ISRAEL ATTACKED IN WORLD COURT BY NEARLY 60 COUNTRIES

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

ISRAEL ATTACKED IN WORLD COURT BY NEARLY 60 COUNTRIES
Jewish state isolated amid international concern over security barrier

By: Stefan J. Bos
Special Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

JERUSALEM / THE HAGUE (ANS) -- Israel appeared increasingly isolated Wednesday, February 25, as two blocs representing dozens of Muslim countries and 20 percent of the worlds' population supported a Palestinian challenge to the legality of Israel's West Bank barrier. The Arab League and Organization of the Islamic Conference, which represents over 50 countries, told the World Court in The Hague, The Netherlands, that Israel's security wall cuts into territories where Palestinians seek to establish an independent state.

The Palestinian delegation also received backing from Jordan which took a leading role in Arab opposition to the barrier despite its peace treaty with Israel. Jordan said it fears a destabilizing influx of Palestinian refugees. Cuba and Indonesia, whose own human rights records have come under international criticism, also joined the opposition, and called on the court to declare the structure illegal.

Arab League official Michael Bothe was among the last speakers on the third and final day of the hearings in what is seen as one of the most watched cases in the court's 58-year history. He warned the World Court's 15 judges that the barrier presented "the Berlin Wall episode" which he stressed "was dubbed the wall of shame." Israel has stayed away from the trial, disputing the court's right to rule in the case.

But Israelis, including those who lost husbands, wives and children in suicide bombings, joined the battle for world opinion outside the court building, known as the Peace Palace. Armed with hundreds of pictures of victims killed in suicide attacks and the skeleton of a recently bombed bus, bereaved Israelis were holding street rallies and a mock "hearing".

EMOTIONAL FATHER

Among the victims was an emotional father who recently lost his daughter in one of the many suicide attacks that have rocked Israel in recent times. He and other demonstrators said the 700 kilometers long barrier now under construction was the only way to at least reduce terrorism and save the lives of Israeli children and other innocent people.

"We are here because we feel so outraged," explained Arnold Roth, who represented the demonstrating victims. "Not many people seem to understand that we need to protect our families. There is nothing more important for us." However Palestinian delegates made clear the barrier violates international law. Palestinian Ambassador Nasser al Kidwa told the World Court this week that Israel's series of fences and walls at the edge of the West Bank amount to an illegal land grab before borders can be set for a future Palestinian state.

"This wall is not about security. It is about extending the occupation and the de facto annexation of a large number of territories of Palestinian lands," he argued. The court's 15 judges are expected to issue their opinion within months. That ruling is non-binding, but analysts say it could influence world opinion. Palestinians hope it will pave the way for international sanctions against Israel. However the European Union and the United States appear reluctant to impose sanctions because of fears they could further harm peace efforts in the volatile region.

"INTERNATIONAL CIRCUS"

Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has described the court hearings as "an international circus" and pledged to continue the construction of the controversial barrier no matter what the judges will decide. He says the structure is the only way to keep at least some terrorists outside the Jewish state, where people are mourning victims of another suicide blast this weekend which killed at least 8 people within sight of Jerusalem's Old City walls.

Those killed include the brother in law of a staff member of the Israeli Consulate in The Hague, which planned a week of protests to boost support for the barrier which it believes will keep out the bombers. "Nothing justifies the construction of the fence more strongly than Sunday's bus bombing," said Israeli Ambassador Eitan Margalit, according to news reports. (Pictured: Scene around the burned-out bus -- photo from ICEJ web site).

“While the world debates the fence, Israel buries its dead,” added the Israeli emergency fund One Family in a statement monitored by the Jerusalem based International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) News Service. Christians joined Jews as schoolchildren, rescue workers; residents and blast victims were shown the freshly completed section of the controversial barrier this week. “It is not a political message,” ICEJ spokesman David Parsons told the crowd on behalf of the capital’s Christian community. “It's personal,” he added. (Pictured: View from inside the burned-out bus -- photo from ICEJ web site).

CHRISTIANS FOR ISRAEL

"There are many Christians living in this city that ride the buses, sit in the cafes (and) get invited to Bar Mitzvas," the ICEJ News Service quoted him as saying. "It’s a Holy Land to Christians and Jews and we’re all going to feel a little safer as this fence gets built." The ICEJ aims to support the return of Jews to Israel and assist those in need. However Lola Cohen, a pensioner who lost a close friend in a June 2002 bus attack, warned that nothing can fence out the hostility directed towards Israel. "I’m angry that the world criticizes us for building something to defend ourselves… and hurt,” she told the ICEJ News Service.

