Post by Salem6 on Feb 27, 2004 11:13:28 GMT
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) was requested by the UN General Assembly on February 23 to render a nonbinding ruling on the legality of the security barrier that Israel is putting up in the West Bank.
Israel claims that it’s needed to protect its citizens against suicide bombers. The Palestinian Authority (PA), however, contends that its real purpose is to grab more land.
The barrier once completed would increase Israel’s share of pre-1948 Palestine from 50 percent to 90 percent. The balance of 10 percent—approximately half of the West Bank today—conforms to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s idea of a “viable Palestinian state.”
Only 90 of the UN’s 191 members approved the resolution to ask the ICJ for an advisory opinion. There were 74 abstentions and 8 nay votes.
Although most governments including those that abstained or voted against the resolution think that the security barrier is illegal, the US and a number of European governments were against bringing the case to the ICJ.
They say that a ruling, either way, would make restarting the peace negotiations more difficult. In any case, this is not a legal but a political and internal security issue.
The road map that the US, the European Union, Russia and the UN proposed as the basis for negotiations between the Israel and the PA puts land at the center of the peace process.
Israel is required in the first phase to withdraw from those areas it occupied since September 2000; to dismantle all settlements that were built during Sharon’s administration; and to freeze all settlement activities.
In the second phase, an international conference would be convened to establish an “independent Palestinian state with provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty.”
In the third and final phase in 2005, an “independent, democratic and viable Palestine,” it is hoped, would emerge.
On January 9, 2004, the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said that they would “postpone” indefinitely all “military” operations if Israel withdrew to its pre-1967 borders. There were no other conditions.
On the same day Benny Morris, an Israeli historian, told Ha’aretz that recently declassified documents of the Israel Defense Force that date back to 1947 revealed that Ben Gurion and other Zionist leaders came to the conclusion that the land assigned by the UN to the Jews was not big enough. Therefore, in April to May 1948 units of the Haganah were ordered “to uproot the villagers, expel them and destroy the villages themselves.” 700,000 Palestinians were dislocated. The IDF documents used the word “cleansing” to describe the operation. The issue of territory is embedded in the Zionist enterprise from Ben Gurion to Ariel Sharon.
Yasser Arafat said on December 11, 2003, that he does not object to a separation fence provided it’s on Israel’s territory. But that cannot be because the fence is meant also to protect all Jewish settlements including those that are on Palestinian land.
An ICJ opinion would put the issue of land in sharp relief, thus making it possible for the peace process to go forward.
The 2-state solution depends on this.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What other papers say
Dirty tricks
A revealing new light was cast Thursday on the maneuvering in Washington and London before the US-led invasion of Iraq. President Bush, clearly against his better judgment, followed the advice of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and sought the approval of the UN Security Council for an attack on Iraq. That the effort failed was not for want of trying by the Americans and their British allies. Besides private lobbying of Security Council representatives from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria, Guinea and Pakistan, the Americans also spied on them by tapping the officials’ telephones and monitoring their conversations.
This has been confirmed by a female officer working at the GCHQ, British intelligence’s electronic eavesdropping center. The woman leaked an e-mail from GCHQ’s US sister organization, the National Security Agency (NSA), asking for help in putting telephone taps on the UN diplomats. The story was published briefly in the British press. The officer was charged with breaking the British Official Secrets Act. Yesterday, when the case against her was due to begin in open court, the prosecution announced that it was dropping all charges and abandoning the trial. The British government was almost certainly alarmed at news that the defense would be seeking key documents, including the still unpublished advice from the top government law officer on the legality of the Coalition attack on Iraq without a specific UN mandate.
The weapons of mass destruction excuse has now been proven false. Rights.
The British and the Americans are now shown to have been prepared to act without principle in order to win UN support. The revelation is all the more damaging because it was made by an individual who placed principles above career and the danger of prosecution to which she exposed herself.
— The Arab News
www.manilatimes.net/national/2004/feb/27/yehey/opinion/20040227opi1.html
Israel claims that it’s needed to protect its citizens against suicide bombers. The Palestinian Authority (PA), however, contends that its real purpose is to grab more land.
The barrier once completed would increase Israel’s share of pre-1948 Palestine from 50 percent to 90 percent. The balance of 10 percent—approximately half of the West Bank today—conforms to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s idea of a “viable Palestinian state.”
Only 90 of the UN’s 191 members approved the resolution to ask the ICJ for an advisory opinion. There were 74 abstentions and 8 nay votes.
Although most governments including those that abstained or voted against the resolution think that the security barrier is illegal, the US and a number of European governments were against bringing the case to the ICJ.
They say that a ruling, either way, would make restarting the peace negotiations more difficult. In any case, this is not a legal but a political and internal security issue.
The road map that the US, the European Union, Russia and the UN proposed as the basis for negotiations between the Israel and the PA puts land at the center of the peace process.
Israel is required in the first phase to withdraw from those areas it occupied since September 2000; to dismantle all settlements that were built during Sharon’s administration; and to freeze all settlement activities.
In the second phase, an international conference would be convened to establish an “independent Palestinian state with provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty.”
In the third and final phase in 2005, an “independent, democratic and viable Palestine,” it is hoped, would emerge.
On January 9, 2004, the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said that they would “postpone” indefinitely all “military” operations if Israel withdrew to its pre-1967 borders. There were no other conditions.
On the same day Benny Morris, an Israeli historian, told Ha’aretz that recently declassified documents of the Israel Defense Force that date back to 1947 revealed that Ben Gurion and other Zionist leaders came to the conclusion that the land assigned by the UN to the Jews was not big enough. Therefore, in April to May 1948 units of the Haganah were ordered “to uproot the villagers, expel them and destroy the villages themselves.” 700,000 Palestinians were dislocated. The IDF documents used the word “cleansing” to describe the operation. The issue of territory is embedded in the Zionist enterprise from Ben Gurion to Ariel Sharon.
Yasser Arafat said on December 11, 2003, that he does not object to a separation fence provided it’s on Israel’s territory. But that cannot be because the fence is meant also to protect all Jewish settlements including those that are on Palestinian land.
An ICJ opinion would put the issue of land in sharp relief, thus making it possible for the peace process to go forward.
The 2-state solution depends on this.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What other papers say
Dirty tricks
A revealing new light was cast Thursday on the maneuvering in Washington and London before the US-led invasion of Iraq. President Bush, clearly against his better judgment, followed the advice of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and sought the approval of the UN Security Council for an attack on Iraq. That the effort failed was not for want of trying by the Americans and their British allies. Besides private lobbying of Security Council representatives from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria, Guinea and Pakistan, the Americans also spied on them by tapping the officials’ telephones and monitoring their conversations.
This has been confirmed by a female officer working at the GCHQ, British intelligence’s electronic eavesdropping center. The woman leaked an e-mail from GCHQ’s US sister organization, the National Security Agency (NSA), asking for help in putting telephone taps on the UN diplomats. The story was published briefly in the British press. The officer was charged with breaking the British Official Secrets Act. Yesterday, when the case against her was due to begin in open court, the prosecution announced that it was dropping all charges and abandoning the trial. The British government was almost certainly alarmed at news that the defense would be seeking key documents, including the still unpublished advice from the top government law officer on the legality of the Coalition attack on Iraq without a specific UN mandate.
The weapons of mass destruction excuse has now been proven false. Rights.
The British and the Americans are now shown to have been prepared to act without principle in order to win UN support. The revelation is all the more damaging because it was made by an individual who placed principles above career and the danger of prosecution to which she exposed herself.
— The Arab News
www.manilatimes.net/national/2004/feb/27/yehey/opinion/20040227opi1.html