Haaretz
September 25, 2004
UNITED NATIONS - Israel is building its barrier on West Bank land not to keep
out suicide bombers but to confiscate the land and put pressure on Palestinians
to move away, a UN human rights investigator said Friday.
"There is no
compelling evidence that suicide bombers could not have been as effectively
prevented from entering Israel if the wall had been built along the Green Line -
the accepted border between Israel and Palestine - or within the Israeli side of
the Green Line [border]," John Dugard said in a report to the UN General
Assembly.
"The course of the wall clearly indicates that its purpose is
to incorporate as many settlers as possible into Israel," said Dugard, a South
African law professor charged with monitoring the West Bank and Gaza Strip by
the Geneva-based UN Commission on Human Rights.
"This is borne out by the
fact that some 80 percent of settlers in the West Bank will be included on the
Israeli side of the wall," he said.
Israeli officials say that the 600
kilometer array of razor-tipped fences and concrete walls, of which 200
kilometers is completed, is needed to keep out suicide bombers and that
terrorist attacks inside Israel have already dropped dramatically as a result of
its construction.
Palestinians have portrayed it as a land-grab aimed at
dashing their hopes for statehood.
The General Assembly in July adopted a
resolution demanding that the barrier be torn down, in line with a non-binding
advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice that its route was
illegal.
Israel has said it would refuse to comply with the court opinion
and the assembly resolution. But it has also announced it was reviewing the
barrier's planned route in response to a June ruling by the Israeli High Court
of Justice.
The court said that parts of the barrier had to be rerouted
to eliminate undue hardship on Palestinians living near it.
Dugard
dismissed Israel's stated reasons for the barrier.
"More constructive
explanations" were that it aimed "to expand Israel's territory" and "compel
Palestinian residents living between the wall and the Green Line and adjacent to
the wall, but separated from their land by the wall, to leave their homes and
start a new life elsewhere in the West Bank by making life intolerable for
them," he said.
"Rich agricultural land and water resources have been
seized along the Green Line and incorporated into Israel," he said.