U.N. Group Works To Compensate Palestinian Arabs

November 21, 2006
The New York Sun
Original Source: http://www.nysun.com/article/43850
UNITED NATIONS — Fresh from a successful meeting on Friday, an emergency session of the United Nations General Assembly plans to quickly reconvene in hopes of creating a new U.N. mechanism to compensate Palestinian Arabs damaged by Israel's construction of a separation barrier.
We will convene the session again on December 5, the Palestinian Arab U.N. observer, Riad Mansour, told The New York Sun yesterday. The plan, he added, is to act on Secretary-General Annan's report on Israel's security barrier, known at Turtle Bay as the wall.
Created in 1997, the so-called 10th emergency session is a General Assembly mechanism dealing exclusively with Palestinian Arab complaints about Israel. On Friday, it voted overwhelmingly to condemn an Israeli attack in Gaza last month and create a fact-finding mission to investigate it. Capitalizing on Friday's success, the Arabs also hope to renew international outrage against the barrier.
In 2004, after Israel announced the plan to construct a fence to block entry of Palestinian Arab suicide bombers, a U.N. emergency session voted to send its protest to the Hague-based international court of justice. The court issued an advisory opinion that said the Israeli construction is illegal, and that any Palestinian it damaged should be compensated.
Mr. Annan was then asked to report on how to create a mechanism to register such damages. Taking into account Israel's protests, Mr. Annan delayed issuing the delicate report as long as he could, but last month he finally issued it as one of his last acts as secretary-general.
His report calls for creation of a Vienna-based office where Palestinian Arabs would have to show a causal link between their plight and the barrier. The report does not suggest how complainants would be compensated. Israel, which has not cooperated with the international court's procedures, said it would not cooperate with the register, either.
One issue never taken into account during the United Nations debate over Israel's barrier, erected at the height of a 2004 suicide bombing campaign, was how many lives were saved — and how much economic damage prevented — by the abatement in terrorist activities since its construction.