Israel Opposition
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In 2002 Israel began construction of a separation wall in the West Bank. Israeli officials stated that the wall was designed to prevent suicide bombers from entering Israel from the West Bank. But the route of the wall did not follow the “Green Line” border between the West Bank and Israel, instead curving far east into the West Bank. The UN estimated that the wall cut off at least 15 percent of West Bank land. International opposition rose, and in 2004 the UN’s International Court of Justice ruled that the wall was illegal. The ruling found that “Israel is under an obligation to terminate its breaches of international law; it is under an obligation to cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall being built in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, to dismantle forthwith the structure therein situated, and to repeal or render ineffective forthwith all legislative and regulatory acts relating thereto.' Israel ignored the UN court’s ruling. Israeli officials, including the soon-to-be foreign minister Tzipi Livni, later admitted that they intended the route of the wall to become the future unilaterally imposed border of an expanded Israeli state.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. •
lack of progress in peace negotiations, the expansion of Israeli settlements, increased Israeli control of Palestinian life in the occupied territories
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. •
Israel had carried out what Palestinians described as a number of acts of collective punishment in Gaza, including destroying Gaza’s only electrical generating plant during the heat of summer. Israel had also arrested and imprisoned nearly a third of the Palestinian Legislative Council for belonging to an illegal organization. Of the 41 legislators arrested, 37 were members of Hamas.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. •
Some political observers believed that an Israeli proposal put forward at the Camp David talks, which Clinton mediated, was the best offer that Israel had made. But the offer did not adhere to guarantees promised to Palestinians in previous UN resolutions. Among these was UN Resolution 194, passed in 1948, which guaranteed the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. As a result the Palestinians objected. The proposal would have continued Israeli control of Palestine’s borders and airspace. It also would have approved Israel’s annexation of large swaths of territory where 80 percent of Israeli settlers live, and it would have given Israel authority over walls, roads, bridges, and tunnels. In effect this would have divided the West Bank into dozens of truncated and disconnected cantons. Finally, the Israeli proposal would have maintained Israeli sovereignty over most of the inner neighborhoods of Arab East Jerusalem, as well as the Haram al-Sharif, a Muslim holy site. The new state that would have emerged, according to Palestinians, would have been neither viable nor sovereign, instead resembling South Africa’s bantustans.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
In 2002 Israel began construction of a separation wall in the West Bank. Israeli officials stated that the wall was designed to prevent suicide bombers from entering Israel from the West Bank. But the route of the wall did not follow the “Green Line” border between the West Bank and Israel, instead curving far east into the West Bank. The UN estimated that the wall cut off at least 15 percent of West Bank land. International opposition rose, and in 2004 the UN’s International Court of Justice ruled that the wall was illegal. The ruling found that “Israel is under an obligation to terminate its breaches of international law; it is under an obligation to cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall being built in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, to dismantle forthwith the structure therein situated, and to repeal or render ineffective forthwith all legislative and regulatory acts relating thereto.' Israel ignored the UN court’s ruling. Israeli officials, including the soon-to-be foreign minister Tzipi Livni, later admitted that they intended the route of the wall to become the future unilaterally imposed border of an expanded Israeli state.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. •
lack of progress in peace negotiations, the expansion of Israeli settlements, increased Israeli control of Palestinian life in the occupied territories
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. •
Israel had carried out what Palestinians described as a number of acts of collective punishment in Gaza, including destroying Gaza’s only electrical generating plant during the heat of summer. Israel had also arrested and imprisoned nearly a third of the Palestinian Legislative Council for belonging to an illegal organization. Of the 41 legislators arrested, 37 were members of Hamas.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. •
Some political observers believed that an Israeli proposal put forward at the Camp David talks, which Clinton mediated, was the best offer that Israel had made. But the offer did not adhere to guarantees promised to Palestinians in previous UN resolutions. Among these was UN Resolution 194, passed in 1948, which guaranteed the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. As a result the Palestinians objected. The proposal would have continued Israeli control of Palestine’s borders and airspace. It also would have approved Israel’s annexation of large swaths of territory where 80 percent of Israeli settlers live, and it would have given Israel authority over walls, roads, bridges, and tunnels. In effect this would have divided the West Bank into dozens of truncated and disconnected cantons. Finally, the Israeli proposal would have maintained Israeli sovereignty over most of the inner neighborhoods of Arab East Jerusalem, as well as the Haram al-Sharif, a Muslim holy site. The new state that would have emerged, according to Palestinians, would have been neither viable nor sovereign, instead resembling South Africa’s bantustans.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
