- (AFP) -- The controversial barrier being built by Israel
through the West Bank amounts to the illegal annexation of Palestinian
territory and must be condemned by the international community, a UN report
said.
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- The report by the UN special rapporteur for human rights
in the occupied Palestinian territories, John Dugard, was immediately dismissed
by Israel as politically biased.
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- Dugard warned that the wall erected in recent months
would incorporate "substantial areas" of the West Bank into Israel.
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- "The evidence strongly suggests that Israel is determined
to create facts on the ground amounting to de facto annexation," the
report said.
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- "Annexation of this kind, known as conquest in international
law, is prohibited by the Charter of the United Nations and the Fourth
Geneva Convention," it added.
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- "The time has come to condemn the wall as an unlawful
act of annexation in the same way that Israel's annexation of east Jerusalem
and the Golan Heights has been condemned as unlawful," Dugard said.
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- The capture and subsequent annexation of east Jerusalem
from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War were
condemned in UN Security Council resolutions.
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- The United States has strongly objected to plans to incorporate
Jewish settlements in the West Bank on the Israeli side of the wall.
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- Dugard's report was released as the Israeli cabinet prepared
to meet on Wednesday to decide on the route for the next portion of the
barrier.
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- The report swiftly drew a sharp rebuke from an Israeli
envoy, who rejected the claim of annexation and accused the report of being
"one-sided, highly politicised and biased".
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- Israel's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva,
Yaakov Levy, said the report totally disregarded the deaths of 900 Israelis
in attacks since September 2000, when the Palestinian uprising erupted.
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- "When judged against such background, Israels self-defence
measures, including a security fence being constructed to prevent suicide
bombers from entering Israel, would appear proportional as well as within
her right to self-defense," he said in a statement.
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- Levy dismissed the claim of annexation as a "wild
accusation", saying the barrier was a purely defensive measure against
Palestinian attacks.
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- "That is the sole purpose of the fence, it has no
political connotations, definitely not in the realm which Mr Dugard chooses
to politically colour," he told AFP.
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- The UN report accepted Israel had legitimate security
concerns that "cannot be denied", but called on the Israeli government
to place a limit on "the violation of human rights in the name of
counter-terrorism".
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- "A balance must be struck between respect for human
rights and the interest of security," it added.
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- Dugard doubted the barrier would even prove to be an
effective deterrent against attacks, claiming that the Israeli army had
concluded that most suicide bombers had taken advantage of flawed checks
to cross through checkpoints.
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- His report indicated that an estimated 200,000 of the
400,000 settlers are likely to be incorporated on the Israeli side of the
1.4 billion dollar wall, further undermining efforts to tackle the controversial
issue in peace talks.
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- "The construction of the wall within the West Bank
and the continued expansion of settlements, which, on the face of it, have
more to do with territorial expansion, de facto annexation or conquest,
raise serious doubts about the good faith of Israel's justifications in
the name of security," Dugard concluded.
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- The report, based on a visit by the South African expert
to the region in June, is due to be formally presented to the 2004 session
of the UN Commission on Human Rights in March, a UN spokesman said.
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- The Israeli government does not recognise the UN expert's
mandate and has refused to cooperate with Dugard.
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