MIDDLE EAST:ISRAEL HAS agreed to dismantle four West Bank roadblocks and ease Palestinian passage through eight others, Middle East envoy Tony Blair announced yesterday.
Introducing the first accord he has reached with Israel and the Palestinian Authority since assuming the post last June, Mr Blair said the package was "designed to allow greater movement of people and goods, helping the Palestinian economy to grow, and its people achieve increased prosperity, in a way consistent with protecting fully the security of Israel and its people".
It also includes 14 development projects for villages in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority and an Israeli pledge to reconsider 3,000 land expropriation and house demolition orders.
A large enclave around Jenin in the northern West Bank is to be the centrepiece of the initiative.
Israel has promised not to increase checkpoints and barriers in the Jenin area. It has also promised to permit US-trained Palestinian police to take over security, to issue work permits for 1,000 residents to work in Israel, and to allow 300 merchants to trade in Israel.
The Jenin project is to be a test case. "We have to show success in this to go to the next stage. Step by step, progressively, we will lift . . . checkpoints and restrictions," Mr Blair said, stressing that the "package is only a start" towards ending the Israeli occupation and establishing a Palestinian state.
Mr Blair made it clear, however, that there would be no early end to Israeli restrictions and obstacles which have devastated the Palestinian economy and denied Palestinians freedom of movement. Although he proposed changes at 12 checkpoints and roadblocks, Israel agreed to only a few for the time being.
A checkpoint near Hebron is to be removed in the coming days, but the removal of the three other checkpoints due to be dismantled has been relegated to an unspecified time in the future.
Mr Blair said, repeatedly, that Israel retained the right to intervene militarily or halt implementation for security reasons. This prompted a leading Israeli commentator to say the project came from "fantasy land".
Prospects are poor for major changes. Ray Dolphin, a consultant for the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), observed that there were 611 checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank, the majority in the interior rather than along the old Green Line which, until 1967, separated the West Bank from Israel and which the Palestinians want to be the border of their future state.
These obstacles combine with 149 Israeli settlements containing 480,000 settlers, 100 settler outposts, and the 723km (449-mile) wall/fence complex to isolate the 11 main Palestinian cities and towns and fragment the territory.
In March, Israel promised US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice that it would remove 50 checkpoints and roadblocks.
Of 61 checkpoints and roadblocks on a list drawn up by the OCHA, Israel said it had lifted 44. However, Mr Dolphin said that when the OCHA checked on compliance, it discovered that, of the 44 checkpoints and roadblocks, only five were on its list, 17 could not be found even though Israel had provided GPS co-ordinates, and the rest of those removed were insignificant.
More checkpoints and barriers have been built, while abandoned ones have never been removed.
Palestinians argue that Mr Blair has not tackled the issues of the wall/fence complex, the expansion of Israeli settlements and the removal of settler outposts, all of which violate international law.