THE HAGUE/RIYADH, 20 February 2004 — Saudi Arabia yesterday reiterated its opposition to Israel’s West Bank barrier and warned that the “provocative” measure violating international law would trigger a new spate of violence in the region.
“The barrier also prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state,” Fowzi Shubokshi, the Kingdom’s permanent representative to the United Nations, told the International Court of Justice here in an argument.
Referring to Israeli claims that it constructed the barrier to prevent suicide bombings, Shubokshi stressed Riyadh’s determination to fight all forms of terrorism and the need to tackle its causes.
Israel faced a second day of condemnation at the World Court yesterday but Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dismissed the hearings as an “international circus” and vowed to keep building fences. Sharon vowed to finish his “security fence” regardless of the verdict of the International Court of Justice, as Israel began work on a new section of its controversial West Bank barrier yesterday.
“What is in motion at The Hague is an attempt to deny Israel the fundamental right to defend itself. We will not surrender. I will build the security fence and will complete it, as the Cabinet decided,” Sharon told the daily paper Maariv.
Seven countries, including Jordan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Cuba, added their voices to the Palestinian case challenging the legality of the barrier.
Jordan took a leading role in Arab opposition to the barrier despite its peace treaty with the neighboring Jewish state, voicing fears it could lead to a destabilizing influx of Palestinian refugees into Jordan.
Prince Zayed ibn Raad, the head of Jordan’s delegation at the court, acknowledged Israel’s right to defend itself against the “horrific” wave of attacks, but said it did not justify construction of the barrier on parts of the West Bank which were under Jordanian control until the 1967 Six Day War.
“Much of the wall now being built by Israel is in territory that does not belong to Israel, but is in fact occupied territory,” the prince, who is Jordan’s ambassador to the United Nations, told the court.
Instead the barrier was “aimed at further assimilation of occupied territories into the state of Israel.”
Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher told Parliament last month that the barrier would revive the option” of transferring Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan, despite Israeli assertions to the contrary. “My country already hosts a huge number of refugees and displaced persons,” said Raad.
“We are faced with the threat of a new wave of refugees as result of the wall’s construction.”
Cuba said the barrier turned Palestinians into a “population of prisoners” and Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country, also called on the court to declare the structure illegal.
