TEL AVIV, Feb 24: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Tuesday vowed to finish his "security fence" regardless of the verdict of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
"What is in motion at The Hague (ICJ hearing) is an attempt to deny Israel the fundamental right to defend itself. We will not surrender. I will build the security fence and will complete it, as the cabinet decided," Mr Sharon told the Maariv newspaper.
Mr Sharon slammed the ICJ hearings, held at the behest of the United Nations, saying: "What is in motion at The Hague is an attempt to deny Israel the fundamental right to defend itself."
He also criticized the "campaign of hypocrisy currently being staged against Israel in the international circus in The Hague". Mr Sharon's government has decided to boycott the three-day hearings, arguing the world court does not have the ability to rule on its "anti-terror fence".
It submitted a written statement to defend the barrier instead, stressing it is being built solely to prevent infiltrations by would-be Palestinian attackers into its territory.
The Palestinian legal team in The Hague has rested its case against the barrier on the fact it does not follow the Green Line, or the 1949 armistice line between Israel and the Palestinian territories.
"The wall being built on the West Bank is not about security, it's about entrenching the occupation and the de facto annexation of large areas of the Palestinian land," Nasser al Qidwa, the Palestinian representative to the United Nations, told the court on Monday. -AFP
