Beyond Israel's stone-walling

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The 9 July ruling of the International Court of Justice on Israel's separation wall sees the Palestinian issue back in the spotlight after being side-lined by developments in Iraq, something Sharon's government has been exploiting to impose its agenda as surreptitiously as possible.

The ruling is a blow to Israeli ambitions and Washington's foreign policy which provided Sharon with the moral, material and political support that has allowed him to stifle any peace process based on lawful initiatives.

The Arab position towards the wall is based on five main points: the wall prevents the Palestinians from establishing an independent state by 2005; it leads to Israel annexing yet more Palestinian land; it prevents movement between Palestinian towns and villages, compounding the task of building a viable infrastructure; it penetrates areas under Palestinian sovereignty and it undermines Palestinian access to water sources.

US and Israeli responses to the ruling serve only to underline the isolation of both from an international community that welcomed the ruling and which has called on the Israeli government to implement it.

The Israeli-American response was flagrant, if predictable. The ruling was denounced as unilateral and as biased in favour of the Arabs. As if the construction of the wall was multilateral! Israel insists it will forge ahead with the plan, defying international law and betraying once more its blatant and vicious discrimination against non-Jews.

Such racism has reared its head time and again in cases brought before Israeli courts which have systematically prevented Arabs from building houses in Jewish neighbourhoods and prevented them from investing in tax free zones. And then, of course, there is the educational curricula imposed on Arab Israelis by the right-wing extremists that tend to be responsible for education that is clearly intended to undermine Palestinian cultural identity.

Washington's position notwithstanding, surely it is time the international community pooled its efforts to end the racism of the world's most bellicose rogue state.