Israel's Security Fence

Argumentative Essay # 59405

International Relations
International Relations > Non-U.S.
Law > International

A look at the so-called illegality of the Israeli construction of a security fence to protect itself against Palestinian terrorism.

4,181 words () | 14 sources | MLA | 2005

Published on: Jun 18, 2005

Paper Summary:

This paper deals with the illegal consequences of Israel's separation barrier/wall, as they were articulated and evaluated by the ICJ. After explicating precisely what this wall involves, arguing its illegality, the paper highlights the illegal consequences that arise from this construction and, while referring to the ICJ's opinion, emphasizing the fact that the wall and its identified consequences are nothing more than a continuation of a policy already firmly in place and which, due to the United States' persistent backing of Israel, international law, the United Nations, and the collective international community have been powerless to bring to a halt.

From the Paper:

"The controversy surrounding Israel's security fence is not over whether or not Israel has the right to defend itself through such a construction but over the construction site itself. Nobody has argued that Israel does not have the right to construct a separation wall and, in fact, it "has the legal right to build a wall on its own land." However, it does not have the right to construct on land which does not belong to it and, this is precisely the nature of the controversy. This fact, however, has often been obscured by Israel's continued insistence, in face of all critiques of the wall, that it has "the right to defend herself." This response is constantly echoed by the United States, both on the congressional and senate levels. Needless to say, this obscures the issue at stake insofar as it gives the impression that objections revolve around the construction itself, implying a denial of Israel's sovereign right to self-defense while the objections revolve around the place of construction. Consequently, the "right to self-defense" argument is inapplicable here as it does not address the core of the objections to the wall."