Tag: International law

Five years after ICJ ruling, Israel expands its illegal Wall onto more Palestinian land

Ben White | Media Monitors Network

28 July 2009

“The wall has changed not just the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, but also the dynamic of the Palestinian struggle. The reality created inside the occupied territories (a process begun during the Oslo accords) by Israel’s colonies, Areas A/B/C zoning, the permit system, separate roads–and now the wall–has led to the creation of a Palestinian enclave-state in waiting, and thus the death of a genuine “two-state solution.”

Five years ago this July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague handed down its advisory opinion on Israel’s separation wall in the occupied Palestinian territories (see p. 32). Both the Israeli government and the Palestinians had been preparing for the decision since December 2003, when the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution requesting an ICJ advisory opinion.

On July 9, 2004, the ICJ ruled 14-1 that the wall was illegal in its entirety, that it should be pulled down immediately, and that compensation should be paid to those already affected. The judges also decided 13-2 that signatories to the Geneva Convention were obliged to enforce “compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law.” Less than two weeks later, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution 150-6 supporting the ICJ’s call to dismantle the wall.

Exactly one year and one day after the ICJ had issued its opinion, Israel’s cabinet approved the final details for the wall in Jerusalem, a route expected to include Ma’ale Adumim. In the five years since the wall was deemed illegal by the ICJ, Israel has pressed on with construction to the extent that it is now one of the most defining components of its occupation. As of last year, two-thirds of the wall’s planned route of more than 450 miles had either been completed or was under construction (a figure rising to 77 percent in Jerusalem). Across the occupied West Bank, the wall’s economic and social impact already is disastrous: the World Bank has estimated that 2 to3 percent of Palestinian GDP was lost annually due to the wall.

This existential threat to the very survival of many Palestinian communities (not to mention the broader political implications and breaches of international law) has spurred on various kinds of resistance to the wall: popular resistance by Palestinians living in the occupied territories; cases brought in Israeli courts; and, outside of Palestine, the international legal arena and activists’ campaigning.

As soon as work on the wall began in 2002, Palestinians organized themselves to resist. This was a relatively slow process, starting in a handful of villages, before spreading to others also destined to lose huge tracts of farmland and olive groves. Particular villages have become famous for their insistent, creative nonviolent demonstrations against the Wall: Jayyous, Budrus, Bil’in, Ni’lin and Aboud, to name a few.

In Jayyous, demonstrations began in 2002, with close to 150 demonstrations over the following two years. Between 2004 and 2008, however, protests stopped, after Israel used the leverage of the permit system–allowing limited access to farmland isolated by the wall—to apply pressure on the village. In November of last year, the weekly demonstrations resumed.

Mohammad Jayyousi, the son of a Jayyous farmer, is youth coordinator for the Stop the Wall Campaign. While justifiably proud of the protests to date, he also is frustrated by what he sees as a kind of resignation among older Palestinians who, he says, have sometimes told the youth that no one can stop the Israelis from building where they want to.

“For us as a new generation, it’s we who will suffer,” he says. “In my opinion, you need to mobilize the youth, and educate them to understand the consequences of the apartheid system–the wall, settler roads, settlements, etc.–for them to see that for a better future, there will need to be a cost.”

Although Jayyous and other villages like Bil’in and Ni’lin have active committees of all ages involved in resisting the Wall, active Palestinians are a minority. Palestinians don’t participate in the popular resistance, Jayyousi explains, “because they don’t want to be in trouble with the occupation.” His own father stopped going after the first demonstration for fear of losing the family’s only permit to visit and work their farmland.

These weekly demonstrations, a strategy adopted for various periods of time by other West Bank villages, serve a few purposes. One is to empower the villagers to be able to do something to defend themselves; to express their refusal to surrender. Another is to slow down the physical construction of the wall as much as possible. Finally, the protests are also designed to attract local and international media attention to the wall and its consequences.

The Israeli military’s response to this popular resistance has been harsh: “troublesome” villages have been subjected to raids, curfews, and mass arrest campaigns. The protests themselves are routinely met with force: 18 Palestinians have been killed, and hundreds injured, by the Israeli military during anti-wall protests.

