Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, said on Sunday that the World Court’s ruling against his country’s vast barrier through the West Bank encourages terrorists, shortly after a bomb at a Tel Aviv bus stop killed a young woman.
Sharon said his government “totally rejects” Friday’s non-binding ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, which said the vast wire and concrete barrier is illegal and should be torn down.
Israel is trying to mobilise American and European support to discredit, if not block, Palestinian attempts to take the issue to the United Nations General Assembly this week.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade said it carried out Sunday’s attack in Tel Aviv, the first bombing in Israel for four months. The explosion killed a 20-year-old soldier, Sergeant Ma’ayan Nayim, and injured about 30 other people. Unusually, the attack did not involve a suicide bomber but explosives left in a bush near the bus stop.
“I was driving to work when I heard the boom,” Shlomi Ben-Amo told Israel Radio. “A female soldier flew in the air. There was hysteria.”
Afterwards, Sharon claimed the killing negated the World Court ruling, and said the construction of the barrier should continue.
“This morning’s act of murder is the first to have occurred under the auspices of the opinion of the ICJ in The Hague,” he said.
“On Friday, the sacred right of the war on terrorism received a slap in the face by the ICJ after it decided that the terrorism-prevention fence is illegal and that Israel must dismantle it.”
He said the court’s opinion is “one-sided” and “based solely on political considerations”.
“The opinion completely ignores the reason for the construction of the security fence — murderous Palestinian terrorism.”
Sharon said the ruling “sends a deadly message that encourages terror on the one hand and prevents countries from protecting themselves against it on the other”.
The Palestinian Authority says that later this week it will take the World Court ruling back to the UN General Assembly, which first raised the issue with the ICJ.
The General Assembly does not have the authority to do more than call on Israel to heed the ruling and dismantle the barrier. Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, did that on Sunday.
“I think the decision of the court is clear,” he said. “While we accept that the government of Israel has a responsibility and duty to protect its citizens, any action it takes has to be in conformity with international law and has to respect the interests of the Palestinians.”
Once the General Assembly has voted, the Palestinians could press for the UN Security Council to take up the issue and impose sanctions. But officials in Ramallah say they will wait until after the US election before any such move.
Sharon expects Washington to block any Security Council resolution. But he also plans to press European countries to vote against the ICJ ruling in the General Assembly, or abstain as they did during the motion calling for the court case.
Israel believes that if most Western countries do not throw their weight behind the court ruling at the UN, it will be able to dismiss a General Assembly motion as the view of “dictatorships and tyrants”.
Sharon said: “Today, all who fear the spread of terror must stand alongside Israel in demanding that this immoral and dangerous opinion pass from the world. All civilised people for whom standing against terror is important must stand alongside Israel and disavow both the opinion and its dangerous significance.”
Minister sacked
Meanwhile, Sharon on Sunday sacked a minister who was secretly taped plotting to frame a Cabinet colleague. Joseph Partizky, of the centrist Shinui party, apologised on television for his attempt to remove Avraham Poraz — a political rival — from power. The dismissal does not affect the Cabinet’s shape as Partizky will be replaced with another Shinui minister. — Guardian Unlimited Â