Israel Rethinks Security Barrier

The Israeli government has ordered a review of its West Bank separation barrier, seeking ways to ease Palestinian suffering caused by the divider, a senior Israeli official said Monday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the government has asked committees to study possible changes in the route as well as technical means of easing passage for Palestinians. Any changes would have to be approved by the Cabinet.

Israel says the barrier is needed to protect against suicide bombers and other attackers. But the barrier has severely disrupted the lives of tens of thousand of Palestinians, separating them from their farmland, jobs, hospitals and schools.

With the World Court in the Hague set to discuss the legality of Israel's security barrier next month, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is prepared to make changes so the fence encroaches on less West Bank land, reports CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger.

Hawks like Cabinet Minister Danny Naveh aren't happy.

"It would be a big mistake in terms of our security, and our security needs," he said.

But Sharon's legal advisors have warned that Israel will lose the case in the World Court unless the barrier's controversial route is changed.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom will head to Jordan next week, as Jordan steps up preparations to challenge the contentious separation barrier that Israel is building in the West Bank.

Jordan, which lies on the eastern side of the West Bank, has been extremely critical of the barrier project. Jordan fears construction will lead to large-scale immigration by West Bank Palestinians, threatening its fragile demographic balance and overwhelming its strained social services.

Meanwhile, Sharon said Monday that the price for future negotiations with Syria will be the return of the Golan Heights. Speaking at a parliament committee meeting, Sharon said that "talks with the Syrians are courtesy calls; they mean ceding the Golan Heights."

Opposition leader Shimon Peres said Sharon is trying to avoid talks with Syria.

In comments published Monday, Syrian President Bashar Assad has restated his desire to renew peace negotiations with Israel.

Also Monday, it was reported the Palestinian woman suicide bomber who killed four Israelis last week at a border crossing in the Gaza Strip may have been motivated by something other than nationalism, reports Berger.

Israeli security officials said the 22-year-old woman was an adulteress who carried out the attack to restore her family's honor. It is not uncommon for Palestinian women accused of adultery to be killed by their families. Palestinians deny the Israeli account, though they admit the bomber had a big fight with her husband prior to the attack.

Israel says a number of would-be women bombers have confessed to being motivated by family problems rather than Palestinian nationalism.

"We're going to the Hague at the end of the month to make a case, a Jordanian case, against the wall," Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher said last week.

Sharon says Jordan's position threatens relations with Israel. The two countries signed a peace agreement in 1994.

He also told the Knesset committee that Amman fears that erecting the barrier would cause thousands of Palestinians to immigrate to Jordan.

The 440-mile network of fences, walls and trenches cuts deep into the West Bank in some places to include Jewish settlements, isolating tens of thousands of Palestinians. The structure is one-fourth complete.

Palestinians decry the barrier as a land grab, saying it separates thousands of Palestinians from hospitals, schools and farm fields, and destroys the possibility of a viable state being established in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israel captured the territories in the 1967 Mideast war.