Israeli barriers (West Bank)

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Course of the barrier (as of June 2011)

An Israeli barrier is a 759 kilometer long cordon along the border line between Israel and the West Bank , the "West Bank". Most of the cordon runs on the territory of the West Bank. The first phase of construction began on June 16, 2002. The construction was 60 percent completed in 2010. In 2004, the International Court of Justice declared in a report commissioned by the UN General Assembly that Israel was violating international law by building the facilities.

History and construction progress

Suicide attack on a shared taxi during the Second Intifada, Mei Ami Junction, Haifa district , 2001

At the beginning of 1995, then Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin suggested separating the West Bank by means of an electronically monitored security fence in order to contain suicide attacks in the Israeli heartland. Rabin's plan was not carried out. In early 2000, the number of Israelis killed in terrorist attacks rose in the wake of the Second Intifada . The idea of ​​the barriers was taken up again.

The first phase of construction began on June 16, 2002. The 110 km long section runs between the towns of Kafr Qasim and Kfar Shalem and mainly separates the Israeli cities of Netanya and Tel Aviv from Tulkarem and Qalqiliya .

Further expansion began in 2003, during the second term of office of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon . The barriers should be completed in 2005. Work was delayed due to various petitions to the Israeli Supreme Court . By December 2005, around 35 percent of the barriers (275 kilometers) and eleven of the 39 planned crossings had been completed. In 2010 the barriers were 60 percent complete.

Goal setting and goal achievement

An explosive belt belonging to a Palestinian suicide bomber who was intercepted at the barrier in 2006

Since almost all of the attacks were carried out from the West Bank and not from the Gaza Strip , which was already separated by a security fence , the government assumed a considerable reduction in the number of attacks, especially suicide attacks on restaurants and public buses. The concrete reinforcements, which make up about three percent of the entire fence line, serve as protection against fire attacks on cars and people on the Israeli side. From the Israeli side, the fence is therefore also referred to as the “anti-terror fence”.

According to the Israeli embassy in Berlin, a total of 46 people were killed and 221 injured in 2003 in areas with fences in suicide attacks from the West Bank. In areas without a fence, there were 89 dead and 411 injured in the same period. In the first half of 2004 (up to and including June), 19 people were killed and 102 others injured in suicide attacks in areas without a fence, while no deaths in areas with a fence during the same period. Meanwhile, the Israeli General Security Agency Shabak speaks of a "significant reduction" in suicide attacks since construction of the barrier began.

Characteristics of the barriers

The barrier as a fence southwest of the West Bank (May 2006)
The barrier as a wall near Jerusalem (2016)

The majority of the barriers (at least 700 kilometers) will be erected as heavily secured metal fences with barbed wire , a ditch, a fence with motion detectors, a raked sand strip for tracking footprints, an asphalt patrol path and other barbed wire on the Israeli side. On both sides of the fence a total of 70 meters wide military restricted area will be built, which will also be visually monitored by observation posts. In small parts near Qalqiliya and Jerusalem (a total of at least 25 kilometers), where this width cannot be maintained, a reinforced concrete wall up to eight meters high is being built. Parts of this wall were built by Palestinian workers from Hebron, among others. Gate systems exist at irregular intervals.

As an accompanying measure to the fence, Israel is building a north-south connecting road that will be provided with a security strip. The total cost is given as 1.3 billion shekels .

course

About 20 percent of the facilities run along the Green Line , the armistice line between Israel and the West Bank in 1949, which delimited the territory controlled by Israel until the Six Day War in 1967; in about 80 percent they deviate from this line and run almost exclusively within the West Bank. The barricade, which cuts deepest into the West Bank, is over 20 km from the armistice line at Ariel . In some places, the barriers, a few hundred meters from the Green Line, run within Israeli territory ( e.g. near Tulkarm and al-Mughayyir al-Mutilla ). The International Court of Justice declared in 2004 in a given by the UN General Assembly in order, not binding opinion that Israel with the construction of the facilities against international law contrary; construction must be stopped immediately, property confiscated for the construction must be returned or the expropriated must be compensated in some other way. According to critics, the complex represents a severe nuisance for the Palestinians. It partially separates villages and towns from their fields and wells and thus threatens to destroy the economic basis of farmers. In addition, the construction resulted in the destruction of agricultural land.

