Agence France Presse

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 5 January 2004 — A senior minister warned yesterday that Israel risked an international boycott over its West Bank barrier similar to that faced by apartheid-era South Africa, as more settlement outposts were ordered to be evacuated.

“There is a danger that we will be exposed to an international boycott as was the case before the fall of the regime in South Africa,” Justice Minister Tommy Lapid told yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, his spokesman Tzahi Moshe told AFP.

Lapid, who is also a deputy prime minister and leader of the centrist Shinui party, said the government should “have another look” at the route of the barrier which has attracted widespread international condemnation as it cuts deep into Palestinian territory.

The UN General Assembly last month asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague to rule on the legal consequences of the barrier. Hearings are scheduled to begin on Feb. 23.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s coalition government insists that the barrier, which it calls a “security fence”, is essential to prevent attacks on Israeli territory by Palestinians. But the Palestinians see the montage of barbed wire fencing, trenches and concrete as an attempt to pre-empt the boundaries of any future two-state settlement and grab some of their most fertile land.

US President George W. Bush has said that the barrier is undermining confidence in the Middle East process and the internationally-drafted road map for peace. The road map has come to a halt in recent months amid accusations by both sides that each other is failing to meet their commitments.

Under the terms of the blueprint, Israel is obliged to tear down all settlement outposts erected since Sharon came to power in March 2001 but only a handful have so far been removed.

Sharon ordered the evacuation of two more outposts yesterday but settlers immediately accused their former champion of threatening “the future of Zionism”. The outposts at Tal Binyamin and Havat Maon join a list of four other West Bank outposts now slated to be dismantled in coming days, a source within Sharon’s office told AFP.

Pinhas Wallerstein, a leading member of the Settlers’ Council, said in a statement that settlers would fight “this policy of the government which is targeting the future of Zionism”.

According to settler sources, seven families are currently living in Havat Maon even though it was originally dismantled by the army in 1999. Tal Binyamin is uninhabited.

The government also granted permission yesterday for nearly 30,000 Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to work in Israel. The army announced similar moves in mid-December after Sharon pledged to ease the plight of Palestinians but a lockdown of the territories was imposed in the aftermath of a Dec. 25 suicide attack near Tel Aviv.

Meanwhile, the funeral was held yesterday morning for a Palestinian teenager who died of his injuries after being shot during a funeral procession on Saturday. Around 400 people attended the service for 18-year-old Mohamed Al-Masri who was the fourth Palestinian to be killed in three separate incidents in Nablus on Saturday.

The Israelis have been carrying out a lengthy operation in and around Nablus for some two weeks, hunting and arresting members of hard-line Palestinian factions such as Hamas and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei condemned the international community’s “silence” over events in Nablus.

“Whenever the Palestinians carry out any attacks or operations against Israel they are condemned by the whole world but when Israel carries out attacks against our people, the international community stays silent,” he told Voice of Palestine radio.

In another development, Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayad has threatened to resign in a dispute with veteran leader Yasser Arafat over reforms to the security budget, official sources said yesterday.

Fayad, a former official in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, told Arafat several days ago that he would resign unless the budget was administered more transparently. Palestinian security forces continue to be largely paid by cash despite efforts by Fayad to ensure that their salaries are administered through banks and with proper accounting procedures.