On the second day of the oral hearings in the case for an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of the wall, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, presided by President Shi, heard statements from Belize, a tiny nation in Central America, Cuba, Indonesia, Jordan, Madagascar, Malaysia and Senegal. Wednesay morning, the final day of the oral hearings, the Court is scheduled to hear from Sudan, the League of Arab States and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Read more about Court concludes second day of hearings on Israel's Apartheid Wall
The Apartheid Wall, which began being built in the Occupied West Bank in June 2002, is nearly one third complete. It snakes its way deep inside the West Bank, devouring fertile land into de facto Israeli controlled areas, encircling residential areas, ghettoizing and imprisoning the Palestinian population. The 90,000 people that are already directly affected by the Wall’s 140 km “first phase” are well aware that their entire lives have been shattered, that their incomes, dignity, children’s future, and heritage were uprooted in a matter of weeks or months as bulldozers leveled their lands in order to confiscate and isolate them. Jamal Juma’ comments. Read more about The Wall Is illegal, now we must stop it
Palestinian UN envoy, Nasser Al-Kidwa, told the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that he hopes a ruling that Israel’s separation barrier in the West Bank would lead to the same kind of international sanctions that followed after the Court’s 1971 ruling against South Africa’s occupation of Namibia. But if this hope is what Palestinian Authority (PA) strategy is built on, then we are in trouble. EI’s Ali Abunimah says that the Palestinians are not wanting for international legal decisions supporting their rights. What they badly lack is a political strategy to convert these rulings into reality. Read more about Even if Palestine wins at The Hague...
Opening the oral hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legal consequences of the wall, Palestinian UN representative, Nasser Kidwa, said that the wall will render a two-state solution practically impossible. “The wall is not about security: It is about entrenching the occupation and the de facto annexation of large areas of Palestinian land,” Kidwa said. “This wall, if completed, will leave the Palestinian people with only half of the West Bank within isolated, non-contiguous, walled enclaves. It will render the two-State solution practically impossible,” he told the fifteen judges. Read more about International Court opens oral hearings on the wall
The mayor of The Hague, Wim Deetman, said on Dutch TV that the Israeli embassy in The Hague is contradicting his responsibility to maintain public order during the oral hearings of the International Court of Justice on the legal consequences of the wall this week. The Israeli embassy has been coordinating protests and provided the pictures of 927 Israeli victims of suicide bombings to the Zionist-Christian organizations “Christenen voor Israel”. Deetman has argued that the provocative use of pictures will disrupt public order. The Israeli Foreign Ministry immediately issued a statement against the mayor. Read more about Israel angry at mayor of The Hague
The Simon Wiesenthal Center has cited the WSF as one of the centers of what it and others refer to as the “new anti-Semitism”. Their description of the WSF is so disturbing, even frightening, that I am prepared to encounter at minimum silent hostility, and possibly even physical attacks from my fellow attendees. I have come to the WSF to be loudly and visibly Jewish, to make a presentation that deconstructs the theory that Jews dictate U.S. policy in the Middle East, and to see for myself this purported new tidal wave of hatred of Jews from the rest of the global left. Cecilie Surasky reports what she discovered. Read more about Anti-Semitism at the World Social Forum?
The Palestinian Authority is in a critical and untenable state, writes EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah. On the international front it is engaged in futile diplomacy designed to restore its reason for existence. Meanwhile on the home front, new allegations of corruption implicate prime minister Ahmed Qureia, Suha Arafat, the wife of the Palestinian leader, and Palestinian cabinet minister Jamil Tarifi. Yet neither Qureia’s nor Mrs. Arafat’s denials will do much to clear the thickening clouds of suspicion and mistrust that hang over the PA. Neither does the ongoing Palestinian parliamentary investigation offer much hope, in the light of earlier experience. Read more about A Palestinian Authority steeped in paralysis and corruption
In his January 20, 2004 State of the Union speech President Bush was criticized for not even mentioning the plight of the Palestinians. President Bush completely ignored the blatant Israeli policy of human rights violations that the Israel military occupation has sustained against the Palestinians for decades now. The same cannot be said for his proposed $2.4 trillion Budget of the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2005, which was transmitted to Congress on February 2, 2004 and covers the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2004. The budget is planned to be brought to the floor of both the House and Senate between July 1 and September 30 and is riddled with references to the Palestinian issue. Sam Bahour reports from Palestine. Read more about Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's 2005 Budget
An obscene monument to the belief that “too much is never enough,” Israel’s monstrous Apartheid Wall is a visible indictment of the racist folly of forcibly separating people from each other and the places they love. The visual and moral affront of the Apartheid Wall prompted these observations, expressed through a subtle Japanese poetic form, the haiku. An ancient Japanese literary form, the haiku embodies the principle that “less is more” and delights in mixing categories and crossing boundaries through the magic of metaphor. Read more about Warsaw Ghetto Abu Dis: Five haikus on the Apartheid Wall
Today, the EU presented its position regarding the hearing at the ICJ. In Strasbourg, Irish Foreign Minister Dick Roche, on behalf of the Council of Ministers, said that Israel must stop building this barrier and he deplored the “regrettably uncompromising” attitude of the Israeli government. The EU’s abstention during the vote at the UN General Assembly did not bring into question the fact that the EU was opposed to the wall, which is a violation of international law. The EU, however, doubted whether bringing the case before the ICJ would be useful. Read more about EU: "Israel must stop building barrier"
