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General Assembly, has issued a ruling that historians will view as yet another indicator of how Jew- hatred was back in style little more than a half century after the Holocaust. While Israel's right of self-defense was acknowledged, the international court effectively denied Israel the ability to carry out such a defense while also refus- ing to place the building of the fence in the context of terrorism. But, of course, the intent of this travesty — as with much of the propaganda offensive car- ried out by the Palestinians and their fel- low travelers in the last four years — is not to knock down the fence. Their goal is much broader: the delegitimization of Israel and Zionism itself. After a decade of failed peace talks and terror, the overwhelming majority of Israelis have had enough. To protect themselves against a Palestinian terror war, they are building a fence whose purpose seems as much to separate the two populations as it is to prevent ter- rorism. The international court says the fence should run strictly along the 1949 armistice lines that served as Israel's bor- der until 1967. But the problem with that argument is that it prejudges the disposition of the territories — to which Israel has as good a legal claim as the Palestinians, a right acknowledged by . . the statements by both President Bush and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry that Israel has the right to retain portions of the territories — and would effectively make sitting ducks all of the nearly 400,000 Jews who live in Judea and Samaria, as well as in parts of Jerusalem occupied by Jordan from 1949 to 1967. That's exactly what Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his troops want. Those who say that the path of the fence is being dictated by Israel's "expan- sionist" agenda, instead of security con- cerns, have it backward. As a number of Israeli sources have told me over the past couple of years, had security and securi- ty alone been the only criteria for its route, it would have been built far deep- er into the West Bank, with many more Palestinians ending up on the Israeli side Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia. OPEN SATURDAYS "24 month closed-end lease. 20 cents per mile over 20,000 miles. New 2004 S40 2.41 with climate package, automatic transmission. M.S.R.P. 525,750 based on Ford X-plan pricing. Offer ends 8-31-04. 8Jin70 so as to enable its route to make more strategic sense. Instead, even in the fence route criticized by some Israelis is taking in too much land, its boundary is set to minimize the effect on Palestinians and run as close as possible to the areas where the targets of Arab terrorism actu- ally live. Some Israelis wonder how much help the fence will be in the Jerusalem areas where growing Palestinian villages abut both sides of the barrier. But there's no question statistics show that completed portions of the fence elsewhere have drastically reduced the number of Arab attacks. As for the question of the inconven- ience and hardship the wall has created for the Palestinians, the answer is sim- ple: Had they not launched a war in September 2000, instead of accepting Israel's offer of peace, no fence would exist. And even then, Israel's own Supreme Court has shown itself willing, as it did two weeks ago, to force the army to reroute the barrier to accommodate Palestinian petitioners. Not Rooted In Reason Viewed near or far, the fence is ugly, but how can a reasonable person argue with Israel's right to build it? Opposition to it is rooted not in a quest for peace, but in a desire for Israel's eradication. The question isn't whether Israelis will quiver in the face of new international calumny or even further efforts by Arafat's forces to kill Jews, such as last weekend's bombing in Tel Aviv. They won't. Its people have coped with the trauma of terror, and have, for the most part, not allowed the Palestinians to dis- rupt their lives. The streets in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem remain full; so are some of the restaurants and hotels, as long- absent tourists have started to return this summer as the intifada has fizzled out in yet another defeat for the Palestinians. But the real question in the aftermath of the latest outrages from the United Nations and its kangaroo court is for us in the United States. Ironically, some in this country are now urging a greater reliance on the United Nations and the European Union, in spite of the fact that these institutions are closely identi- fied with the delegitimization of Israel that the court ruling represents. The decision on the fence ought to remind us of the dangers of being pulled along with what passes for international opin- ion. When global bodies enshrine Jew- hatred in law, as this court has done, decent persons everywhere should tremble. LJ .