WASHINGTON: The issue of the Israeli barrier, which winds through the Judaean foothills like some misplaced Chinese Wall, has wound up in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague.

It also has a place in the American election year.

The Bush administration in Washington has opposed the building of the wall and subtracts money for US loan guarantees to Israel for the amount spent by Israel on the barrier, which is expected eventually to cost close to two billion dollars, or about two million dollars per kilometre. But the American government has been mostly silent on the Wall in recent months. Nobody in American politics is eager to take on the formidable Israeli lobby with a presidential election at stake.

Israel has not responded to an October 2003 United Nations General Assembly resolution demanding that Israel stop construction of the wall. Israel is boycotting the ICJ hearing.

The Israeli government, whether by design or coincidence, chose an election year in the United States to make the move. The calculation was apparently correct. The Bush administration has effectively abandoned its attempt to encourage negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians for the duration of this year.

The Palestinians, who have been demonstrating at the Court, did not bring the case. It was the United Nations, having already declared the wall illegal, which made the case. The Palestinians argue that the wall is not just a barrier to suicide bombers as Israel claims - it is also the end of any possibility of a two-state solution to the peace negotiations in the Middle East.

A legal advisor to the Palestinians, Diana Buttu, talking to reporters recently in Washington, charged that Israel, under the guise of security, is constructing the wall in such a way as to grab as much Palestinian land as possible while confining isolated Palestinian communities and essentially suffocating them. It is not the first time such charges were heard.

She and other Palestinians point out that building a wall is not in itself illegal. Other countries have done so, including the United States, which has erected structures along its Mexican border to try to stem illegal immigrants. But, they point out, the Israeli wall is not being built on pre-1967 Israeli territory. Almost all of it is on disputed territories beyond the 1967 Green Line.

Meanwhile, some 400,000 Jewish settlers, including those in Jerusalem, will permanently take over almost half of the remaining West Bank - about 44 per cent - including prime agricultural land and prime water sources. The remainder of the West Bank will not be economically viable for the most part.

Buttu cited the case of two Palestinian communities, Qalqilya and the adjacent town of Jayyous, which, together, used to produce about 80 per cent of the Palestinian agricultural needs, competing with Israeli producers. With the wall, 45 per cent of the communities' former land will be on the Israeli side of the wall. The water sources will also go to the Israelis and the communities will only have access to their wells for three hours every two days.

Israel argues that the wall is necessary for security and defence against suicide bombers, a theme that has struck a responsive chord with the Bush White House, where the president sees himself as the war president who is leading the fight against terrorism.

By the time the votes in the American elections are counted in November, some eight months from now, the wall that snakes through the West Bank will have been completed and a reinvigorated American government, whichever side wins, will once again turn to trying to revive the Middle East peace process. But the issue will already have been decided on the ground by the shrewdly-timed construction of the Israeli wall.-dpa