Netanyahu rejects debate on checkpoint policy

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has snubbed repeated calls for a discussion about the policy of removing military checkpoints in the West Bank.

The requests came from right-wing cabinet members who argue the removal of checkpoints would amount to a rise in attacks on Israelis, Israel Radio reported on Friday.

Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, a member of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, asked Netanyahu to summon his security cabinet to discuss the checkpoint removal issue, the radio said.

"Past experience shows that the removal of roadblocks as part of the easements granted to Palestinians has led to attempts to carry out terror attacks against Jews," Yishai asserted.

The removal of West Bank checkpoints is a gesturer by the Netanyahu administration toward the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, generally viewed to be aimed at placating the concerns of the international community over the conditions on the ground in the blockaded Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

In effect,however, most of the improvements made under the policy have not been enough to help prop up the failing Palestinian economy crushed under Israeli movement restrictions.

The Huwwara checkpoint south of Nablus, one of the few key terminals whose re-opening benefited Palestinians, was closed again on Friday along with other checkpoints around the nearby city of Tulkarem, following a Thursday attack which killed a rabbi in the northern Samaria settlement of Shavei Shomron.

The United Nations reported that as of June 2009 more than 600 military checkpoints, roadblocks, gates, and other obstructions to Palestinian movement in the West Bank.

Critics censure the policy, arguing that the checkpoints have no effect on Israeli security and only fuel Palestinian resentment to the occupation.