The IDF apparently does not consider the possibility that the anti-wall protests could inspire, and develop into, a wider movement.

A different (though sometimes complementary) strategy employed by a number of Palestinian communities is to take their fight to the Israeli courts, an approach that has brought mixed results. In Jayyous, Mayor Mohammad Taher Jabr told me that he felt this legal avenue was “a waste of time”:

“I went in November to the Israeli High Court,” he said. “The judge asked me if I accepted the change to the route, and I replied that when the Israeli army made the wall in the first place, they didn’t ask us. The army works on the ground without talking to the court.”

Suhail Khalilieh, head of the Urbanization Monitoring Department at the Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem (ARIJ), points out that “at the end of the day, the West Bank is governed by the Israeli army and the civil administration, so it’s subject to military law. The Israeli army can simply override any court decision by saying they are doing it for military or security purposes.”

That said, there have been limited successes for individual villages. Bil’in, a village famous for its popular resistance, also secured an apparent “victory” in the Israeli courts in September 2007, when the Israeli High Court of Justice ordered a one-mile change in the wall’s route.

Yet it wasn’t until April 2009, some 19 months later, that a new route was finally submitted in compliance with the court order. The wall’s new path isolates 1,000–rather than 1,700–dunams of Bil’in’s land.

The case for taking the battle to the Israeli courts is arguably supported by the recent slow progress of the wall: in 2008, it grew by just seven and a half miles. In February of this year, a spokesperson for Israel’s Defense Ministry “blamed the lack of progress on High Court of Justice rulings,” as well as “pending petitions.”

While individual villages are grateful to regain sections of land they thought lost, this is small consolation when compared to what is still being confiscated. Worse still, Israel, while ignoring the ICJ opinion, can use these rulings as propaganda cover, claiming to respect Palestinian rights within “security” constraints.

Internationally, the wall has been taken up by human rights organizations and Palestine solidarity groups as a focus for their work and campaigns. This has often been highly effective, to the point of overcoming Israel’s propaganda push about it being a temporary, legitimate, “security fence.”

Pictures of the concrete sections of the wall in urban Palestinian areas resonate strongly in the West, where the memory of the Berlin Wall still lingers. While Western media outlets almost always feel obliged to cite Israel’s security excuse as “balance,” there have been numerous reports on the suffering experienced by Palestinians affected by the wall.

The wall has changed not just the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, but also the dynamic of the Palestinian struggle. The reality created inside the occupied territories (a process begun during the Oslo accords) by Israel’s colonies, Areas A/B/C zoning, the permit system, separate roads–and now the wall–has led to the creation of a Palestinian enclave-state in waiting, and thus the death of a genuine “two-state solution.”

These three methods of resistance (popular struggle, Israeli courts, and international advocacy) have had both successes and failures. On the anniversary of the ICJ opinion, however, it is perhaps worth emphasizing the inability thus far of the Palestinian leadership to really make a case for what is a significant legal endorsement of the Palestinian position.

Many of those affected on the ground by the wall feel disappointed that the ICJ ruling has not been fully exploited. Sameeh al-Naser, deputy governor of Qalqilya, told me that he feels the Palestinian Authority, while perhaps restrained by its relationship with donor countries, has not used the ICJ decision in the right way.

Mohammad Jayyousi concurs: “I know the Palestinian leadership is under huge pressure from the international community, but the ICJ ruling has started to become like all the U.N. reports—like tissue paper to be buried. I really hope the PLO wakes up and works with the ICJ decision.”

As Prof. Iaian Scobbie, international law specialist at SOAS’s School of Law, pointed out to me, “If the Palestinians are not pushing for a solution by making specific proposals and representations to other states, then states might well not see the need or have the inclination to do anything.”

ARIJ’s Khalilieh also emphasizes the international dimension: “The conflict with the Israelis now is not about what you do on the ground, it has to do with international pressure—without that we will not go very far.”

