Will Democrats Finally End Their Support For West Bank Settlements? (Part 2)

By Stephen Zunes, AlterNet. Posted June 9, 2009.

What the Israeli government has done, however, is to build most of the barrier, not along Israel's recognized border as originally proposed, but in a lengthy, serpentine pattern through the occupied West Bank in order to incorporate illegal settlement blocs -- along with large areas of Palestinian farmland -- into Israel.

In its ruling, the International Court of Justice acknowledged the tragic realities that "Israel has to face numerous indiscriminate and deadly acts of violence against its civilian population" and that the Jewish state "has the right, indeed the duty, to respond in order to protect the lives of its citizens." The court recognized, however, that such security measures "are bound nonetheless to remain in conformity with applicable international law."

In other words, according to the World Court, Israel -- like any country -- has the right to build a wall, a fence, or anything else along its borders to protect itself. The ICJ even recognized a number of U.N. resolutions specifically reiterating Israel's right to defend its borders. The basis of the court's ruling against the Israeli policy is that the jurists were "not convinced that the specific course Israel has chosen for the wall was necessary to attain its security objectives ..."

Since the barrier was not following Israel's borders, the court simply confirmed the widespread assumption in Israel and elsewhere that the wall was being built to incorporate illegal settlements into Israel, and therefore the wall itself was illegal.

In other words, if one was simply concerned about Israel protecting itself from terrorist infiltration, there was no reason to object to the World Court's ruling, since the only objection to the separation barrier involved the sections that went beyond Israel's recognized borders. The only reason to oppose the ruling was if one supported the Israeli policy of building settlements in occupied territory and then erecting a wall so as to incorporate them into an illegally expanded Israel.

Democratic leaders, in an unprecedented action, denounced the World Court for its advisory opinion. Kerry defended Israel's construction of the wall deep into the West Bank as "a legitimate response to terror that only exists in response to the wave of terror attacks against Israel."

In effect recognizing these illegal colonies as being legitimately part of Israel, he insisted that any legal challenges to the route of the wall should go through the Israeli judiciary, "and we should respect that process" rather than referring the issue to international forums

Despite the ICJ's clear distinction between a government's legal right to build a protective barrier along its border for self-defense and the construction of a barrier within the occupied territory of another nation in a manner that expands the boundaries of the occupying power, the bipartisan House resolution called the court's decision an "attempt to infringe upon Israel's right to self-defense."

Typical of remarks by leading House Democrats, Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, falsely claimed that the ruling totally ignored Israel's right to defend its citizens. Similarly, Rep. Shelley Berkley of Nevada asserted that the advisory opinion was done "solely for the narrow purpose of condemning the state of Israel for its effort to protect its innocent citizens from suicide bombers."

Then-Sen. Rodham Clinton declared, despite a whole series of resolutions against terrorism and a series of initiatives launched by the U.N. to combat it, "It makes no sense for the United Nations to vehemently oppose a fence which is a nonviolent response to terrorism rather than opposing terrorism itself."

What motivated Clinton and these other congressional Democrats, then, was to make the case that opposing settlements was the same as supporting terrorism. They were not alone. More than 80 percent of House Democrats supported a resolution condemning the World Court's ruling. (See my article "Attacks Against World Court by Bush and Congress Reveal Growing Bipartisan Hostility to International Law.")

Making the Settlements Permanent

After two decades of aiding and abetting settlement expansion in the face of warnings that it could make the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel impossible, Democrats are now insisting that these demographic changes have made a full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank "unrealistic."

Indeed, this very language was incorporated into the 2004 Democratic platform. That same year, all but eight Democrats in the House supported a resolution sponsored by right-wing Republican leader Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, which stated in part that Israel should not be expected to withdraw from the settlements "in light of new realities on the ground."

See more stories tagged with: war, israel, peace, foreign policy, palestine, west bank, barack obama, un, gaza

Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and chairman of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco and serves as a senior policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus.

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