By Jeffrey Fleishman and Laura King
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
July 10, 2004
THE HAGUE — The International Court of Justice ruled here Friday that
Israel's separation barrier in the occupied West Bank violated freedom of
movement and should be demolished because it threatened a "de facto annexation"
of Palestinian lands for Jewish settlements.
The court's nonbinding
decision — issued after hearings requested by the United Nations —
harshly criticized the massive barrier of trenches, fences and concrete that
Israel said was necessary to stop suicide bombers and others from launching
attacks. Israel's security concerns, the world court found, do not condone
seizing land that restricts the ability of Palestinians to move about and
"severely impedes" progress toward their self-determination.
The
government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has repeatedly stated that it did not
recognize the world court's jurisdiction and vowed Friday to ignore the advisory
opinion and continue building the planned 437-mile barrier. Palestinians hailed
the ruling — a more sweeping condemnation than Israel had expected —
as a vindication, and planned to use the victory to press their cause before the
U.N.
"The fence works," the Israeli government said in a statement.
"It is a temporary, nonviolent security means, and it saves lives. So long as
terror continues, Israel will continue to defend its citizens." The statement
added: "The solution won't be found in The Hague or Manhattan, but in Ramallah
and Gaza, from where the terror originates."
Palestinians pledged to
immediately mount a campaign in the U.N. General Assembly and the Security
Council that they hoped would result in international sanctions against
Israel.
"It's a historic day and a historic decision," said Palestinian
Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Korei. "To tell the world, the Israelis and the
Americans that this wall is illegal, because it is built on someone else's
land."
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said
the ruling would be studied, but he emphasized that it "is not legally
binding."
"Along with a number of other states, we did not support the
General Assembly resolution that referred the matter to the court," Boucher
said. .
"It remains our view that this referral to the court was
inappropriate and that in fact it could impede efforts to achieve progress
towards a negotiated settlement between Israelis and Palestinians," he
added.
The sole U.S. judge on the 15-member international panel,
Thomas Buergenthal, was the lone dissenter on much of the court's opinion.
Buergenthal argued that the court did not closely examine Israel's right to
self-defense in light of years of attacks.
The international court's
finding in part echoed a decision by the Israeli Supreme Court last month that
stretches of the barrier that went beyond the boundaries of the so-called Green
Line — Israel's pre-1967 de facto frontier — violated Palestinian
rights. The Israeli court, however, basically supported the idea of a barrier
— a view that widely differs from an international court urging the United
Nations to "bring an end to the illegal situation" that is damaging prospects
for Middle East peace.
The path of the barrier, according to the court
opinion read by Judge Shi Jiuyong of China, "gravely" violates Palestinian
rights, "and the infringements from that route cannot be justified by military
exigencies or by the requirements of national security or public order."
In some of the strongest language against Israel, the judge added: "The
wall's sinuous route has been traced in such a way as to include a great
majority of the Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory."
There is a danger that the "route of the wall will prejudge the future
frontier between Israel and Palestine," the court ruled. U.N. documents filed
with the court suggest that the barrier would expropriate about 14% of the West
Bank.
The court stressed that Israel should ease construction —
about one-third of the barrier is complete — and compensate Palestinians
who have lost orchards and other property. The barrier, the court noted, would
result in human rights violations because about 160,000 Palestinians would be
forced to live in "almost completely encircled communities." Such restrictions,
the court said, would lead to "increasing difficulties" for Palestinians to
access hospitals, schools and water.
In Israel, which has endured more
than 150 suicide attacks during the Palestinian uprising of the last 45 months,
there is overwhelming public support for a barrier to keep out bombers. Attacks
inside Israel by Palestinians have fallen by 80% this year, and the Israeli
security establishment says that dramatic drop-off is almost entirely because of
the presence of the partly built barrier.
The Sharon government refused
to make any argument before the international court, although Israelis did ship
part of a bus to The Hague that had been destroyed in a terrorist attack.
Palestinians delivered their own images, including pictures of children shot by
Israeli soldiers.
Israel has long complained that Europe is
pro-Palestinian. The Israeli government called the court's decision-making
"politicized, biased and faulty."
Even among dovish critics of the
barrier's route, there was a strong sense that Israel had been dealt with
unfairly. "Unlike a court in which all citizens are equal before the law, not
all countries share equal circumstances," Labor Party leader Shimon Peres said.
"How can a country that knows no terror judge a country that lives under
constant terror?"
The complexities of protection versus fear have led
to considerable Israeli domestic debate since the project's inception in 2002.
Prominent leftist politicians said Sharon's government had invited condemnation
by mapping a path that strayed so far into the West Bank.
"Building the
wall on Palestinian land contradicts the Israeli national interest, regardless
of the international decision," said lawmaker Yossi Beilin. "Damaging Israel's
international standing, together with attracting this ruling from The Hague, is
a destructive combination that only a government like Sharon's could have
visited on us."
While rejecting the court's call to dismantle the
barrier, Israel stressed its readiness to make any changes to the route ordered
by its own Supreme Court. The high court has declared one 20-mile stretch of
the barrier illegal because of the hardship imposed on Palestinians, and more
than half a dozen similar challenges are pending.
"Israel is committed
to continuing the fence as it sees fit," said Justice Minister Tommy Lapid. "We
will abide by the decisions issued by our own court, and not that of the
international panel."
Palestinians living in and near the barrier's
path were pleased by the international court's ruling, but hardly euphoric.
Many said they doubted the advisory ruling would force Israel to tear down the
barrier.
"It's a good decision, but I do not expect it to change
anything," said Ahmed abu Farha, a shopkeeper in the West Bank village of Abu
Dis, on Jerusalem's outskirts. He added that his sweet shop, in the shadow of
the concrete barrier, would soon close because customers could no longer reach
him.
"In spite of my objection in principle to the fence, if Israel
really wanted one, it could have built it on its own territory and no one would
have made a peep in the entire world, because it wouldn't have made
Palestinians' lives a misery," said Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli Arab who serves in
Israel's parliament. "It wouldn't have created cages keeping a boy from school
or a woman from giving birth in a hospital. There is a certain balance that
even the international court is aware of."
The public relations war
continued Friday at the Peace Palace, where the court meets.
"I am here
to cry out — this comes from my heart," Ron Kerman, a leading campaigner
for the barrier, told Israel Radio from The Hague. Kerman's daughter, Tal, was
killed in a bus bombing in Haifa in March 2003. "I try to explain as a father
that my daughter has the basic right to return home safely, and the minimum
anyone can do to protect his children from suicide bombers is to build a
fence."
*
Fleishman reported from The Hague
and King from Jerusalem.