Three years after the ICJ ruling and the wall is growing

Monday July 09, 2007 17:24 by George Rishmawi - IMEMC News

The cheers of the Palestinians on July 9, 2004, when the International Court of Justice ruled the Israeli wall in the West Bank illegal, were too optimistic.

Part of the Israeli Wall aruond Qalqilia in the West Bank (File)

Even though it was an advisory opinion, Palestinians were hopeful that this could be the first step towards an international move to tear the wall down and hold Israel accountable for its illegal actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Obviously, despite the fact that the ICJ ruling was a clear call to halt construction, to dismantle existing sections, to compensate those harmed from the construction of the wall, and to boycott companies, firms and groups that contributed directly or indirectly to the building of the wall, the construction of the wall did not cease.

The ICJ ruling, although not binding, clearly showed that the wall is illegal. Even if it had been binding, its effect may have been minimal; Israel, after all, does not abide by the binding resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.

Apparently, the ICJ ruling constituted a case for some International groups and organizations, including churches to move against the wall and to partially divest from Israel.

A campaign calling for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, known as BDS was launched after the ruling, following the lead of boycotting the Apartheid South Africa, a huge force behind the collapse of that particular regime.

The Wall is not a fence, no matter how much the Israeli government or mainstream media attempt to portray it as such. While it is true that a small section of the structure is a fence, the majority of it is a 24-foott height concrete wall. Additionally, the Wall is not a construction that separates the West Bank and Israel; rather, it is a construction that separates the West Bank from the West Bank itself. It separates families from each other, farmers from their farmlands, and villages from their main towns and cities.

The Wall will also result in the unilateral demarcation of a new border in the West Bank and the effective annexation of occupied land, including vital water and other much-needed resources.

Other violations of international law include collective punishment of the civilian population, the seizing of private property by an occupying power, the demolition of houses and property, and the violation of such basic human rights as the right to work and freedom of movement.

A further violation is represented by the fact that all Israeli settlements in the West Bank were built either to control underground water resources, or to control as much land as possible. Some settlement blocs that Israel regards as an integral part of Israel under any agreement with the Palestinians, although they are illegally built on occupied land in the West Bank, will be annexed to Israel in an act that represents a serious violation of international law. Reinforcing the position of the settlements is the path of the wall itself which is designed in such a fashion that it will include these settlements on the Israeli side of the wall, no matter what they cost to the Palestinian people.

The combination of the wall and the settlements will result in completely disconnected, isolated, waterless and Israeli-controlled territory that does not provide the minimum requirement to establish a viable Palestinian state.

The wall and the settlements will also create prisons inside the West Bank for those who live in it. This means that Palestinians will have to choose either to live in prison all their lives, to allow new generations to be born inside a prison, or to leave and become refugees in other countries.

The minimum the United Nations is required to do is to make this ruling a base for active legal action to put an end to the Wall, to the occupation and to any future possibility of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian land.

palestine | the wall | opinion/analysis george at imemc dot org