The Continuing Absurdity !!
Remove Wall, Israel Is Told by the U.N.By WARREN HOGE
NY Times
Published: July 21, 2004
UNITED NATIONS, July 20 - The General Assembly approved a resolution overwhelmingly on Tuesday evening demanding that Israel obey a World Court ruling that it abandon and dismantle its separation barrier on the West Bank and pay compensation to Palestinians affected by its construction.
The vote was 150 in favor and 6 against - including the United States, with 10 abstentions
Voting against the resolution with the United States and Israel were Australia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau. Abstaining were Cameroon, Canada, El Salvador, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Uganda, Uruguay and Vanuatu.
Last-minute amendments accepted by the measure's Arab sponsors during a hastily called two-hour recess succeeded in gaining the support of all 25 members of the European Union and more than 30 other nations that had abstained the last time the matter came before the assembly. In that vote - on Dec. 8, 2003, on a resolution that asked the international court to rule on the barrier's legality - there were 74 abstentions, with 90 votes in favor and 8 against.
"Thank God that the fate of Israel and of the Jewish people is not decided in this hall," Israel's ambassador, Dan Gillerman, told the delegates after Tuesday night's vote was posted on the electronic board next to the dais.
Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinian observer to the United Nations, hailed the outcome as "magnificent," saying: "The debate is completed. It is now time for implementation and compliance, and at a later stage for additional measures."
Resolutions from the 191-member General Assembly are nonbinding and largely symbolic, unlike those passed by the 15-member Security Council. Israel said in advance that the vote would not alter its resolve to continue building the barrier.
James B. Cunningham, the deputy American ambassador, said the United States voted against the measure because it was "unbalanced" and erred in assigning a problem to the courts that rightly should be solved through political negotiations.
"The resolution diverts attention from where it should be - on the practical efforts to move the parties towards realization of the ultimate goal of two states living side by side in peace and security," he said.
Mr. al-Kidwa said before the vote that he would now push for a binding Security Council resolution, even though such a move would draw an American veto. The United States vetoed a Security Council resolution last October condemning the barrier.
"The threat of veto will not thwart us, and all others who respect and uphold international law," Mr. al-Kidwa during the debate.
The vote had been postponed twice in an effort to give Arab and European Union diplomats time to reach agreement on language that would persuade European countries to change their stance of abstaining on such measures.
After the two-hour break this evening, two paragraphs were added to the resolution that satisfied European demands.
The first called on the Palestinian Authority "to undertake visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks" and on the Israelis "to take no action undermining trust, including deputations and attacks on civilians and extra judicial killings."
The second reaffirmed "that all states have the right and duty to take action in conformity with international law and international humanitarian law to counter deadly acts of violence against the civilian population in order to protect the lives of their citizens."
Mr. Gillerman disparaged these phrases as "grudging references to terrorism" and "carefully crafted, often constructively ambiguous phrases." He said adopting the resolution was "pandering to an agenda that seeks to focus on the response to terrorism but to marginalize the gravity of terrorism itself."
Under the resolution, the assembly demanded that Israel act on the decision on July 9 by the International Court of Justice in the Hague that the barrier built on West Bank land to shield Israeli settlements was illegal and should be torn down. It also requested the secretary general to compile a register of damages to be used in calculating reparations.
The barrier includes electronic fencing, concrete and wire walls and trenches and guard towers, all of which Israel asserts is needed to ward off Palestinian attackers and suicide bombers. It is, Israel says, a necessary defensive response to the Palestinian leadership's failure to hold back the attackers.
In the debate on Friday, Mr. Gillerman called the barrier "the Arafat fence," saying it was made necessary by the intifada launched four years ago against Israel by the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat. In a news conference, Mr. Gillerman showed charts portraying a 90 percent decline in successful terror attacks, a 70 percent reduction in people killed and an 85 percent decline in people wounded in areas where the barrier has been completed.
In an earlier blow to the barrier, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the army to change the route of the barrier in a 20-mile stretch near Jerusalem, saying it was causing too much hardship on the local Palestinian population.
The American ambassador, John C. Danforth, said the United States opposed both the resolution and the court's decision because they "point away from a political solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Saying that a solution must be balanced, Mr. Danforth said the resolution was "wholly one-sided."
"It does not mention the threat terrorists pose to Israel," he said. "It follows a long line of one-sided resolutions adopted by the General Assembly, none of which has made any contribution to peace in the Middle East."
Note: Mr. Danforth is being disingenious using that phrasing, since the representatives of over 90% of the world's population voted for the resolution demanding the dismantling of the separation wall. These same representatives have stated many times over the past years that one of the major reasons no progress has been made in the Israel - Palestinian conflict is due to America's dogmatic support for Israel, in spite of international law, up to an including wanton exercise of it's veto power in the Security Council every time meaningful action is proposed by the international community.
Some of the same actors who vilified previous American Administrations for their support of right-wing dictators, left-wing socialists, religious fundamentalists, and the actions of non-conformists seem to have no problem with unregulated support for Israel. They argue that Israel is a democracy which shares religious traditions with America and thus demands our support. But what do these same apologists say to the European Community, to India, and the NATO Alliance Countries, most of which are also democracies? Ah yes...they don't have that coveted religious connection do they.
In less than a hundred years, when the Middle East consists of several hundred million people of Non Judeo-Christian heritage whose leaders do not have oil money, or anything else of international value to barter with, may decide they might as well do a Regional "Jonestown" and take the 15 million Israelis with them. My bet is it will not take that long for some variation of this to occur due in part to the land needs of 2 billion Muslims, 3 billion Indians, or 3 billion Chinese who have no affinity with what they consider to be Judeo-Christian fictions.
Israel's confiscation of Palestinian land based on eminent domain, especially sans reimbursement, must be vigorously challenged. And make no mistake in this regard, the primary underpinnings of the Israeli - Palestinian conflict is about land. Would New Yorkers acquiese without a fight to the reclamation of all the land in their State by the Mohican, Senecan, Oneidan, or Tuscarora Indians with or without a modern day Lord Balfour?
In the words of the poet: "...and what rough beast it's hour come round at last slouches toward Bethlehem to be born."
posted by Richard at
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
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