Israel faces more condemnation at World Court

Israel faces more condemnation at World Court

Agencies, The Hague

Israel faced a second day of condemnation at the World Court on
Tuesday over its West Bank barrier but Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon dismissed the hearings as an "international circus" and
vowed to keep building fences.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country and Cuba,
joined Jordan and other countries in backing the Palestinians'
case against the barrier Israel is erecting in and around
occupied territory.

Indonesia called on the court to declare the structure
illegal.

At The Hague on Tuesday, Jordan took a leading role in Arab
opposition to the barrier despite its peace treaty with Israel.
Jordan fears a destabilizing influx of Palestinian refugees.

Cuba said the barrier turned Palestinians into a "population
of prisoners."

Israel has stayed away from the hearings that began on Monday,
disputing the court's right to rule on the case.

"(This is) a campaign of hypocrisy currently being staged
against Israel in the international circus in The Hague," Sharon
said in an interview with the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth. "I
will build the security fence and will complete it."

At his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah,
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat voiced confidence that the
World Court would reach the "right decision".

Israel says it needs the vast array of fences, walls and
trenches to keep out Palestinian suicide bombers. Palestinians,
who have asked the UN tribunal to declare the structure illegal,
calling it a land-grab to deny them a viable state.

The United States and European Union have shunned the hearings
despite criticizing the barrier's route. They say the court's
involvement could harm Middle East peacemaking efforts.

The court's ruling will not be binding. But it could influence
world opinion and the Palestinians hope it could pave the way for
international sanctions against Israel.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman dismissed the dozen
countries supporting the Palestinian case as "the usual
collection of dictatorships and Arab states against Israel".

Belize, a tiny Central American nation with little at stake in
the Middle East, stressed Israel's right to defend its citizens
but it too urged the court to rule against the barrier.

The hearings stem from a Palestinian request, backed by the UN
General Assembly. A decision could take months.

The case has underlined the paralysis in Middle East
peacemaking after more than three years of violence.

Palestinians want the barrier, of which 180 km of a planned
730 km have been built, to be dismantled or the line shifted to
follow Israel's boundary with the West Bank before the area was
occupied along with the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war.

In a separate development, Israeli border police clashed with
angry Palestinian villagers here on Tuesday who tried to stop
fertile land being leveled to make way for a new section of
Israel's controversial West Bank security barrier.

Beit Surik's mayor, Mohammed Qundiel, said more than 50
residents were injured, including elderly persons, and that five
or six youths were arrested by Israeli police.

The work on the 42-kilometer section of the fence started as
the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague held a
second day of hearings on the legality of the barrier.

Around 100 villagers tried to stop two bulldozers by lying
down in front of them but they were dispersed by Israeli border
police who used sound grenades and beat them with sticks, an AFP
reporter witnessed.

Israeli soldiers also hit some of the protesters with the butt
of their assault rifles, and several suffered head wounds in the
demonstration in Beit Surik, in the northern West Bank.

Under heavy army protection, the bulldozers razed a 150-meter
row of olive trees to draw the path for the barrier.

"The bulldozers are still tearing up the land, it's a dark day
for Beit Surik," the village's mayor, Qundiel, told AFP.

"We were caught by surprise when the bulldozers came this
morning," he said, adding 60 hectares of Beit Surik's most
fertile land would be caught on Israel's side of the fence.

"We are known in the whole West Bank for growing the juiciest
peaches and now we will be deprived of our peach trees and of our
olive trees," he said in an emotional voice.