Avi Naim, Head of the Beit Arye Municipal Council in Samaria and Chairman of the Local Government Center Security Commission is Calling for the immediate closing of problem highway sections to Arab traffic, due to the serious recent terrorist attacks, News 0404 reported Wednesday.
Naim is serving a third term as head of his municipal council. He is an influential participant in Israeli local government politics, and on occasion has been known to ride roughshod over his opposition.
Naim said, “Hebron and Kiryat Arba, Gush Etzion junction and parts of Route 60 must be closed for security reasons to the movement of Palestinians until there is total relaxation [of the violence]. A more limited options would be to prevent Palestinian vehicles from traveling after dark, which is when most of the shooting attacks are carried out, or, alternatively, to allow only supervised buses to move on the roads.”
Naim claims that the argument made by some in the defense apparatus that road limits would not calm the violence is invalid. “Route 443 suffered quite a few shooting attacks against Israeli vehicles during the Al Aqsa Intifada of 2,000,” he said, adding that “as soon as Highway 443 was closed nearly hermetically to Palestinian traffic, the attacks ceased almost completely for many years.”
In 2007, the Association for the Civil Rights in Israel and residents of six Palestinian villages situated alongside Route 443 appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court to lift the ban on Palestinians traveling or walking on Route 443. In December 2009, the court revoked the ban, ruling it was unauthorized and disproportional. Then Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch stressed that the freedom of movement constitutes one of the basic liberties and it is a duty to undertake all necessary measures in order to preserve it in territory held by Israel.
Perhaps echoing Republican presidential hopeful Donald J. Trump who favors barring all Muslims from entering the US, Naim said, “A normal state puts the security of its citizens beyond any other consideration. The right of innocent Israeli citizens to live supersedes the right to convenience of sectors that produce murderous attacks.”