U.N.'s outrageous World Court

The photograph in the New York Times is memorable.

Next to one of the soldiers of the IDF, the Israel Defense Force – who, with a large rope in his hands is lowering a Star-of-David flag-covered casket into a grave – there is a beautiful young woman. She is weeping.

The Times does not identify her. But she is apparently grieving for a 19-year-old Israeli soldier, Maayan Nayim, killed at a Tel Aviv bus stop by an Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade bomb, which wounded 20 other Israelis.

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The Al Aska alleged martyrs claimed credit for this atrocity. And this first terrorist attack inside Israel in four months led Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to announce:

"I want to make it clear: the State of Israel completely rejects ICJ's opinion. That opinion completely ignores the reason for the construction of the security fence – murderous Palestinian terrorism."

The ICJ is the so-called International Court of Justice in The Hague, the Netherlands. This is the United Nations' court, and now one of the U.N.'s most immoral embarrassments with this decision, for a number of reasons:

• The 64-page ruling of this court never once mentioned the word terrorism – except when mentioning Israel's claims – even though 1,000 Israelis have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists.

   

• The ruling contends that it is a violation of international law for Jews to be living in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem – despite the historic fact that Jews have been living in Jerusalem's Old City since it became the Jewish capital 3,000 years ago.

   

• The ruling pronounces the court "not convinced" that the security fence (of which Israel has completed only 120 of the planned 437 miles) is a security necessity. Considering the vast reduction in suicide bombings since this fence began, a great many Americans will agree with Sharon's description of this International Court decision as an "immoral and dangerous opinion." In particular agreement will be the families and friends of five of the nine victims of the July 2002 Palestinian suicide bombing of a cafeteria at Jerusalem's Hebrew University – for these five victims were American.

   

• This decision also contends: "On 14 May, 1948, Israel proclaimed its independence. … Armed conflict then broke out between Israel and a number of Arab states."

That incredible court statement led psychiatrist and newspaper columnist Charles Krauthammer to write:

"Broke out? As if three years after the Holocaust and almost entirely without weapons, a tiny country of 600,000 Jews had decided to make war on five Arab states with nearly 30 million people.

"In 1947, the U.N. partitioned Palestine into two states – one Jewish, one Arab. When the British pulled out and Israel proclaimed its independence, five Arab countries responded immediately by declaring war and invading Israel, with the announced intention of destroying the newborn state.

"Israel will rightly ignore the ICJ decision. The United States, acting honorably in a world of utter dishonor regarding Israel, will support that position."

Israel's finance minister and one-time prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, notes that none of this U.N. court's ruling has any merit because:

"First, Israel is not building the fence on territory that under international law can be properly called 'Palestinian land.' The fence is being built in disputed territories that Israel won in a defensive war in 1967 from a Jordanian occupation that was never recognized by the international community. Israel and the Palestinians both claim ownership of this land. According to Security Council Resolution 242, this dispute is to be resolved by a negotiated peace that provides Israel with secure and recognized boundaries.

"Second, the fence is not a permanent political border but a temporary security barrier. A fence can always be moved. Recently, Israel removed 12 miles of the fence to ease Palestinian daily life. And last month, Israel's Supreme Court ordered the government to reroute 20 more miles of the fence for that same purpose. In fact, the indefensible line on which many have argued the fence should run – that which existed between Israel and the Arab lands before the 1967 war – is the only line that would have nothing to do with security and everything to do with politics.

"By running into less than 12 percent of the West Bank, the fence will include about 80 percent of Jews and only 1 percent of Palestinians who live within the disputed territories. The fence thus will block attempts by terrorists based in Palestinian cities to reach major Israeli population centers.

"Third, despite what some have argued, fences have proven highly effective against terrorism. Of the hundreds of suicide bombings that have taken place in Israel, only one has originated from the Gaza area, where Hamas and Islamic Jihad are headquartered. Why? Because Gaza is surrounded by a security fence.

"Instead of placing Palestinian terrorists and those who send them on trial, the United Nations–sponsored international court placed the Jewish state in the dock, on the charge that Israel is harming the Palestinians' quality of life. But saving lives is more important than preserving the quality of life. Quality of life is always amenable to improvement. Death is permanent. The Palestinians complain that their children are late to school because of the fence. But too many of our children never get to school – they are blown to pieces by terrorists who pass into Israel where there is still no fence."

And let me add:

The Al Aqsa Martyrs claim of responsibility in bombing Private Nayim to death and wounding 30 more said this was "revenge for Israeli army operations in Nablus and Gaza."

Those were very well-planned and effectively operated military operations in this continuing war. They wiped out the senior leadership of Hamas, the Al Aqsa Martyrs and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

These attacks should be doubled or tripled. And that fence should be completed as soon as possible. Happily, the Bush Administration does not agree with this outrageous World Court ruling.