Jayyous’ Mayor Jabr suggests that he may well have given up altogether on successful resistance of the wall by Palestinians alone:

“As Palestinians, we are asking all the time for a peace process, a real one,” he says. “What we want from the PA is that if with all these negotiations and meetings with the Israelis there is no peace, then stop all of that. And we ask the rest of the world to getjustice for us.”

IDF soldier: We used Palestinians as human shields

Amos Harel | Ha’aretz

15 July 2009

The Israel Defense Forces used Palestinians as human shields during Operation Cast Lead last January despite a 2005 High Court ruling outlawing the practice, a Golani brigade soldier says. He says he did not see Palestinians being used as human shields but was told by his commanders that this occurred.

The soldier says his unit employed a variation of the practice, the so-called “neighbor procedure,” when it checked homes for Palestinian militants.

The soldier’s testimony appears in a collection of accounts being published this week by Breaking the Silence, an organization that collects IDF soldiers’ testimony on human rights abuses by the military. The Golani soldier gave similar testimony in a meeting with a Haaretz reporter.

The IDF Spokesman’s Office, for its part, says that “the IDF regrets the fact that a human rights organization would again present to the country and the world a report containing anonymous, generalized testimony without checking the details or their reliability, and without giving the IDF, as a matter of minimal fairness, the opportunity to check the matters and respond to them before publication.”

The soldier’s allegations relate to IDF conduct during fighting in the eastern part of Gaza City. The soldier, a staff sergeant, says that in his unit and others, Palestinians were often sent into houses to determine if there was anyone inside.

“The practice was not to call it ‘the neighbor procedure.’ Instead it was called ‘Johnny,'” the soldier said, using IDF slang for Palestinian civilians. The IDF employed this practice extensively during the second intifada, before it was outlawed by the High Court of Justice in 2005.

At every home, the soldier said, if there were armed occupants, the house was besieged, with the goal of getting the militants out of the building alive. The soldier said he was present at several such operations.

In an incident his commanders told him about, three armed militants were in a house. Attack helicopters were brought in. “They … again sent the [Palestinian] neighbor in. At first he said that nothing had happened [to the armed men],” the soldier said.

“Again they brought in attack helicopters and fired. They again sent in the neighbor. He said there were two dead and one still alive. They then brought in a bulldozer and began to knock the house down on him until [the neighbor] entered.” The soldier said he had been told that the only militant remaining alive was captured and turned over to the Shin Bet security service.

The Golani soldier also testified that his commanders reported incidents in which Palestinians were given sledgehammers to break through walls to let the army enter through the side of houses. The army feared that the doors were booby-trapped.

The soldier added, however, that although the unit commander justified the use of the so-called Johnny procedure, the commander said he was not aware that sledgehammers had been given to civilians or that weapons were pointed at civilians. The commander said the allegations would be looked into.

The soldier said he had heard of other instances in which Palestinian civilians were used as human shields. One time, for example, a Palestinian was put at the front of an IDF force with a gun pointed at him from behind. But the soldier said he had not seen this himself.

The IDF Spokesman’s Office said in a statement that on initial consideration, a few of the allegations appear to be similar to allegations published several months ago after a lecture by officers to cadets at a pre-military academy.

“Now, too,” the spokesman said, “a considerable portion of the testimony is based on rumors and secondhand accounts. Most of the incidents relate to anonymous testimony lacking in identifying details, and accordingly it is not possible to check the allegations on an individual basis in a way that would enable an investigation, confirmation or refutation.”

The spokesman said the Breaking the Silence report suggests that the organization might not be interested in a reliable comprehensive examination of the allegations, “and to our regret this is not the first time the organization has taken this course of action. The IDF is obligated to examine every well-founded complaint it receives.”

The spokesman also noted that allegations by Breaking the Silence containing specifics would be investigated.

“The IDF expects that every soldier and commander who suspects there was a witness to a violation of orders or procedures, and especially with respect to violations causing injury to noncombatants, will bring all of the details to the attention of authorized parties,” the spokesman said.

