Israel’s construction of its West Bank barrier went ahead full force on Wednesday, hours after the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for the structure to be torn down in compliance with a World Court ruling.
Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said it is “unfortunate” that Israel is ignoring the non-binding ruling handed down earlier this month by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, The Netherlands, as well as Tuesday’s UN resolution.
“I hope that the international community will continue to exert every effort to make Israel comply with the UN resolutions,” Erekat said.
Bulldozers and backhoes worked on Wednesday in Abu Dis — a Palestinian suburb of Jerusalem. Workers raised 8m-high concrete walls that are rapidly separating the Palestinian area from Jerusalem, a city on which Abu Dis highly depends for employment and other services.
The 150-6 vote late on Tuesday, with 10 abstentions, reflected the widespread international opposition to the 680km-long barrier that Israel says is needed to protect its citizens from suicide bombings.
Palestinians contend the barrier is a land grab meant to deprive them of a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In some areas where the barrier has already been built — about one-quarter of it is complete — Palestinians have been cut off from their lands, schools and other towns and villages.
The UN resolution, like the World Court’s advisory opinion, is not legally binding. Both have symbolic value as international statements of support for the barrier’s destruction.
But Israel has over the years defied, ignored and brushed off UN resolutions, including ones calling for it to end its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said Tuesday’s resolution “signifies the bankruptcy of the UN” and is reflective of the “tyranny of the majority” in the General Assembly.
Israel always loses General Assembly votes, Gissin said, because the Arab world has an automatic majority. The fate of Tuesday’s resolution is the same as that of a decision passed by the General Assembly in 1975 that compared Zionism to racism, he said.
“Where is that resolution today? Somewhere at the bottom of the garbage can of history,” Gissin said.
The barrier is a crucial part of Sharon’s plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements next year. In an attempt to appease hard-liners in his Cabinet, Sharon promised them the barrier would be complete before the pull-out begins.
But Israel’s Supreme Court — in a ruling meant to apply to the entire structure — found that the barrier violates international law and human rights in areas where it cuts Palestinians off from their lands, schools and other towns.
The ruling has forced the government to reroute nearly the entire portion of the unbuilt barrier. Officials said most of the structure will be moved closer to the so-called Green Line, the unofficial frontier before Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war.
The Defence Ministry is expected to release its new route this week.
“The only binding resolution for Israel is the High Court of Justice [the Supreme Court] in Israel … we will continue to build the fence in accordance with the decision of the High Court,” Gissin said. — Sapa-AP
UN calls for Israel to tear down wall