Israel defies UN over security wall

JERUSALEM - Israel vowed yesterday to press on with construction of a barrier it is building in the West Bank despite a United Nations General Assembly resolution demanding that it be torn down.

"The building of the fence will go on," said Raanan Gissin, a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

"Israel will not stop building it or abdicate its inalienable right to self-defence."

Earlier the assembly demanded that Israel obey a World Court ruling and tear down its barrier in a vote adopted by 150-6, with 10 abstentions.

Israel says the 600km barrier is needed to keep out suicide bombers but Palestinians see as a land-grab aimed at dashing their hopes for eventual statehood.

All 25 European Union countries voted in support of the Palestinian-drafted measure after its Arab sponsors accepted a series of EU amendments over days of negotiations.

However, the United States, Israel's closest ally, voted "no" after US Deputy Ambassador James Cunningham warned the resolution was unbalanced and could further undermine the goal of a Middle East in which Israeli and Palestinian states lived side by side in peace.

"All sides are now focused on Gaza and partial West Bank withdrawal as a way to restart the progress towards this vision," Cunningham told the assembly.

Israel also voted "no", as did Australia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau. Canada, Cameroon, El Salvador, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Uganda, Uruguay and Vanuatu abstained.

"Thank God that the fate of Israel and of the Jewish people is not decided in this hall," Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman said after the vote. "It is simply outrageous to respond with such vigour to a measure that saves lives and respond with such casual indifference and apathy to a Palestinian campaign that takes lives."

Palestinian UN observer Nasser al-Kidwa praised the vote as "a historic development".

"This indeed could be the most important resolution of the General Assembly since the adoption of Resolution 181 of 1947," he said. That measure called for the partition of British-ruled Palestine into independent Jewish and Arab states.

The General Assembly acted after the World Court ruled in a July 9 "advisory opinion" that the barrier, which is still under construction, was illegal because it cut deep into West Bank land to shield settlements built by Israel on territory it seized in the 1967 Middle East War.

The resolution demanded that Israel comply with the court finding that it was legally obliged to dismantle the barrier and pay reparations for damages caused during construction.

In response to EU proposals, it also condemned all acts of terrorism and urged both Israel and the Palestinians to meet their obligations under the road map to peace set out by the quartet of Middle East mediators - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia.

Sponsors also accepted an EU demand that the measure specify that states have the right to defend themselves against attacks on their people.

- REUTERS