The layout of the facilities is such that Jewish settlements are at least 2.5 kilometers away from them. In some places there are secondary facilities that form a series of Palestinian enclaves in Israeli territory, which are almost completely surrounded by barriers.

It is not yet clear whether the Israeli government will also cordon off the eastern side of the Palestinian-populated regions in order to keep the Jordan Valley occupied in accordance with the Allon Plan of 1970. A first step in this direction was taken in February 2006 by tightening access rights for Palestinians to the Jordan Valley. This officially serves as a safety buffer against Jordan, but also to be able to continue to use 90 percent of the underground water supplies in the region. Depending on the further development and the possibility of implementing Ehud Olmert's convergence plan , between six and 45 percent of the West Bank is expected to be cordoned off in the foreseeable future .

Due to the course off the armistice line of 1949, there are enclaves mainly around Jerusalem that can no longer be supplied by the responsible community because of the wall. Parts of Qalandia and A-Ram fall under the sovereignty of the city of Jerusalem, but have not received any services (repairs, rubbish collection) since construction. Since the police of the Palestinian Authority are not allowed to act there either, areas without order developed. So there are always chaotic conditions in front of the Qalandia border crossing, where nobody controls the traffic. The same applies to separated areas that can no longer be reached by the National Authority.

criticism

Palestinian house in Bethlehem, enclosed on three sides
Wall with gate in Bethlehem

Since the current course does not correspond to that of the armistice line of 1949 , critics fear that it could anticipate a future border of a sovereign state of Palestine and that Israel could aim at a de facto annexation of Palestinian territories. According to the “Palestine Monitor”, around 12,300 hectares of land (as of January 2004) will be separated from the Palestinian side of the Green Line - corresponding to around two percent of the West Bank. According to Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups as well as the World Bank , this includes at least 16 Palestinian villages and 12,000 inhabitants - once the entire facility is completed, this number will rise to 395,000 - corresponding to 17.8 percent of the Palestinian population. Both the Israeli government under Ariel Sharon and its predecessors have so far refused to draw borders along the Green Line for strategic reasons. In his so-called “ convergence plan ”, Sharon’s successor in office, Ehud Olmert , offered the Palestinians to accept a Palestinian state without a peace agreement, whose borders would initially run along the barriers currently being built on Palestinian territory beyond the Green Line. Because of the unacceptable and humiliating conditions from the Palestinian point of view, such as the possible permanent stipulation of massive land loss to Israel, an acceptance by the Palestinians is extremely unlikely. After the construction of the barriers began, Palestinian, Israeli and also international groups formed to protest against the project.

In 2004, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat described the facility as an obstacle on the way to a state of its own with Jerusalem as its capital; it aims to take territory away from the Palestinians. Claudia Bergmann of the human rights organization Amnesty International spoke out in favor of an investigation of the case by the International Court of Justice , since the "construction of continuous barriers through Palestinian territory" violated international law and the human rights of numerous Palestinians.

Legal Aspects

The cordon as a wall with a barbed wire crown in Abu Dis

United Nations

Internationally, the construction and the course of the barriers are largely condemned. The US has also repeatedly expressed its concern about the feared negative effects on the peace process in the Middle East .

UN Security Council

In October 2003, the US appealed against the request for a UN resolution of the UN Security Council a veto. This means that the barrier was not condemned by him as being in breach of international law. Extract from the draft:

"The construction by Israel, the occupying power, of a wall in the Occupied Territories departing from the armistice line of 1949 is illegal under relevant provisions of international law and must be ceased and reversed."
Unofficial translation:
"The erection of a wall deviating from the armistice line of 1949 in the occupied territories by the occupying power Israel is illegal according to the principles of international law and must be stopped and reversed."

Great Britain , Germany , Bulgaria and Cameroon abstained. The US justified its veto by the lack of a condemnation of the terrorist attacks by Palestinian groups.

The German UN Ambassador Gunter Pleuger said in the debate about the Israeli barriers and the expansion of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories (2003):

"While we recognize Israel's security needs, we see the security fence as an obstacle to the implementation of the Middle East peace plan."

