http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=1&u=/nm/20031128/wl_nm/mideast_dcUN Says Israel Fails to Meet Demand to Halt Wall
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By Irwin Arieff
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) reported on Friday that Israel has failed to comply with a General Assembly demand that it halt construction of a barrier cutting deep into Palestinian West Bank lands.
The official finding lays the groundwork for the Palestinians to return to the 191-nation assembly to seek further action against Israel, probably next week.
"I have concluded that Israel is not in compliance with the assembly's demand that it 'stop and reverse the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,"' said the report, requested by the assembly in an Oct. 21 resolution.
Annan acknowledged Israel's "right and duty to protect its people against terrorist attacks."
But doing so by building what Israel calls a "security fence" that veers as much as 13 miles from its 1967 border with the West Bank would violate international law and increase Palestinian suffering, he said.
It also "could damage the longer-term prospects for peace by making the creation of an independent, viable and contiguous Palestinian state more difficult," his report concluded.
The General Assembly voted 144-4 with 12 abstentions last month to adopt a resolution demanding that Israel halt construction of the barrier. Only the United States, Israel, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia voted "no."
Palestinian U.N. envoy Nasser al-Kidwa vowed that if Israel failed to comply, he would ask the assembly to adopt a second resolution calling on the International Court of Justice to issue an advisory opinion on whether the barrier was illegal.
'DEEPLY COUNTERPRODUCTIVE ACT'
The court, a branch of the United Nations (news - web sites), judges disputes between countries and is based in the Netherlands.
U.S. diplomats and some European Union (news - web sites) states oppose bringing the U.N. court into the dispute, arguing this could further politicize the Middle East peace process and prejudge issues better left to later negotiations.
But Annan said building the wall at a time Israel and the Palestinians are being asked to follow the "road map" peace plan could be seen only as "a deeply counterproductive act."
Israel says it needs the barrier of concrete, razor wire, ditches and electric fences to stop suicide attacks that have killed over 450 people in three years.
Palestinians call it a bid to annex land taken in the 1967 Middle East war and say the Israelis must stop construction if they are serious about the road map.
Washington, Israel's closest ally, cut nearly $290 million this week from a multibillion-dollar package of loan guarantees after President Bush (news - web sites) said the Jewish state should not prejudice peace talks with "walls and fences."
But Israeli officials brushed off the gesture as symbolic.
Annan's report said the barrier would cut off 16.6 percent of West Bank land, home to 17,000 Palestinians in the West Bank and 220,000 in East Jerusalem. "If the full route is completed, another 160,000 Palestinians will live in enclaves, areas where the barrier almost completely encircles communities and tracts of land."
Under Israeli army orders, Palestinians living between the barrier and the 1967 border must obtain special permits to remain in their homes while Israeli residents can move freely in and out of those areas.
end article.
I predict they'll keep 'denouncing' and making 'resolutions' for 10 years.
