The opinion of the Court of Justice in The Hague, calling on the Israelis to dismantle their “defensive wall”, since its construction violates international law, has aroused wide debate in the press. “Israel refuses to give up its security ‘wall'”, is the headline carried for instance by La Croix (12/7); the paper notes that “in spite of the opinion of the international Court of Justice in The Hague that condemns the construction of the ‘line of separation’ on occupied territories, Ariel Sharon refuses to back down”. “If the Palestinians comments Agnès Rotivel inside the same paper seem certain to obtain the support of the UN General Assembly, the efforts to see Israel condemned or punished by sanctions by the Security Council are destined to be disappointed, seeing that the Jewish State can count on the support of the USA to veto any such resolution”. After the terrorist attack in Tel Aviv on 11 July, points out Gilles Paris in Le Monde (13/7), Israeli premier Sharon denounced the International Court of Justice: “In unison with the government writes the author of the article the Israeli press has vigorously criticized the decision taken at The Hague, and vindicated the legitimacy of the construction of the ‘security fence’ and hence the right of Israel to protect itself, placed in doubt by the international judges (…). For the Palestinian Authority, on the other hand, extremely satisfied by the decision of the International Court of Justice, the terrorist attack in Tel Aviv could not have come at a worse time. The chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, has condemned the terrorist operation”. The Israeli wall as “victory of the logic of war” is discussed by Roger Cohen ( Herald Tribune, 14/7). “Believing in the fence points out the expert is far from limited to the army. The majority of Israelis are tired of the conflict, exhausted. They want to forget what’s happening outside, in the Territories. A wall helps them to do so (….). The wall, due to be completed by the end of next year, is the most visible expression of how Israelis and Palestinians are separated societies”. “It’s the first time notes Luigi Geninazzi in the Italian Catholic daily Avvenire (10/7) that the Court in The Hague, judicial organ of the UNO, has intervened in the Middle-East conflict on the explicit mandate of the UN General Assembly. But it’s not the first time that the Jewish State had ignored the rulings of the UNO”. The German press has devoted a lot of coverage in recent days to the episode of the Cap Anamur and its human freight of presumed refugees from Africa. “ The captain is a tragic hero in the classic sense of the term, representative of Europe. He too knows that the ferrymen take blood money for what they do, that the hope in the promised land is being born in ever more refugees and that the coasts of Europe cannot accept all those eager to get in. But when he found the refugees abandoned in the Mediterranean, ought he to have averted his gaze? Who could have done so without betraying Europe and its values?“, asks Michael Stürmer in Die Welt (13/7). Of a different view is Ulrich Clauss (14/7): “ Putting to one side all the questions still open, surely having left the Cap Anamur and its cargo of refugees to drift for three weeks… is not a sign of maturity on the part of European policy. What type of signal is sent to the assassins in Sudan and elsewhere, by an unconditional acceptance of all those forced to take to the Mediterranean by need and by poverty?” […] “Those who don’t want to remain mere “pacifists” moralizing on the persecution campaigns of our time, ought eventually to intervene massively on the spot: if necessary, as the example of Sudan demonstrates, even without the aegis of international law”. The Allgemeine Zeitung (15/07) compares the episode of the Cap Anamur with that of Abu Ghraib in Iraq: “ The calculated violation of the law, the demonstrative non-observance of state sovereignty, have been, in Iraq as in the Mediterranean, the method used by a humanitarian imperialism“. The calling of a referendum on the European Constitution in 2005, announced by Chirac, is the front cover story in the Spanish daily El Mundo (15/7). “The French parties had called for a date”, reports the Madrid paper, which also cites the words of the French President: “The French will be called to vote in a referendum, and this will be a good occasion to see whether our capacity for dialogue has received an boost”. The nomination of the Spaniard Josep Borrell as president of the European Parliament is reported on the front page of ABC (13/7): “The Spanish MEP Borrell will chair the European Parliament from 20 July on. The chairman of the European socialist group, Martin Schulz, has explained that the accord does not imply the support of the Socialists for the nomination of the Portuguese José Manuel Durao Barroso as president of the European Commission”. Borrell, a Socialist, is the third Spaniard to chair the EP, after Enrique Barón (1989-1992) and José María Gil-Robles (1997-1999).———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1314 N.ro relativo : 54 Data pubblicazione : 17/07/04