West Bank fence not done and never will be, it seems

Amos Harel | Ha’aretz

14 July 2009

Seven years after construction work began on the West Bank separation fence, the project seems to have run aground. Work has slowed significantly since September 2007, and today, after the state has spent about NIS 9.5 billion, only about 60 percent of the more limited, revised route has been completed.

With fierce opposition coming from the United States, Israel has halted work on the “fingers” – enclaves east of the Green Line that were to have included large settlement blocs such as Ariel, Kedumim, Karnei Shomron and Ma’aleh Adumim, within the fence. The military has, in practice, closed up the holes that were to have led to these “fingers.” But giant gaps remain in the southern part of the fence, particular in the southern outskirts of Jerusalem, in the Etzion bloc and in the Judean Desert.

Since the cabinet under former prime minister Ariel Sharon first approved construction of the fence, in June 2002, the route has undergone some dramatic changes. The original route, which was inspired by Sharon, was to have effectively annexed about 20 percent of the territory of the West Bank to Israel.

In June 2004 the High Court of Justice, ruling on a petition by residents of Beit Sourik, ordered the state to amend the route to reduce the disruption it caused to Palestinians.

About nine days later the International Court of Justice in The Hague issued an advisory opinion declaring the barrier illegal and demanding that Israel dismantle it.

In response, the cabinet amended the route in February 2005 to include just nine percent of the West Bank. In April 2006 an additional one percent was shaved off by the government of Ehud Olmert.

In practice, however, the route encompasses only 4.5 percent of West Bank land. The four “fingers” in the last map (and which Israel presented at Annapolis in November 2007) were never built, not at Ariel and Kedumim (where a “fingernail” was built, a short stretch of fence east of the homes of Ariel); not at Karnei Shomron and Immanuel; not at Beit Arieh, nor south of that, at Ma’aleh Adumim. Instead, with little publicity, fences were put up to close the gaps closer to the Green Line, at Alfei Menashe instead of at Kedumim, at Elkana instead of Ariel and in the Rantis area instead of at Beit Arieh.

About 50,000 people in these settlements remain beyond the fence. West of Ma’aleh Adumim the wall built along Highway 1 blocks the gap in the barrier and leaves the city’s 35,000 residents outside of the barrier, forcing them to pass through a Border Police checkpoint in order to reach Jerusalem. The fact that the “fingers” were never built also damages these people’s security because the state refuses to build periphery fences around them and declare their proximity to a “special military area.”

In some cases, such as the roads built around the original barrier route at the Beit Arieh enclave, hundreds of millions of shekels were wasted on unused roads that may never be completed.

Large gaps remain in the southern West Bank. Between Gilo in south Jerusalem and Gush Etzion are tens of kilometers of barrier, work on which was suspended due to two High Court petitions – one filed by residents of Beit Jala, the other by villagers from Batir, Husan and Nahalin. As a result access to Jerusalem from the direction of Bethlehem is relatively easy – for commuters and terrorists both.

In the case of the former petition, the state has delayed submitting its response for months. In the second, the High Court has still not ruled after about two and a half years. Part of the dispute is over the construction of the eastern barrier, one of two surrounding Gush Etzion. The bloc, which even the Palestinians will presumably agree to keeping – at least part of it – within Israeli territory in the final-status agreement, has been without a barrier for seven years.

A second, 30-kilometer gap in the fence, stretches from Metzudat Yehuda (Yatir) in the west to the Dead Sea in the east. The state announced during a recent High Court deliberation of a petition submitted by area Bedouin that work on the barrier there was suspended.

The delay in building the barrier at Ma’aleh Adumim is typical and illuminates the state’s conduct overall. The High Court has intermittently deliberated on a petition by resident of Sawahra against the route of the fence at Kedar that was to have been built on their land. Work was suspended, and the state recently submitted a new map that annexes less of the territory, but at the last High Court session, earlier this month, the representative of the state said the work would not be resumed “for budgetary and other reasons.”

Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch suspended the court’s ruling, in light of the state’s response, saying she had no intention of “dealing with virtual matters.” That description seems apt for the entire separation fence, at this point.

