"the australian" puts it well

Editorial: World court indulges in Israel bashing

12 July 04

JUSTICE should be blind, but international justice seems too frequently blind to the moral distinction between civilised people and butchers. Even in terms of abstract legal argument, Friday's ruling by the International Court of Justice against Israel's security barrier along the West Bank is flawed. Israel, the key party to the dispute, did not agree to have the matter tested by the ICJ in the first place, something that is required under the court's rules. The ICJ is empowered under the Charter of the United Nations, yet the UN is itself a party to the Middle East conflict, being a signatory to the so-called "road map" to peace. And, as argued on the opposite page, by limiting a sovereign state's inherent right to self-defence against attacks by another state, the ruling could potentially cripple all democracies in their battle against terror.

Shaky in terms of legal principle, the ruling is an affront in terms of real-world politics, which is the proper context for considering Israel's barrier. The very fact the UN referred Israel's barrier to the ICJ in the first place reflects a brutal political reality: there is a permanent anti-Israel majority on the General Assembly. But there is another brutal reality of which yesterday's bombing in Tel Aviv was a vivid reminder. It is that Israel is in the unique position of having to defend its own existence daily in the face of suicidal terrorists whose fundamental motivation – like that of the neighbouring states who sponsor them – is racism. Israel's neighbours have launched four wars to destroy the Jewish state in 55 years. In the four years of the current intifada – since Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat rejected a peace offer at Camp David that would have delivered to the Palestinians 90 per cent of what they asked, but required them to recognise Israel's legitimacy – nearly 1000 Israelis have been killed in suicide and other attacks, while a further 2500 Palestinians have died in reprisals by the Israeli army.
As the US judge on the 15-member ICJ noted in his dissenting ruling, insufficient account was taken of Israel's security concerns. But what is most startling is the efficacy of the barrier in dealing with them. Only about a third of the 630km system of trenches, wire and walls has been completed, but there have been almost no successful terror attacks launched from behind the completed northern section. Overall, after more than 60 terror bombings in the first half of 2002, there have been fewer than 10 this year, with none in the last four months – until yesterday. This is why the barrier has gradually won over liberal Israelis.

Israel should, and will, ignore a ruling that condemns its citizens to death by terror.

So the question with the barrier now is not whether, but where. As if to underline Israel's status as the only fully democratic state in the Middle East – a status it will soon need to share with Iraq – the Israeli Supreme Court ruled last week that the barrier must be re-routed to avoid cutting off Palestinians from their farms, jobs and public services. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said he will abide by the ruling, but unfortunately he is hamstrung by a fundamentalist settler movement that, while it cannot be morally equated with Islamist terrorism, is almost as bitterly opposed to the idea of a democratic Israeli state. The fact the barrier must loop around so many Jewish settlements, instead of following the pre-1967 border, is the weak spot in Mr Sharon's audacious unilateral security solution, which also involves Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. But the path of the barrier can be adjusted long after it has been put in place and is saving more Israeli and Palestinian lives.

What will be required for that to happen, and for the barrier eventually to be removed entirely, is the emergence of a new Palestinian leadership that accepts Israel's right to exist and rejects the temptations of international victimhood as a substitute for statehood. Mr Arafat hailed the ICJ ruling as a triumph for the Palestinian people, when really it was just another anti-Israel publicity stunt. The real triumph will be the replacement of Arafat himself with an uncorrupted leader who rejects terror in deed as well as in word.