Arab League to Have Say in Israel Anti-Terror Wall Case

The Arab League will be allowed to participate in the case before a United Nations court on whether the security barrier Israel is building in the Palestinian territories is legal.

The International Court of Justice at The Hague in the Netherlands, was asked by the UN in December to give its opinion on the matter, although it is not clear whether Israel will be influenced by the advice.

The participation of the Arab League was in question because it was not a single country, and the court usually only heard disputes between individual UN states.

Although Palestine is not officially a country or UN member, the court said it could participate because it was a UN observer and co-sponsor of the resolution requesting the court’s intervention.

Israel will participate and Jordan has said it will also join in, since Palestinian families who fled or were driven out of their homes during the 1948 and 1967 wars with Israel make up around half its population.

Court spokesman Boris Heim said he could not say what other countries, if any, were participating.

The court, also known as the world court, will hear the case starting on February 23.

The court has not said how long the proceedings might last or when it might render its opinion. In the past, its 15 judge panels have taken months, and sometimes years, to publish their findings, although the court has said it will take “all necessary steps to accelerate the procedure”.

The opinion it issues, however, will be non-binding. Israel has said it would co-operate with the court, but has not said whether it would abide by any opinion it hands down.

Israel has begun building the barrier stretching more than 300 miles surrounding the West Bank to block would-be suicide bombers from reaching civilian targets inside Israel.

A UN study of the barrier’s proposed route said part of it would lie within the West Bank, trapping 274,000 Palestinians in tiny enclaves and blocking 400,000 others from their fields, jobs, schools and hospitals.

Israel ignored a resolution last October by the General Assembly calling for a halt in the construction.

The case will be the most high-profile case heard by the world court since it was asked to rule on the legality of nuclear weapons in 1996.

Arab League as a witness in this trial? This is nutty. The enemies of Israel can't stand that Israel exists and the Arab League is historically the kingpin policy maker and facilitor of actions against Israel. They chip away at her on a daily basis. They can't stand that she won't lie down and play dead. The Arab League is the corporate grandfather which set in motion the organized, multinational, transborder hate mongering and terrorism against Israel which the Jewish state has been trying to protect itself against for so many decades. Any country has the right to try to protect itself from such a cancer.

Would any country not commence such a project if there were daily suicide bombers walking across its borders and committing mass murder and mass injuries? In fact, some walls are already in place at U.S. borders. They are to prevent smuggling of illegal aliens. No World Court hearing. Israel's fence is prevent illegal mass murderers from crossing. How dare they try to prevent the heinous crimes of the monsters who would blow up their families, the World Court says.

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