Heeding Rice, Israel opts to ease West Bank travel

Pressed by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to take steps to bolster peace negotiations, Israel announced plans Sunday to ease some restrictions on Palestinians’ movement in the West Bank and allow the Palestinian Authority to post hundreds of additional police officers in the town of Jenin.

After a meeting here involving Rice, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Barak’s office said about 50 roadblocks hindering travel among some West Bank cities would be removed, and a checkpoint that restricts movement between Jericho and Ramallah would be opened.

Similar pledges have had limited results in the past, and Rice, who also held talks in Jordan with King Abdullah II and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, gave no indication of progress in negotiations on the core issues of a permanent peace agreement.

Rice is on a three-day visit to the region, her second this month, to boost peace efforts that have stumbled since they were relaunched in November at a U.S.-sponsored conference in Annapolis, Md.

She called for “meaningful” action to improve daily life and economic conditions for Palestinians in the West Bank and said the steps announced Sunday were “a very good start” in meeting commitments under a U.S.-backed peace blueprint known as the “road map.”

Hundreds of obstacles to Palestinian travel will remain. Samir Abdallah, planning minister in the West Bank government, called the Israeli moves “small steps,” and said that the major checkpoints causing the most serious bottlenecks should be removed. But Barak has balked at removing those checkpoints, saying they are necessary for security.

Barak’s office said that an additional 700 Palestinian police officers, trained in Jordan, would be allowed to deploy in the Jenin area “to enforce law and order,” but that Israel would retain “supreme security responsibility.”

A similar deployment in Nablus, a West Bank city that is a militant stronghold, has had mixed results, with Palestinian officials asserting that continued Israeli army raids there have disrupted their security efforts and undermined the authority of their forces. The Palestinian police patrol Nablus by day, but Israeli forces have occasionally raided the city at night, searching for militants and arms.