West Bank, the barrier is comprised Arabs living inside city limits are le claim as their own and that they want mostly of a high-tech network of wire residents of Israel. for a future state — including Jerusalem, fence, ditches and patrol roads. In urban Still, they hope to prevent terrorists which they hope one day will become areas like Abu Dis, which merges into from using eastern Jerusalem neighbor- their capital. Jerusalem, such a setup would involve hoods on the West Bank side of the city Israel claims that the fence is a neces- confiscating additional land and further as launching pads for attacks — as has sary security precaution — saying it is disrupting everyday life, so large walls occurred in the past. The barrier, they perhaps the least invasive measure the are being constructed instead. say, will control the flow of people from Jewish state can take after three years of As Israeli authorities build along the the West Bank into Jerusalem by chan- Palestinian terrorism have left more than Jerusalem municipal boundary estab- neling all traffic to checkpoints, as a reg- 1,000 Israelis dead and thousands more lished in 1967 — when several eastern ular border crossing does. wounded. Jerusalem neighborhoods were seized For decades, the security officials Line Is Drawn Now, however, a line will be drawn between those living in the city and those living in its Palestinian suburbs, for whom the city is the center of their economic and social lives. "The wall will result in the most dra- matic changes to the Jerusalem bound- aries and its people since 1967," said a December 2003 report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Palestinians say the wall creates mad- dening practical obstacles. 'All of our people are angry about this. I cannot visit my family there," said Ahmed Sabek, a taxi van driver, gestur- ing to the West Bank side of the wall, and they cannot visit us here." But Moshe Karmi, a retired diamond polisher was born in Jerusalem and fought there in the wars of 1948 and 1967, said Palestinians have left Israel with no choice. "I'm for the fence. It's for our securi- ty," Karmi said. "We want to live and they are trying to kill us. We also have a right to live here." Military officials stress that for now, the wall is the only answer. "The establishment of the fence is part of the army's battle against Palestinian terror," Capt. Gil Limon, a member of the Israel Defense Forces' legal staff in the West Bank, told an overflow audi- ence at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies during a recent public debate on the Jerusalem portion of the fence. "It's part dour self- defense." In the southern Jerusalem neighbor- hood of Gilo, which regularly came "