Jordan Times
Friday, February 6, 2004

Jordan coordinates stands with Arab countries on Israeli separation wall

The Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported that Muasher spoke with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud Al Faisal, Egypt, Ahmad Maher, Syria, Farouq Sharaa, Kuwait Mohammad Sabah and Palestine, Nabil Shaath, in addition to Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa.

He also discussed preparations for the March Arab summit to be held in Tunisia.

Jordan deems the wall a threat to its national security.

Muasher told foreign press correspondents in Amman last month that the Kingdom was ready with a legal dossier on the separation wall.

“The wall must be destroyed,” Muasher was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse.

“It is a legal issue and the International Court of Justice must rule on the destruction of the wall,” which undermines all efforts at establishing peace in the Middle East, he added.

Jordan was coordinating with several international lawyers on the issue as well as the Arab League, the minister said at a joint news conference with Amr Musa also last month.

Arab countries involved were expected to prepare their cases and submit documents to the Arab League by the end of January.

In a resolution passed by 90 votes to eight with 74 abstentions on Dec. 8, the UN asked the ICJ to rule on the legal consequences of the barrier “which Israel, the occupying power, is constructing in occupied Palestinian territory.”

The barrier has attracted widespread international condemnation as it juts deep into Palestinian territory, AFP said.

Israel says the barrier is vital to prevent attacks on Israeli territory by Palestinian resistance fighters, but the Palestinians say it is little more than an attempt to preempt the borders of their promised state.

According to a Jordan-authored report presented last month to a Cairo meeting of Arab officials in charge of Palestinian refugee affairs, about a quarter million Palestinians will be isolated by the structure snaking through the West Bank, holding back 16 per cent of its total area, or 915,000 dunums.

Residents of 71 Palestinian towns and villages will be separated from their farmlands, and the total number of villages and towns that will be affected by the barrier is 206, inhabited by about 875,000 Palestinians or 38 per cent of the West Bank's population, the document said.

The reference of the case to the ICJ triggered a controversy in the world.

According to AFP, Russia on Wednesday came out against the ICJ examining the protest about the barrier.

“This type of activity does not contribute to the regulation” of the Mideast conflict, Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov was quoted as saying, adding that the wall “does not create a positive atmosphere for the resumption of dialogue and cooperation on the basis of the “road map.”

A day earlier, an unnamed official at the European Union said the EU believed it was “inappropriate” for the UN to refer a protest about the fence to the international legal body, whose rulings are not binding.

“The EU expressed the belief that the request for an advisory opinion is inappropriate,” AFP quoted a source with the EU's current Irish as saying. The source said it “won't help efforts... to re-launch a political dialogue.”

Also on Tuesday, the ICJ rejected a request by Israel to stop an Egyptian judge from examining with the court the legality of the controversial barrier.

“The International Court of Justice decided, by 13 votes to one, that certain matters brought to the attention of the court through letters from the government of Israel, were not such as to preclude Judge Nabil Elaraby from participating in the present case,” the ICJ said in a statement.

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