Sharon’s Disengagement Strategy Stymied by United Nations Experts By David Singer August 6, 2005 Israel Hasbarah Committee http://www.infoisrael.net/cgi-local/text.pl?source=4/b/iii/110820051 http://www.infoisrael.net/cgi-local/text.pl?source=4/b/iii/110820051 IHC Abstract This article by David Singer encourages Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza and parts of Judea and Samaria be “urgently reconsidered” in response to a “Report issued by eight United Nations human rights experts.” The Report, produced by the International Court of Justice, the UN’s judicial body, states that some settlements acceptable under the Roadmap are considered “unlawful” by the ICJ as are some parts of the Security Fence, which the ICJ considers “Palestinian territory.” Singer warns that the U.N. is unlikely to continue to support the Roadmap against the judgments of its own judicial body, the ICJ, and that unilateral withdrawal by Israel without repudiation of this report is “pure folly.” Ariel Sharon’s plans to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza and parts of Judea and Samaria need to be urgently reconsidered following the publication of a Report issued by eight United Nations human rights experts. The Report threatens the continued unity of the Quartet - the United States, Russia, the EU and the U.N. - in the implementation of the Roadmap calling for a two-state solution designed to end the conflict between Jews and Arabs in the 6% of the former Mandate for Palestine called Gaza and Judea and Samaria, in which neither Jews nor Arabs presently enjoy sovereignty. The Report claims there is an incompatibility between U.N. support for the Roadmap and last year’s advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s own judicial body, on the legality of the Security Fence erected partly on land in Judea and Samaria. “In large measure it seems that the ICJ’s Opinion has been ignored in favor of negotiations conducted in terms of the Roadmap process,” the eight U.N. experts said. The Roadmap negotiations, they continued, “seem to accept the continued presence of some settlements, which were found by the ICJ to be unlawful, and by necessary implication the continued existence of some parts of the wall in Palestinian territory.” “In short, there seems to be an incompatibility between the Roadmap negotiations and the Court’s Opinion that should be of concern to the United Nations, which is also a party to the Quartet. The United Nations clearly cannot make itself a party to negotiations that are not based on the Opinion of its own judicial body,” the experts said. These eight experts are not without considerable influential political clout. They are: Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, John Dugard; Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, Miloon Kothari; Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Yakin Erturk; Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Vernor Munoz Villalobos; Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Paul Hunt; Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Doudou Diene; Chairperson, Rapporteur, Working Group on arbitrary detention, Leila Zerrougui; and Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children, Sigma Huda. Together they comprise a formidable rallying point for the 56 Muslim states to call on the U.N. to disown any further part in the implementation of the Roadmap and to put pressure on the EU and Russia to abandon their support for that process. It does not take a quantum leap in anyone’s thinking to see the U.S. becoming isolated as the only proponent of the two-state solution in which sovereignty in Judea, Samaria and Gaza is divided between Israel and a newly created second Arab state in what was once the Mandate for Palestine. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s unilateral Disengagement Plan has relied heavily on the following three core assurances given to him by President George W. Bush in his letter of 14 April 2004: 1. The United States would do its utmost to prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any other plan other than the Roadmap. 2. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949. 3. The Palestinians will have no right of return to Israel. The fulfillment of these assurances has now been thrown into great doubt as a result of the challenge posed by the Special Rapporteurs’ Report. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan needs to immediately repudiate the Special Rapporteurs’ Report and indicate in the clearest possible language that the U.N. remains committed to the implementation of the Roadmap in all its aspects as part of the existing Quartet and irrespective of anything contained in the judgment of the ICJ. Ariel Sharon has sought to justify his disengagement proposals as resulting from changed circumstances causing him to do a complete somersault from his former opposition to unilateral withdrawal, despite such opposition giving him a huge electoral majority at the last general elections held in Israel. Whatever diplomatic advantages Sharon saw in changing his mind has now been totally undermined by the challenge posed by the Special Rapporteurs’ Report, which threatens to leave Israel and the Unites States exposed once again like sitting ducks in a shooting gallery. Sharon has said nothing would affect Israel’s planned withdrawal commencing on 17 August. He needs to cut the political rhetoric and immediately postpone any withdrawal until the U.N. Secretary General gives him the above assurances. If anything is to be learnt by the Israeli Government from this episode, it is that undertaking to do anything unilaterally in the Middle East is pure folly of the most disastrous kind. Source: Original text submitted by the author, 6 August 2005. David Singer is an Australian Lawyer and Convenor of: Jordan is Palestine International - an organization calling for sovereignty of Judea, Samaria and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine. Abstract written by Jennifer Rifkin, an IHC volunteer. Edited by IHC Staff, www.infoisrael.net.