Yes, Move the Separation Barrier

Israel’s Supreme Court is a voice of rea­son:

In its lat­est deci­sion over­rul­ing Israel’s influ­en­tial secu­rity estab­lish­ment, the High Court of Jus­tice here on Tues­day ordered the gov­ern­ment to reroute a sec­tion of its sep­a­ra­tion bar­rier that had split a West Bank vil­lage from much of its farmland.

As I’ve stated in this post in my “Solv­ing the Mid­dle East” series, Israel can and should have the sep­a­ra­tion bar­rier, but the coun­try should move it so it does not devi­ate from the Green Line. These were my orig­i­nal recommendations:

• Imme­di­ately stop build­ing any new set­tle­ments in the West Bank;

• Inform cur­rent set­tlers that they (and their set­tle­ments) will be under Pales­tin­ian juris­dic­tion and con­trol once that state is formed;

• Offer to relo­cate exist­ing set­tlers from the West Bank to Israel proper at the expense of the Israeli gov­ern­ment before a Pales­tin­ian state is declared;

• Move all parts of the sep­a­ra­tion bar­rier so that it fol­lows the Green Line; and

• With­draw com­pletely from the West Bank at a mutu­ally agreed-upon time with the incom­ing gov­ern­ment of the future State of Palestine.

If only it were that simple.