The Brodet Commission, which in 2007 examined the state’s military budget, included in its report scathing criticism of the way the budget for the separation barrier was handled.

“The conduct regarding construction of the fence is another example of wasteful, inadequate conduct. The committee was not persuaded that the process was carried out with due, detailed consideration that took in all of the economic and security considerations. The commission saw no analysis of cost-effectiveness or a thorough examination. The army viewed itself as a subcontractor,” the report said.

IDF Colonel (res.) Shaul Arieli, who has studied the fence issue extensively on behalf of the Council for Peace and Security, told Haaretz in response: “The desire to include more territory within the confines of the fence than is practically possible has resulted in a situation where the settlement blocs are left outside of the fence while other blocs remain vulnerable and do not receive protection. In addition, exorbitant sums of money have been pumped into infrastructure and fences that were supposed to follow a route that was impossible to complete.”

Defense Minister Ehud Barak is “determined to complete the security fence, despite the delays,” his office said in a statement. “The minister and the military establishment are working to solve the problems delaying its completion.”

Defense Ministry officials pointed out that Barak was “among the first supporters of the fence and did much to advance its construction.”

Security officials claim the rate of construction depends on finding a solution to the legal issues and point out proudly that there is an unbroken barrier from Tirat Zvi in the Beit She’an Valley to the southern entrance to Jerusalem, and from southern Gush Etzion to Metzudat Yehuda.

Israel phone firm’s West Bank wall gag fails to amuse

Allyn Fisher-Ilan & Alastair Macdonald | The Washington Post

12 July 2009

A television advert for an Israeli cellphone firm showing soldiers playing soccer over the West Bank barrier has sparked cries of bad taste and prompted Arab lawmakers on Sunday to demand it be taken off air.

The jaunty commercial for Israel’s biggest mobile phone company Cellcom makes light of Palestinian suffering and shows how far Israelis fail to understand their neighbors, critics said. The company stood by the ad, however.

It shows a ball falling on an Israeli army jeep from the far side of a towering wall. A game ensues, back and forth with the unseen Palestinians after a soldier dials up “reinforcements,” including two smiling women in uniform, to come and play.

The advertisement made by McCann Erickson, part of U.S. Interpublic Group, ends with the upbeat voiceover: “After all, what are we all after? Just a little fun.”

Since the ad went out last week — as Palestinians marked the fifth anniversary of a World Court ruling that Israel’s walls and fences in the West Bank were illegal — some Israelis have taken to blogs and social networking sites to voice dismay.

“Aside from being a great contender for the ‘creepiest ads of all time’, this one-minute ad says a lot about how mainstream Israel likes to see itself and the Palestinians,” journalist Dimi Reider wrote in a blog which concluded most of his fellow Israelis did not understand Palestinians’ rage at the barrier.

Ahmed Tibi, an Arab member of Israel’s parliament, said he had written to Cellcom demanding it pull the ad: “The barrier separates families and prevents children from reaching schools and clinics,” he told Reuters. “Yet the advertisement presents the barrier as though it were just a garden fence in Tel Aviv.”

“RACIST COMMERCIAL”

Few Palestinians watch the Israeli stations where the advert aired but there was outrage among liberal Israelis on the Web.

A Hebrew-language Facebook group called “I too got nauseous watching the new Cellcom ad” had signed up 218 members. They demanded “take this racist commercial off the air immediately.”

Israeli blogger Ami Kaufman told Reuters: “We see Israeli soldiers playing with … the people that they are incarcerating behind the wall. But the most grotesque, most disturbing part of this ad is the fact that the Palestinians basically aren’t seen … They’re like monsters or aliens … This is the alienation that Israeli society feels toward the Palestinian people.”

Noam Sheizaf, another Israeli journalist and blogger, said it distorted reality: “In reality, if a Palestinian comes close to the fence to return a football … he is likely to get shot.”

Asked to comment, Cellcom said its “core value is communication between people” regardless of “religion, race or gender.” It said the commercial illustrated the possibility for people of diverse opinions to engage in “mutual entertainment.”