In Ramallah, Palestinian Authority officials have come out on the offensive, amid reports that the latest attack was carried out by terrorists linked to their own governing Fatah faction. The ‘settlement wall’ will not bring security or peace to the region, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat warned in a televised address Monday, February 23, an opinion reflected by his delegates insight the courtroom in The Hague.

Daniel Taub, an Israeli foreign ministry observer at the court, said Israel had been right to stay away because the case was one-sided, the Reuters news agency reported. "The silence of the suffering of the victims of terrorism inside the court is deafening," Taub was quoted as saying.

The problem could be stopped right now if Palestinians stopped murdering innocent Israelis. But they won't, that is their whole purpose.

One quibble I have is that there is no such thing as Palestinians. There are merely ethnically undifferentiated Arabs living in Israel.

Israel's ex-leader urges Peres to shun Arafat
by Vivienne Walt
8/31/2001
Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak urged Israel's foreign minister, Shimon Peres, on Thursday not to go ahead with a meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, expected to be held next week. The meeting, which could take place in Berlin, would be the first attempt in months to try to halt 11 months of violence that has killed nearly 700 people, most of them Palestinians. Barak, who as prime minister negotiated with Arafat to try to achieve a lasting peace and a separate Palestinian state, said American and European politicians also should exclude the Palestinian leader from top-level talks.

"By meeting him, you are legitimizing his policy of turning to terror and dealing with him as a benign leader," said Barak, 59, in an interview in his office here. "We can't ask world leaders to give him the cold shoulder if we ourselves are prepared to meet him."

This happened before the 9/11 mass murder by the mass murdering Moslem terrorists. Barak also suggested the Fence. Ariel Sharon defeated Barak, despite Barak's appeal to Arab voters. Arabs have the vote in Israel. In fact, in the Middle East, only in Israel do Arabs have a meaningful participation in a democratic process.

Palestinian support for suicide bombers
by Martin Asser
Friday, 28 June, 2002
The June 2002 poll by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre showed that a large majority - nearly seven out of 10 people - supported the suicide operations, about 60% of those expressing their "strong" support... However, as Israel has conducted its massive military operations in the West Bank over the past few months, support for suicide operations has weakened, from a high of 74% in December 2001 to the current 68%. The fall is more marked in the West Bank - which has born the brunt of the crackdown - where the figure is 66%... A group of Palestinian liberal intellectuals has come out to say that suicide attacks are an obstacle to the achievement of legitimate goals enshrined by United Nations resolutions... But the broader Palestinian population has become, if anything, more radicalised, setting its sights on something more than ending the occupation. More than 51% see the liberation of all historic Palestine - and the removal of Israel from the map - as the true goal of the intifada, according to JMCC's findings.

The goal is the destruction of Israel? What a surprise. It's almost as if the PLO never revised its charter under the terms of the Oslo Accords. I guess some people think that terrorists improve with age.

I should point out now that these are all probably dead links, except of couse for this one, because there was no link.

Israel Offers Phased Truce
by Ramit Plushnick-Masti
Feb 9 2003
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was awarded the task of forming a coalition, a formality that starts the clock ticking. Sharon has six weeks to form a government and - if the moderate Labor Party doesn't budge on its refusal to join with Sharon's Likud - the re-elected prime minister may have to rely on extreme right-wing and religious parties for a majority. Such a coalition would make concessions to the Palestinians nearly impossible... A gradual cease-fire took hold for a short while in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, but fell apart after a suicide bombing on a bus in Jerusalem on Nov. 21 in which 11 people were killed. Israel reoccupied Bethlehem, the bomber's hometown, following the attack.

The reason Labor refused to join the coalition is so they can have their cake and eat it too. It's an insurmountable situation without the kinds of actions Barak (of Labor) recommended and Sharon carries out.

One quibble I have is that there is no such thing as Palestinians. There are merely ethnically undifferentiated Arabs living in Israel.

What can you mean?< /sarcasm>

Yasser Arafat is Egyptian, and the rest of the 'Palestinians' are so diverse that none of their financially supportive co-religionists will grant them citizenship in any of their countries. In fact, that mob has been kicked out of a few Arab countries, most notably in Jordan, where thousands were shot to death by fellow Muslims to get rid of them.

But Israel is supposed to put up with them because their brother Arabs won't have them. Their whole purpose is to bedevil Israel, and even their co-religionists despise them. They're cannon fodder against Israel, that's all.

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