- Israel has stepped up annexation of Palestinian farms
and fields in various parts of the West Bank, ignoring a landmark ruling
by the International Court of Justice in the Hague.
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- A decision by Israel's own High Court of Justice had
likewise urged the Israeli Government to put an end to land seizures in
the name of erecting the separation barrier.
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- Yet on Tuesday Israeli soldiers guarding the bulldozers
used to level Palestinian fields west of Hebron, fired teargas canisters
at Palestinian and international protesters, injuring a number of youths.
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- Hundreds of farmers and their children from the nearby
villages of Dir Samit and Bait Awwa tried unsuccessfully to protect their
olive groves from the onslaught of the bulldozers.
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- Israeli soldiers scuffled with the farmers, many of them
agitated at the sight of their life's investments being ground to dust
before their eyes.
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- Indifference
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- Peace activists from countries as far as Sweden had turned
up at the site to express solidarity with the Palestinians. One activist
carried a placard that said: "Israeli army: the world is watching."
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- But the Israeli soldiers on duty were no more responsive
to the protests of the Palestinian farmers and foreign peace activists,
than the rest of Israel has been to international condemnation of its annexation
of Palestinian lands.
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- One Israeli solder reportedly told a Palestinian farmer
distraught over the destruction of his olive trees, "We do what we
want ... nobody can tell us what we do".
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- This correspondent saw thousands of mature olive trees
either flattened by Israeli bulldozers or hacked down to prepare the ground
for the construction of the separation barrier.
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- The wall meanders deep into the West Bank, east of the
former armistice line of 1949 that is considered by the bulk of the international
community as the de facto border between Israel proper and the Palestinian
territories.
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- At gunpoint
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- One farmer badly affected by the current wave of land
seizures and orchard destruction is 70-year-old Abd Allah Ahmad Salim Abu
Kuraifa.
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- He told Aljazeera.net, "You see, Sharon tells America
and the world that he wants peace and good neighbourly relations with the
Palestinians.
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- "But look what he is doing to us. He is seizing
our land at gunpoint, destroying our livelihood and pushing us towards
violence and desperate acts."
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- Abu Kuraifa said he and his relatives had gone to an
Israeli court in an effort to stop the confiscation of his land but to
no avail.
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- "My son, what can you do when the judge is your
enemy. You know their courts are rubberstamps in the hands of the army."
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- Nearly two and a half months ago, the Israeli High Court
instructed the state to create a "proportionality" between "security
needs" and "Palestinian rights".
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- The Sharon government said then it would heed the court's
ruling. But the latest land grab in the western Hebron hills has cast fresh
doubt on the government's sincerity.
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- In early July, the World Court in Hague, in a non-binding
ruling, underscored the illegality of the separation barrier and urged
the Israeli Government to tear it down and compensate Palestinians affected
by it.
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- But Israel accused the court of being biased and rejected
the verdict.
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- Poll distraction
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- Separately, on Monday an Israeli Government official
held talks in Washington with two Bush administration officials, telling
them that Israel was making efforts to "minimise hardships for the
Palestinians".
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- Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Dov Weisglass, who
is Sharon's chief political adviser, is trying to obtain an "American
understanding" of the Israeli position, namely the annexation of huge
parts of the West Bank.
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- Many Middle East experts believe the Bush administration's
ability to say "no" to Israeli decisions at this point of time
is greatly restricted by electoral exigencies, with the Republicans seeking
to make a dent in the traditionally pro-Democratic Jewish constituency.
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- The experts say Sharon may be taking full advantage of
the situation by implementing his own agenda in the West Bank, namely annexing
large chunks of Palestinian territory and unilaterally creating future
borders between Israel and a truncated, rump Palestinian entity.
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