The Defense Ministry announced Wednesday the
completion of the first stage of the separation
fence between Israel and the West Bank, aimed at
curtailing terrorist infiltrations.

The 128-kilometer stretch of the
fence, which is opposed by the
Palestinians on the grounds
that it cuts into their land,
runs from the town of Salem in
the north down to Elkana in the
south...

The U.S. says the fence is a problem because it
could make life harder for Palestinians and
prejudge the borders of a Palestinian state. UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan also chided Israel
on Wednesday for proceeding with construction
of the fence.

But after talks with U.S. President George W.
Bush in Washington on Tuesday, Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon said Israel would go ahead with
the fence...

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas on
Wednesday described the security fence as
"racist" and a symbol of the lack of
coexistence between the Palestinians and
Israel.

In Jordan on the latest leg of his international
tour which has also included trips to Egypt,
the U.S. and France, Abbas told King Abdullah
II that the fence "has little value from a
security point of view and the Palestinians
reject it because it is being built on their
lands," Jordan's official Petra news agency
said.

"The fence is racist," Abbas said. "It
represents a title for no coexistence" between
Israel and the Palestinians...

"On the question of the fence, I know it's the
conventional wisdom that fences make good
neighbors, but that is if you build a fence on
your own land and you don't disrupt your
neighbor's life," Annan told a news
conference.

Annan also criticized Israel for putting
conditions on steps it is supposed to take in
parallel with Palestinian moves under the road
map for Middle East peace.

"The road map demands of the parties parallel
action for us to make progress," Annan said.

"I do not think one should condition one's own
action ... and this is something that has
worried those of us that have worked on the
road map, that past efforts failed because some
of it became so conditioned that it was
conditioned to death.

"And we felt on this that there should be
parallel steps by the parties, and the quartet
stands by that approach," Annan said.

Outrage is the deference vice pays to virtue. Its always amusing when a Holocaust-denying, genocidal terrorist accuses other people of racism. If Abbas wants to be anything more than a joke he should keep his mouth shut. As for Annan, I couldn't care less what he thinks about anything, the man is a pig.

The Bush administration, on the other hand, is something else. Clearly they're trying to throw Abbas a bone here, and the fence doesn't seem like a big deal to them. I can tell you from personal experience, however, that the fence is a big deal, and ought to be built with all expediency. It will seriously truncate the possibility of terrorist infiltration and begin the process of consolidating Israel's Eastern border with a Jewish majority within. Which, of course, is why the Palestinians are so fanatically opposed to it. As for it being built on Palestinian land - they should have thought of that before they started setting off shrapnel bombs in schoolbuses.