A spokeswoman said it was a coincidence the ad came out so close to last Thursday’s anniversary of the 2004 decision by the World Court that Israel had no right to build hundreds of miles of walls and fences on Palestinian land it took in a 1967 war.

Israel built the barrier with the declared aim of stopping suicide bombers. For Palestinians, it has become one of the most hated symbols of Israeli occupation, a land grab whose course round Jewish settlements would cripple any state they establish.

Israel’s wall still deepening the divide

Ben White | The Guardian

9 July 2009

Five years ago today, the international court of justice in The Hague published its advisory opinion on Israel’s separation wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The keenly awaited verdict, requested by the UN’s general assembly, was clear: Israel’s wall is illegal, it must be removed and adequate compensation paid.

The wall’s illegality, and Israel’s obligation to dismantle the structure and pay damages for the consequences of the wall thus far, were all agreed by the judges by a margin of 14-1. (The ICJ also accepted the use of the term “wall”, since “other expressions” are “no more accurate”.) There was also confirmation that Israel’s settlements were “a flagrant violation” of the convention, established “in breach of international law” (contrast this with the mealy-mouthed nitpicking over outposts and “freezes” by Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu). Overall, the court found that the route of the wall threatened to create “de facto annexation”, with the wall itself described as severely impeding “the exercise by the Palestinian people of its right to self-determination”.

At the time, the ICJ decision was hailed by Palestinians and dismissed by the Israeli government. As Yasser Arafat described it as a “victory for the Palestinian people”, a spokesman for the then prime minister Ariel Sharon, Raanan Gissin, opined that “after all the rancour dies, this resolution will find its place in the garbage can of history”.

Both the US and UK had opposed the entire process, on the odd grounds that the UN’s main judicial body for settling legal disputes was not “the appropriate forum to resolve what is a political issue”. In the words of Jack Straw, it was better not to “embroil” the ICJ “in a heavily political bilateral dispute”.

This opposition was rare – later that same month, the general assembly voted by 150 to six in support of the ICJ opinion. The decision was also welcomed by the likes of Oxfam and Amnesty International, with Oxfam’s director adding that the ruling was a “step in the right direction” but needed “further action” by the international community.

But meaningful “further action” was not forthcoming, and Israel pressed on with the wall. Five years on, the wall loops around the West Bank and cuts through East Jerusalem, isolating Palestinian communities and devastating lives, and has become an integral part of Israel’s apartheid regime in the territories. About two-thirds of the 700km+ route, featuring a 8m-high wall, electric fences, sniper towers and “buffer zones” up to 100m wide, is completed or under construction. Of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, 8.5% will be on the “wrong” side of the wall. In terms of size as well as significance, this would be comparable to the UK losing Greater London and south-east England.

For Israel to consolidate its hold on the illegal colonies in the OPT, many Palestinians find themselves hemmed in and surrounded by the wall’s contortions (pdf). About 35,000 Palestinians with West Bank IDs are to be caught between the wall and the Green Line – if you add (pdf) the East Jerusalem Palestinians in the same position, this figure increases to about 260,000.

These are the bare facts five years on from the ICJ opinion. Israel has ignored the judges’ decision, but that’s not a surprise. However, has the Palestinian leadership sufficiently exploited the opinion? Speaking to Palestinians involved in monitoring the wall’s progress, or in directly resisting it on the ground, there is a feeling that Palestinian diplomats have not done as much with the ICJ result as they could have.

Palestinians in communities directly affected by the wall continue to put up resistance, sometimes at their cost of their lives: 18 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces during anti-wall protests, the youngest victim a 10-year-old boy. While they fight for survival, the wall has also played a key role in changing the big picture, delineating the borders of the Palestinian enclaves Israel will grant “statehood”.

In 1994, the then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin said that “we have to decide on separation as a philosophy”. However, this is not separation on equal terms – the following year Rabin also made it clear that the Palestinian “entity” would be “less than a state”. There is a term for unequal separation in international law – apartheid. The wall urgently needs dismantling; but it is only one part of a bigger whole.