Robert Frost’s poem, “Mending Wall,” paints a portrait of neighbors fixing their common stone fence in the spring. It is a fairly apt description of the relationship we have with our neighbor in the north, Canada. Unfortunately, Frost’s famous line also has been used to describe Israel’s “security barrier” in the West Bank. The chief problem with this analogy, and with the Israeli wall itself, is that “good fences make good neighbors” only when the fence is situated on one’s own property.
Consequently, the International Court of Justice ruled in July that the fence is “contrary to international law” and that Israel must cease its construction, dismantle it and pay reparations to those damaged by it.
Senate Resolution 408 condemns the International Court’s ruling. Massachusetts senators must vote against this resolution, and thereby vote for the international rule of law, when it comes up for a vote around Labor Day.
Strangely, although there is little discussion in the United States about this issue, the Israeli supreme court has condemned the wall in recognizing that Israel is occupying the West Bank and that the wall violates Palestinian human rights.
On June 30, it ruled that Israel has held the West Bank “in belligerent occupation” since 1967 and “the route which the military commander established for the security fence, which separates the local inhabitants from their agricultural lands, injures the local inhabitants in a severe and acute way, while violating their rights under humanitarian international law.”
On Aug. 24, the Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli Attorney General Menahem Mazuz recommended that Israel formally declare that the Fourth Geneva Convention, which formed the basis of the ICJ advisory opinion, applies to its military occupation of the West Bank.
It is true that the United States, Korea and India also have built security barriers, but they all have been built on recognized borders or cease-fire lines.
The wall Israel is building in the West Bank cuts deeply into Palestinian territory. The wall is twice as long as Israel’s border with the West Bank, and it has not even been completed.
Israeli Attorney General Mazuz, in an 84-page report to the prime minister, recommended that the government show “respect” for the ICJ’s decision, despite its misgivings, and that “a maximum effort to adapt, as soon as possible … the fence’s route and arrangements … in the seam zone to the principles the High Court of Justice has set.” Thus, even Israel appears to offer more respect for the ICJ and world opinion than this Senate resolution would.
If there is ever to be a solution to this 50-year-old problem, it will require evenhanded foreign policy by the United States.
By voting for this resolution, the United States effectively flouts international law and eliminates any influence it could ever hope to exert in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Urge your senators to vote “no” on Senate Resolution 408.
This was published in the Standard Times on September 2, 2004
http://archive.southcoasttoday.com/daily/09-04/09-02-04/a14op280.htm
(link may be broken)
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