ISRAELI SUPREME COURT ORDERS SECURITY FENCE MOVED

Court: Israel must re-route West Bank barrier (AP/MSNBC)
JERUSALEM - In an embarrassing blow to the Israeli government, the Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the state to redraw the route of its West Bank separation barrier near a Palestinian village that has come to symbolize opposition to the enclosure.

Residents of the village of Bilin went to court arguing that the current route, built on village land, kept them from their fields and orchards, which remained on the other side of the barrier. Villagers and their Israeli and foreign supporters have protested at the barrier every Friday for the past 2½ years, routinely sparring with police in clashes that wounded dozens.

The Israeli government argued that the route was necessary to protect residents of the nearby settlement of Modiin Illit, and completed the section of fence that cut through Bilin despite the protests.

A three-judge Supreme Court panel unanimously rejected the government’s argument Tuesday, ordering defense planners to change the barrier’s route so it causes less harm to the village’s residents.

“We were not convinced that it is necessary for security-military reasons to retain the current route that passes on Bilin’s lands,” Chief Justice Dorit Beinish wrote in the decision.

The judges specified that “this will require destroying the existing fence in certain places and building a new one,” and ordered the government to come up with a new route in a “reasonable period of time.”

Israel’s Supreme Court has made several such rulings in the past, ordering authorities to move the fence in several parts of the West Bank.