UNITED NATIONS, Dec 8: The UN General Assembly voted on Monday for a Palestinian-initiated resolution asking the International Court of Justice whether Israel was legally obligated to tear down its security barrier on the West Bank.

The vote was 90 to 8 with 74 abstentions. Opposing the resolution were the United States, Israel, Australia, Ethiopia and the Pacific islands of Nauri, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau.

Almost all delegations, including the United States, spoke against the barrier, a 150-km long network of fences, wire, concrete walls and trenches that juts into the West Bank.

But the European Union joined the unusually high number of abstentions, believing that seeking an opinion from the court was legally questionable and would work against a political dialogue.

Arab nations asked for the emergency session after UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reported on Nov. 28 that building the barrier was causing serious harm to Palestinians. He said Israel had a right to defend its citizens but that duty should not contradict international law.

The Hague-based UN court was set up to settle legal disputes between states and give advisory opinions, if it decides they fall under its jurisdiction.

An opinion by the court would add to diplomatic pressure on Israel and carries more legal weight than a General Assembly resolution, which is non-binding.

Monday’s resolution, sponsored by 27 nations, said the barrier violated the 1949 UN-brokered Armistice (Green Line) boundary, after Arab states attacked Israel, and “de facto annexes large areas of territory.”

The resolution asks the International Court of Justice “to urgently render an advisory opinion on the following question:

“What are the legal consequences arising from the construction of the wall being built by Israel ... described in the report of the secretary-general, considering the rules and principles of international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions?”

“The wall is a false excuse used as a justification for colonizing our land and establishing settlements,” Palestinian UN observer Nasser al-Kidwa said.

He said that until the barrier came down there would be no peace settlement according to the US-backed “road map.”

“For us it is either the wall or the road map. If Israel continues building the wall this will be the end of the road map and there must be a reaction to that,” al-Kidwa said.

He called the Israeli government a “fascist occupier” and the barrier “an immense war crime,” that has resulted in the “enslavement of the Palestinian people.”

Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman laid the blame for the barrier on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

“Let me be perfectly clear. This is the Arafat fence. This is the fence that Arafat built. His terrorism initiated it, and made its construction inevitable. If there were no Arafat, there would be no fence,” Gillerman said.—Reuters