* Alan Dershowitz responds to Friday’s ICJ opinion that condemned Israel’s security fence:
Virtually every democracy voted against that court’s taking jurisdiction over the fence case, while nearly every country that voted to take jurisdiction was a tyranny. Israel owes the International Court absolutely no deference. It is under neither a moral nor a legal obligation to give any weight to its predetermined decision.
Here’s a fitting comparison from Dershowitz:
The International Court of Justice is much like a Mississippi court in the 1930s. The all-white Mississippi court, which excluded blacks from serving on it, could do justice in disputes between whites, but it was incapable of doing justice in cases between a white and a black. It would always favor white litigants. So, too, the International Court. It is perfectly capable of resolving disputes between Sweden and Norway, but it is incapable of doing justice where Israel is involved, because Israel is the excluded black when it comes to that court – indeed when it comes to most United Nations organs.
* The best legal response that we’re aware of was written by Laurence E. Rothenberg and Abraham Bell back in February
* See also this fact sheet on the ruling from the AICE
* Many Israeli Arabs think the security fence is a big relief:
The 26-foot-high concrete-and-razor-wire barrier down the hill from Najeh Abu Mukh’s house cuts him off from relatives and the West Bank.
But the Israeli Arab said he doesn’t mind, because the controversial Israeli barrier has done something years of failed peace talks have not: It has taken the bloody Israeli-Palestinian conflict away from his home…
On Friday, the International Court of Justice in The Hague condemned the barrier as illegal and inhumane, a ruling that Abu Mukh questioned.
”I’m wondering if the judges ever have been here or lived here and understand the real reason for its construction,” the 30-year-old gas station worker asked, relaxing on his front porch with a cup of sweet coffee. “If not, they should listen and not judge.’
