Quotes of the Day

The home of the international Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague is called the Peace Palace. But last week, as the court held three days of hearings on the legality of the security barrier Israel is building to keep out suicide bombers, war was in the air. Outside the palace, pro-Israeli demonstrators recited the names of suicide-bombing victims. The Orthodox Jewish group Zaka made its point by parking the charred remains of a bus destroyed by a suicide bomber out front. In response, pro-Palestinian activists shouted, "Stop the occupation now!" As the debate raged, many people wondered whether the ICJ should be hearing the case at all.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon snubbed the hearing as an "international circus," and the U.S. boycotted it as well. Also absent were representatives from the E.U. — and that surprised some Israelis, who have long accused Europe of anti-Israel bias. (Those feelings were fueled in part by a November Eurobarometer survey in which 59% of Europeans polled said the Jewish state "presents a threat to peace in the world.") But on this occasion, fearing that the ICJ hearing could hurt the peace process, current E.U. President Ireland and nine other member states sent only written briefs. "The political knot," said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, "cannot be resolved with judicial opinions." As a result, the 19-member Palestinian delegation — backed by representatives from 12 mostly Muslim nations — had the floor to itself.

At issue is Israel's controversial "barrier" — an amalgam of trenches, towers, concrete walls and barbed-wire fences that may eventually snake for as much as 750 km, dividing Palestinian territory on the West Bank from Israel. Inside the Peace Palace, Palestinian Ambassador to the U.N. Nasser al-Kidwa said the wall was not about security but about "entrenching the occupation and the de facto annexation of large areas of Palestinian land." The barrier strays from the Green Line that has demarcated the two sides since a 1949 armistice. Israel says the fence must jut into Palestinian lands to ensure security; the barrier's route near Ben Gurion International Airport, for instance, is meant to prevent attacks on departing aircraft. But German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer summed up the E.U. view in a recent interview with al-Jazeera: "Every government has the duty to defend its population against terrorism. And if a fence or a wall is needed to do this, that's a decision of the national government. However, we criticize the route. This must run along the Green Line."

That was the position taken by the E.U. last October, when its members unanimously backed a U.N. resolution calling on Israel to "stop and reverse the construction of the wall in Occupied Palestinian Territory." But despite that vote and Israel's continued work on the fence, the E.U. doesn't see the ICJ as the right venue to challenge the fence. The court usually acts as an arbitrator when two states agree to abide by its decision. Israel will not. In this case, the U.N. has asked for the ICJ's nonbinding opinion on whether the barrier breaches international law. The General Assembly itself was sharply divided on whether it even wanted that opinion. In December, 90 nations voted to ask the ICJ, but 74, including all the E.U. states, abstained.

Without Israeli participation, critics say, the hearings have little point other than to provide the Palestinians with a forum for their well-known complaints. Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said the refusal of most countries to take part showed that "the international community neither supports nor wants nor is interested" in the hearings. But to court world opinion, Israel dismantled a chunk of the barrier the day before the ICJ sessions began. That same day, the move was upstaged by a suicide bomber who killed eight on a Jerusalem bus; Israeli officials said a finished fence could have averted the attack.

The ICJ case seems to have helped Sharon's government at home, allowing it to pump up its probarrier p.r. and giving it a chance to cast the few Israelis who oppose the fence as in league with anti-Israeli forces. But the maneuvering doesn't impress those who would prefer a tougher international stance on the fence. "Diplomats are shying away from using clear language to criticize Israeli politics," says Udo Steinbach, who heads the Middle Eastern Studies Institute in Hamburg. "[They] are waiting for a constructive reaction from Israel that never materializes." Israel says it is waiting for a constructive reaction from the Palestinians. And so the waiting — and dying — goes on.

• JEFF CHU
• The E.U. sits out a debate over Israel's barrier