- [1]

Germany called on the Israeli government to stop building the separation barrier, abstained in the vote on the adoption of the resolution against Israel in the UN Security Council but the voice. The Federal Government regretted retrospectively that it had "not come to a draft resolution capable of reaching a consensus", as the spokesman for the Foreign Office, Walter Lindner, put on record on October 15, 2003 in Berlin .

United Nations General Assembly

A week later, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a similar resolution by 144 votes to four, with twelve abstentions. The resolution, which, unlike a Security Council resolution, is not binding under international law, names the course of the barriers on “Palestinian land” as “contradicting international law” and demands that Israel “stop and reverse the construction”.

The Federal Republic of Germany, together with the other European states, voted in the UN General Assembly for the resolution in which the construction of the 150 kilometer long facility was condemned as a "violation of international law". EU diplomats described the text as "balanced". The Arab states had previously withdrawn two controversial drafts of their own. In the previous debate, the vast majority of speakers from a total of 191 UN member states condemned the Israeli approach.

The Israeli UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman , however, affirmed Israel's right to the construction of the facilities with reference to the danger posed by Palestinian terrorism , which makes the construction necessary. He thanked for the US veto and for the abstentions in the UN Security Council. This prevented the UN from once again becoming the “vicarious agent of Israel's opponents” and from condemning Israel as “a victim of terrorism instead of the perpetrator of terrorism”. The "security zones" serve to ward off terrorist commands and are "the most effective of all non-violent measures against terrorism". He described the UN resolution as a "farce". The United Nations should no longer “glorify murderers as martyrs”. Israel has the right to protect the lives of its citizens by all means.

The Palestinian UN ambassador, Nasser Al-Kidwa , accused Israel of “hypocrisy” and a “strategy of illegal land grabbing”. Arab and many other states also accused Israel of illegally appropriating land with the help of the facilities.

International Court of Justice

Legal opinion

In December 2003 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution instructing the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague to draft a legal opinion on the "legal consequences" of the construction of the barrier. The hearings began in February 2004. The Palestinian Authority , which is not a member of the Tribunal, was allowed to submit a petition about their UN observer status . In January 2004 the Court also authorized the League of Arab States and the Organization of the Arab Conference to submit observations. The league's representative before the court was the German international lawyer Michael Bothe , professor of public law at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt . Israel refrained from submitting a statement because it expected a "political trial" and assumed a negative verdict from the start. Israel had previously announced that it would not recognize the judgment of the court because it denied jurisdiction over the question of the controversial barrier in the West Bank to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The IGH has "no jurisdiction" in this matter, said government spokesman Avi Pasner .

In the legal opinion published on July 9, 2004, the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are described as "illegal" and the course of the barriers partially (where it deviates from the Green Line ) as a "breach of the IV Geneva Convention ".

On July 20, 2004, the UN General Assembly called for an “emergency meeting” in resolution ES-10/15 with reference to UN resolution ES-10/13 of October 21, 2003 u. a. the demolition of the facility in the West Bank ("... that Israel terminates and reverses the construction of the wall in the occupied Palestinian territory, including in East Jerusalem and the surrounding area ...") with 150 votes in favor, six against and ten abstentions. The resolution followed the legal opinion of the International Court of Justice.

Reactions from Israel

The decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was heavily criticized by Israel because the Israeli argument that it was a facility for self-defense under UN Charter Article 51 was not upheld. The ICJ argued that attacks on Israel came from areas over which Israel had control and that the right of self-defense was therefore not applicable. Israel replied that the mere fact that there were attacks was evidence that there was insufficient control and that some of the attackers also came from areas under Palestinian administration. According to the Israeli interpretation, with a view to the terrorist attacks from the Palestinian territories, the system complies with both conditions of Article 51 for legitimate self-defense: military necessity and proportionality:

" Article 51 of the UN Charter :
In the event of an armed attack against a member of the United Nations, this charter does not in any way affect the natural right to individual or collective self-defense until the Security Council has taken the necessary measures to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by a member in exercising this right of self-defense must be reported to the Security Council immediately; they in no way affect his authority and duty, based on this Charter, to take at any time such measures as he deems necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. "

