Hey everyone!
The wall Israel has been building has been ruled illegal by the internation court in the Hague, so I’m wondering what all of your views are on that.
My opinion:
According to something I saw on the news, suicide bombings in Israel were almost zero for about four months partially because of the wall. I support the wall in that respect. But, since portions of the wall were built on disputed territory, the wall eventually becomes a semi-permanent barrier - a new border if you will. Because of the land infringement issues, I am not a supporter of the wall.
Well Kirupa, I pretty much agree with you… suprised?
I have been following this case closely because I did an ISU on the International Court of Justice this past year. I really think that a wall is never the best idea, just because it seems to symbolize that discussion is over. However, one can not argue with the fact that the Israelis are safer now. At the same time, the rights of the Palestinians must also be considered, and the current wall is clearly a land grab ploy by Israel.
I’m glad that the decision has been getting some coverage (at least it has been up here in Canada), but I fear that the decision will just fade away in a couple of weeks, and it will have been irrelevant. The ICJ is extremely flawed, in part out of the way it is organized, and in part because countries refuse to give it power. It’s unfortunate that in EVERY case that the United States has been brought infront of the ICJ since it’s creation they have refused to accept the court’s decision, saying that it does not have jurisdiction. While the United States is definitely not the only country to do this, most have accepted the Court’s jurisdiction in writing (though they can always pull out of this acceptance) the U.S. has not. I know that it’s to the U.S.'s advantage not to sign it in some cases, but it also hurts them at other times, because what sort of credibility do they have when they bring another country to court, how can they claim that the ICJ has jurisdiction over that country.
But I’ve gone off on a tangent. Israel has refused to change the course of the wall. Will Bush and other world leaders put pressure on Sharon now that the verdict has been given against them? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Hopefully, they’ve declared this wall illegal !
This wall is nonsense, it is destroying many lives, in some village childrens can"t go to school anymore because it is on the other side of the wall and to go there they have to walk about 2 hours to join a check point and then wait that soldiers let them go. Remember that they also destroyed many houses that are on the path of the wall, where will these families live.An estimation counted that between 90.000 et 210.000 Palestinians had to left their houses. All palestinians aren’t terrorist, and terrorism always has a reason. These reasons should be considered before acting, countries should think about their foreign policy, what israel didn’t in this case.
I am sure Israel will appeal this. There are [color=royalblue]reports[/color]that if this were to go into the UN Security Council vote, the US for sure will veto - thus making the ruling void.
I strongly doubt there will ever be peace in that region. Both sides are in it too deep to call it quits or back out. There are extremists in both countries whio would simply run over a moderate leader if the idea of a compromise were to be reached. It seems like an all-or-nothing deal that both Israel and Palestine are looking for.
While these problems are occuring, Israel seems to have fared a lot better economically and socially over the 50+ years. Because a lot of countries (esp. US) benefit from Israel’s services in areas such as technology and weapons purchasing, more countries are willing to support Israel from an economic point of view as opposed to supporting Palestine.
And of course - economics is what drives the world
On the other hand; Palestine is backed by the Arab world; and past events have shown that big population & international power are not needed to damage bigger countries…
You brought up something that I’ve been looking for an excuse to vent about, lol.
Is it just me, or is the Arab League using Palestine like a pawn? The Palestinians have been kicked out of several Arab countries in previous times… In fact part of the land claimed to be theirs is not occupied by Jordan! Why isn’t part of the demand for land from Jordan!? The Arab countries don’t care at all about the Palestinians, they are just using them to advance their goals in the region… Kind of how the U.S. used 9/11 as an excuse to further their goals in the region… :be:
hum, (writing 1000 times) “usa has 50 states” 