Donor nations, including the U.S. [a reader points out that the official U.S. rationale is that it won’t fund projects in the West Bank if the Palestinian Authority objects], are denying funds to Israel to build roads for Palestinians in the West Bank on the ground that the ICJ has declared Israel’s fence and related West Bank policies to be illegal under international law. The post linked to above goes into detail on the relevant legal issues, but I’ll point out another interesting fact: for all the Palestinians’ complaints about the checkpoints, they (or at least their leaders, who lobbied strongly against the funding) would rather have the checkpoints than have Israel build a road system that would allow them to travel much more freely throughout the West Bank without creating a terrorism hazard for Israelis.
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