The adoption of certain terms by the UN General Assembly was criticized from the start . This is a political body, so if the ICJ adopted its choice of words “Palestinian occupied territories” without referring to the legal dilemma surrounding the entire area, it would already be a unilateral decision that would not be reflected in the decisions of the UN Security Council . The designation of a territory as “belonging to an entity” implies that this entity is a state or a subject of international law . However, this does not apply to the Palestinian Autonomous Territories, which have never called themselves a state. The Dutch ICJ judge Pieter Kooijmans partly agreed with this view in a dissenting opinion on the judgment: “The court failed to take a position on territorial rights and final status.” Also the relevance of the Greens Line for the court's decision was disputed. The Israeli international lawyer Robbie Sabel from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote:

"The court makes no reference to the fact that the ceasefire agreement that created the Green Line has expired and no Arab state has ever recognized the Green Line as an international border, nor has Israel ever given the line such recognition."

In particular, Sabel declares the expansion of the term “occupied Palestinian territory” to be inconsistent with East Jerusalem , particularly in relation to the Old City's Jewish Quarter and other areas from which all Jews were expelled from Jordan in the course of the War of Independence .

It was also criticized that the court had completely ignored the presence of Jordan in the areas, which would hide the fact that Israel only captured the areas in 1967 in response to the shelling by Jordan. This position was also taken by British judge Rosalyn Higgins in a dissenting opinion in which she wrote:

"I consider the 'story' as it is retold by the court in paragraphs 71-76, neither balanced nor satisfactory."

One-sidedness was also attested to paragraph 70 of the statement by the Israeli side. The League of Nations mandate for Palestine is mentioned here, without, however, mentioning in any way the fact that a "establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine " had been decided upon, which at that time was in the opinion of both the League of Nations and the British Mandate power would have meant the entire area west of the Jordan (including the West Bank ).

In addition to critical international lawyers, Israeli politicians also expressed disapproval of the judgment. The then Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alluded in his criticism to the “political nature” of the General Assembly and said with regard to the consequences of the judgment:

“What is happening now is that this goes to the assembly. They can decide everything there. You can say the earth is flat. This won't make [the decision] legal, it won't make it come true, and it won't make it fair. "

Opposition leader Shimon Peres said the ICJ “ignores the fact that the right to life is a fundamental human right” and criticized the court for neglecting the main reason for the construction, namely Palestinian terror.

International reactions

The decision to refer the question to the Court of Justice has been criticized by Germany, France, Great Britain, Canada and the USA, among others. On the one hand, he was not responsible, on the other hand, it was feared that the report could have a negative impact on the peace process. The court decision itself was judged controversially within the German federal government: While Claudia Roth welcomed it, Minister Otto Schily described the system as effective and described criticism of it as unrealistic.

International UN diplomats, as well as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, were reluctant to comment on Israel's scolding. The latter avoided commenting specifically on the judges' decision and stated that the verdict had to be "digested" first. Between the lines, however, the Secretary General made it clear that in principle he had no doubts about the competence of the committee in The Hague:

“The Secretary General has forwarded the report to the General Assembly. He expects the content to be taken into account in future votes. The member states have to judge for themselves whether further measures are appropriate. "(Quote from Annan spokesman Stephane Dujarric)

Immediately after the “Sperrzaun-Verdict” was announced by the IGH in July 2004, the German UN Ambassador Gunter Pleuger said:

“This report must now be handled responsibly. It must be treated in such a way that it does not disrupt the political process, but rather promotes the handling of the General Assembly, which consists of 191 members, of which we are only one. "

The US criticized the court's decision. "We do not think it is appropriate for this case to be investigated by this body," said government spokesman Scott McClellan.

The international lawyer Matthias Herdegen from Bonn criticized the fact that the IGH failed in its report to allow Israel's right to self-defense to fail because the terrorist acts to be countered were not attributable to any foreign state. "This justification completely ignores the fact that the UN Security Council qualified the attacks of September 11th as a trigger for the right of self-defense, completely detached from their attribution to a state."

Israel's Supreme Court

On June 30, 2004, the Israeli Supreme Court upheld the claims of individual Palestinians and ordered a 30 km route of the Israeli fence northwest of Jerusalem to be changed in order to reduce the nuisance for the Palestinian population . According to the court's guidelines, the fence must not be political, it must not define a state border , and it must not cause unjustified damage to the quality of life of the Palestinian population. The Israeli government has announced that it will obey this judgment and change the course of the plant. In other sections, however, the negative effects on the Palestinian population (from numerous enclaves) remain enormous.

Cinematic reception

In 2009 OCHA-Jerusalem produced the film Walled Horizons with Roger Waters as the narrator. In the same year, the Israeli mobile phone company Cellcom advertised a spot in which Israeli soldiers, after their patrol vehicle was hit by a Palestinian soccer ball, had a joyful rally over the wall with Palestinians who were not shown. This was widely regarded as tasteless, especially since tear gas grenades were returned in an attempt to recreate the plot in reality.

literature

  • Florian Becker: IGH report on "Legal consequences of building a wall in the occupied Palestinian territories" . In: AVR , pp. 218-239.
  • Alexander Orakhelashvili: International Public Order and the International Court's Advisory Opinion on Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory . In: AVR , pp. 240-256.
  • Daniel Eckstein: The compatibility of the de facto annexation with international law based on the example of the Israeli barrier - at the same time an analysis of the IGH report of July 9, 2004 . IATROS-Verlag & Services GmbH, Dienheim am Rhein 2008, ISBN 978-3-937439-82-2 .

Web links

Commons : Israeli barriers in the West Bank  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger of June 17, 2002, page 7
  2. ^ A b East Jerusalem Community Lives Divided Life , National Public Radio , October 14, 2010
  3. ↑ Saving Lives: Israel's anti-terrorist fence - Answers to Questions website of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, January 2004
  4. ↑ a b Statistics show a decrease in the number of terrorists in areas with anti-terror fences Newsletter of the Israeli embassy in Berlin, July 2, 2004
  5. ^ Abu Dis, East Jerusalem . (PDF) UNRWA, p. 4, accessed on January 16, 2009
  6. ↑ Court of Justice: Israel violates international law . In: FAZ , July 9, 2004
  7. ↑ Bad fences create bad neighbors. Palestinians against Israel's separation wall .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. World Council of Churches , September 23, 2003@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.oikoumene.org  
  8. ↑ Chris McGreal: Israel excludes Palestinians from fertile valley The Guardian , February 14, 2006
  9. ↑ Graphic: The Separation Barrier In the West Bank April 2006, PDF file, engl.
  10. ↑ Jerusalem municipality asks IDF to take responsibility for residents who live east of the separation fence . In: Ha-Aretz , July 24, 2012
  11. ↑ Ken Lee: Israel's apartheid wall in Palestine ( Memento of the original from May 20, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Aljazeera, August 29, 2003 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / english.aljazeera.net
  12. ^ Palestine Fact Sheets . In: The Palestine Monitor , January 2004
  13. ↑ Berliner Zeitung: Barrage in front of the Hague Last Judgment , February 24, 2004
  14. ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Israeli barrier in court
  15. ↑ The course of the wall through occupied territories violates human rights . Press release from Amnesty International, Berlin, February 20, 2004
  16. ↑ a b Israel will ignore judgment against barrier . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , July 9, 2004
  17. ↑ Israel wants to continue building the barrier despite the UN resolution . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , October 22, 2003
  18. ↑ International Court of Justice: Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory . ( Memento of the original from July 6, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 8.5 MB) July 9, 2004 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.icj-cij.org
  19. ↑ The Hague rejects Israel's barrier . In: Die Welt , July 10, 2004
  20. ↑ The Israeli barrier is in violation of international law ( memento from June 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), Tagesschau , July 10, 2004
  21. ↑ General Assembly Resolution ES-10/15: Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Legal Consequences of Building a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in East Jerusalem and its environs . (PDF)
  22. ↑ Charter of the United Nations - Chapter VII . UNRIC
  23. ↑ Thomas Reinke: Annan wants to "digest" the Sperrzaun judgment first ( memento from June 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), Tagesschau , July 10, 2004
  24. ^ Middle East conflict: October 2003: Chronology of Events , AG Friedensforschung at the University of Kassel
  25. ^ Matthias Herdegen: International Law . 5th edition Munich 2006, p. 240 f. Herdegen sees the IGH judgment from this point of view as not corresponding to modern international law, because “modern international law also deals with military conflicts within states”, p. 376.
  26. ↑ Q&A: What is the West Bank barrier? BBC News , September 15, 2005
  27. ↑ news.bbc.co.uk