UN REPORT ON SECURITY FENCE PREDICTABLE IN EVERY WAY

Here's a little riddle for you. Read this carefully and then figure out whether the UN report wants the fence moved to the east behind the Green Line or to the west into the West Bank. Seriously take a crack at it:

The United Nations on Monday released a report... three years to the day after the International Court of Justice... ruled against the fence. According to the court, all construction of the fence beyond the pre-1967 border was illegal... "Three years have passed [and] Israel has not complied with the ICJ opinion and the barrier construction continues," said the report... "Completion of the barrier around the Ma'aleh Adumim bloc will separate east Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, restricting access to workplaces, health, education and to places of worship," according to the report.

Now the gut-check is obviously "they want it moved east" - gives the Palestinians more land, makes the Israeli heartland more vulnerable, etc etc. But that thing about workplaces and health - tons of Palestinians along the Green Line work as laborers in Israel, and it's no secret where they go when they need real health care. So that would suggest moving the fence west, so that more of Israel is accessible to more Palestinians (and Israel ends up more vulnerable anyway - the options that the UN presents are always super - through they never suggest the muddy status quo of tough security plus humanitarianism for some reason).

One almost begins to suspect that the UN's conclusions were reached before any of the contradictory arguments - and we use that word loosely - were invented. Even the empty catchphrases - almost macro-like in the regularity with which they show up in condemnations of Israel - seem like an afterthought.

[Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric]