SHOW: MarketPlace

DATE: February 23, 2004

Announcer: From the Frank Stanton Studios in Los Angeles, this is MARKETPLACE.

DAVID BROWN, anchor:

Israelis usually call it "The Fence." To Palestinians it's "The Wall." Today,
the International Court of Justice at The Hague opened a hearing on what to
call it in terms of international law. The Israelis say they need the barrier
they're building along the West Bank to protect themselves from attackers like
yesterday's suicide bomber. But Israel won't be presenting oral arguments at
The Hague. It doesn't acknowledge the court's jurisdiction. The Palestinians
will tell the judges the barrier is a land grab, that it threatens their
livelihoods and the future of the Palestinian state. MARKETPLACE's foreign
editor Karen Lowe looks at the cost on both sides of the barricade.

KAREN LOWE reporting:

Sometimes it is mere meters that separate Palestinian and Israeli lives, but
the abyss of fear and mistrust couldn't be wider. Abdulwahab Saba used to make
a decent living driving a taxi in Jerusalem. That's where he grew up. But his
house is in the Palestinian West Bank and he doesn't have Jerusalem ID. That
means he can't cross into Jerusalem to work. Driving along the barricade, he
ruminates over its presence.

Mr. ABDULWAHAB SABA: The first impression when you come here and really look at
this wall and think about the people and the things and all your memories that
you left behind in this world, I really start to cry. My first love and my
first kiss is inside this wall. Now, I have to live and just look at it.

Our business is in Jerusalem. Nobody can have a job here. We worked there
and, you know, in hotels, but now we have no work, nothing.

LOWE: A 10-foot-tall electronically-monitored fence will make up most of the
barricade. High concrete walls will make up about 5 percent of it. Alongside
the barrier will be a ditch to keep cars from ramming through and coils of
razor wire to keep attackers out. Galit Livovic and her family were driving
along the barricade in June when their car was raked by 50 bullets. Gunmen
used a sewer pipe to go underneath the barrier and into Israel. They killed
Livovic's seven-year-old daughter. Still, Livovic feels the barrier provides
some measure of comfort to Israelis.

Ms. GALIT LIVOVIC: The wall can't block 100 percent of the suicide bomber and
all the attacks, but if it could block 98 percent, I don't know, but it's fact.
Before there was a wall, it was much easier for them to come. If I needed to
be more secure and be more safe, to take one or two or three or hundred acres
from the Palestinians, I will do it. And if I have to choose between life and
land, I always choose life.

LOWE: There are few easy choices in the conflicted area, like where to put the
barrier. Under the Israeli blueprint, the UN says Israel would absorb 15
percent of the West Bank. Nino Kader of the task force on Palestine says
Palestinians couldn't accept a barrier that traces the Israeli border prior to
the 1967 war, but he says the proposed barrier would dig deep into the West
Bank, cutting off farmers from their fields and others from Israel.

Mr. NINO KADER: About 600,000 acres is what they will incorporate into Israel
and take it out of the West Bank. So it's effectively cutting the West Bank in
half, and that is about equivalent to the size of Rhode Island. And one out of
every two Palestinians right now is unemployed, and this is only going to make
things worst.

LOWE: Glenn Yago is with the Milken Institute. He believes the barrier will be
an economic stabilizer.

Mr. GLENN YAGO (Milken Institute): I think you have to start with the
assumption that everyone would agree that the fence is a far second-best option
to a peace agreement, that there are 41 openings in the fence, about one every
two miles, and it shouldn't inhibit trade going back and forth. Actually, it
should probably increase it.

LOWE: But Jim Prince of Democracy Now questions the very feasibility of the
barrier. He says the costs will be well beyond the 1.3 billion price tag to
build it.

Mr. JIM PRINCE (Democracy Now): The cost of building the barrier and
maintaining the barrier is not just the cost of pouring cement, it's going to
have to be patrolled, force is going to have to be deployed. Israel is right
now extremely debt-ridden and added security costs is just going to add to the
budget deficit. Israel really can't afford it.

LOWE: The structure will eventually be 425 miles long. About a third of it is
completed. Any decision by the World Court on the future of the barrier will
not be binding, but it could open up Israeli policies to international
scrutiny. In Los Angeles, I'm Karen Lowe for MARKETPLACE.

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