GENEVA,
September 30 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - While Washington
maintained the controversial barrier in the West Bank "isolates
Palestinians from each other (and) prejudges negotiations," a U.N.
report underlined Tuesday, September 30, that the separation wall marked
illegal annexation of Palestinian territory and must be condemned by the
world community.
The
U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian
territories, John Dugard warned in a report that the wall erected in
recent months would incorporate "substantial areas" of the
West Bank into Israel, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"The
evidence strongly suggests that Israel is determined to create facts on
the ground amounting to de facto annexation," the report said.
"Annexation
of this kind, known as conquest in international law, is prohibited by
the Charter of the United Nations and the Fourth Geneva
Convention," it added.
Dugard
also said "the time has come to condemn the wall as an unlawful act
of annexation in the same way that Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem
and the Golan Heights has been condemned as unlawful".
The
takeover of occupied Arab East Jerusalem and the seizure of the Golan
Heights from Syria in 1967 both followed the Six Day War and were
condemned in U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Dugard's
report was released as the Israeli cabinet prepared to meet Wednesday,
October 1, to decide on the route of the next portion of the wall.
Israel
strongly criticized the U.N. expert's report, claiming it was
"one-sided, highly politicized and biased," and totally
disregarded the deaths of 900 Israelis in attacks since September 2000.
"When
judged against such background, Israel’s self-defense measures,
including a security fence being constructed to prevent suicide bombers
from entering Israel, would appear proportional as well as within her
right to self-defense," argued Israel's Ambassador to the U.N. in
Geneva, Yaakov Levy.
According
to an AFP count, 3,497 people have been killed since the outbreak of
Al-Aqsa Intifada against the Israeli occupation including 2,612
Palestinians and 822 Israelis.
The
U.N. report accepted Israel had legitimate security concerns that
"cannot be denied", but called on Tel Aviv to place a limit on
"the violation of human rights in the name of
counter-terrorism".
"A
balance must be struck between respect for human rights and the interest
of security," it added.
Dugard
doubted the barrier would even prove to be an effective deterrent
against attacks, citing assertions by the Israeli forces that most
bombers had taken advantage of flawed checks to cross through Israeli
manned checkpoints.
An
estimated 200,000 of the 400,000 Israeli settlers are likely to be
incorporated on the Israeli side of the 1.4 billion dollar wall, further
undermining efforts to tackle the controversial issue in peace talks,
his report indicated.
"The
construction of the wall within the West Bank and the continued
expansion of settlements, which, on the face of it, have more to do with
territorial expansion, de facto annexation or conquest, raise serious
doubts about the good faith of Israel's justifications in the name of
security," concluded the U.N. official.
The
report, based on a visit by the South African expert to the region in
June, is due to be formally presented to the 2004 session of the U.N.
Commission on Human Rights in March, a U.N. spokesman said.
The
Israeli government does not recognize the U.N. expert's mandate and has
refused to cooperate with Dugard.
Prejudges
Negotiations
 |
|
"Time
has come to condemn the wall as an unlawful act of
annexation," U.N.
|
The
route of the separation wall is still creating bad blood between Israel
and its U.S. ally.
U.S.
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs William Burns
summed up the American position Monday, September 29, at the first ever
U.S.-Arab economic forum in Detroit.
"The
course of the security fence is a significant problem as well - not its
existence as a separation barrier between Israel and the West Bank - but
because its planned route inside the West Bank isolates Palestinians
from each other, prejudges negotiations, and, like settlement activity,
takes us further from the two-state goal," he said.
U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell told the same forum that talks with
Israel would continue to ensure it "does not prejudge the outcome
of peace negotiations".
Ahead
of Wednesday meeting, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced the
wall will encompass the West Bank settlement of Ariel despite strong
U.S. objections.
"The
fence will pass east of Ariel and Kedumim," in the northern West
Bank, Sharon told a meeting of MPs of his Likud party Monday night, the
Israeli media reported.
The
first phase of the construction in the northern West Bank was completed
in July but work on the next stage had been delayed by differences
between Israel and Washington, as well as inside the government, over
the route of the barrier.
According
to Israeli media reports, Sharon chief of staff Dov Weisglass and
Defense Ministry Director General Amos Yaron struck a deal last week in
Washington on the most controversial section of the barrier.
U.S.
National security adviser Condeleezza Rice led the talks for the United
States and reportedly dropped threats to deduct the costs of the barrier
from nine billion dollars worth of loan guarantees Washington has
offered Israel.
Unconfirmed
reports in the media said that, in exchange, Israel would not
immediately act on its threat to remove Palestinian President Yasser
Arafat from his West Bank headquarters.
The
Palestinians fear the separation wall twill constitute the border of
their future state.
But
Sharon is also facing pressure from the far-right, which does not want
to give up its dream of a Greater Israel stretching from the
Mediterranean to the Jordan river.
Just
like the Palestinians, some hard-line ministers believe the borders of
the future Palestinian state are being drawn up and think that too much
of the West Bank is being relinquished.
In
a further indication that Israel was putting the final touches to its
plans for the separation barrier, an agreement was reached Monday over
another controversial section.
Israel
agreed to change the route in a sector where it threatened to slice
through the Palestinian university of Al-Quds in occupied Jerusalem,
official sources on both sides said.
Construction
of the barrier raises problems along almost every kilometer.
It
follows the Green Line only very loosely and cuts off large parts of
fertile Palestinian land, effectively annexing parts of the West Bank.
Several
other Palestinian communities, including in the occupied Jerusalem area,
are being split in two by the barrier.
