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Justice, Blind And Dumb
wo weeks ago, there was good reason to cele-
brate decisions by the highest courts in the
United States and Israel. The decisions, curb-
ing respectively executive actions on the detention of
enemy combatants" and on the routing of the West
Bank security barrier, showed how, even in wartime,
democracy provides a system of checks and balances
that makes for a better government and a better soci-
ety.
Last week, however, another judicial body, the
International Court of Justice in the Hague, proved
only that justice can often be blind in all the worst
ways. Responding to the request of the United
Nations for an advisory opinion that could support a
call for sanctions against Israel, the court
issued a ruling so riddled with mistakes of
judgment, ignorance of history and political
interpretation of the law that it could make
a first-year law student cringe.
The court decided, for example, that the West
Bank barrier Israel is building to slow the pace of ter-
rorist attacks illegally "impedes the exercise by the
Palestinian people of its right to self-determination."
The court failed to grasp what most of the world has
understood for more than half a century: that any
right of self-determination has to emerge from politi-
cal negotiations among Israel, the Arab states and the
Palestinians. The Arab countries that rejected the
British partition of the region and made war on Israel
effectively forfeited any legal or moral claim to any
"right of self-determination."
The court also decided incorrectly that Israel is an
"occupying power" in the West Bank and is violating
the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which
forbid such a power from transferring its civilians
into the territory it occupies. That might have been a
correct view if the Arab states had agreed to respect
the Green Line in 1948; it is plain wrong when the
land in question is contested territory to which Israel
"
Dry Bones
WHEN YOU SAVE
"GOOD FENCES MAKE
GOOD NEIGHBORS", CRAZED TERRORISTS
FOR NEIGHBORS
.„.‘tr. THAT...
EXCEPle
has a historic claim that is far
stronger than anything the nomadic
Arab tribes could assert.
The court tried hard to close its
eyes to the unrelenting Palestinian
violence against Israeli civilians both
inside the Green Line and on the
West Bank that has been going on
since September 2000 when
Palestinian Authority President
Yasser Arafat choose the intifada
rather than the plan for peace that
had been worked out at Camp
David. Fourteen of the court's 15
justices — an American
was the sole dissenter —
concluded that Israel's
right to defend its civil-
ians in the manner it deemed most
effective has less force than this
imaginary right of the Palestinians
to attack them.
The ruling will now form the
basis for further mischief, primarily
at the United Nations where the
Arab states will push for economic
and othei sanctions against Israel
because of its alleged "illegal" con-
struction of the security barrier.
And the United States veto of those
proposed sanctions would be used
in the Muslim world to create fur-
ther enmity toward the Western
world at a time when reconciliation
is vital.
The International Court of Justice had an interest-
ing opportunity in the case to play a leadership role
by adopting a balanced view of the Middle East con-
flict. It could, for example, have followed the logic of
Israel's highest court in finding that some portions of
EDIT ORIAL
WHAT A "GOOD
FENCE" MAKES
is...
SAFER STREETS,
SCHOOLS, SHOPS,
AND BUS RIDES!
the barrier were needlessly intrusive, but also that the
Green Line was not a boundary that secures peace for
either side.
Instead it marched in ideological lockstep to a
dumb ruling that the rest of the world should, on its
merits, simply ignore. ❑
The Data On Intermarriage
Newton, Mass.
ince the National Jewish Population Survey
confirmed the continuing high rate of inter-
marriage, it's been quiet on the "outreach" vs.
"in-reach" front.
The Jewish In-Marriage Initiative is slowly
becoming active. No new money has been added to
the paltry funding the Jewish community devotes to
outreach to the intermarried.
As policy advocates search for support for- their
positions among a dearth of social science, Sylvia
Barack Fishman's new study, "Double or Nothing?
Jewish Families and Mixed Marriage," takes on
inordinate significance.
. Fishman's main conclusions are based on a very
S
Edmund C. Case is president and publisher
of InterfaithFamily.corn. His e-mail address is
edc@interfaithfamily.com
limited sample: interviews of 43 mixed-mar-
Taking Issue
ried couples who said they were raising all
My main concern is Fishman's assertion that
of their children as Jews and four focus
the vast majority of mixed-married families
groups each with perhaps eight children of
who say they are raising their children as
intermarried parents.
Jews "incorporate Christian holiday festiv-
Any qualitative study raises interpretative
ities" into their lives, which makes them
issues. Which of the participants' behaviors
"religiously syncretic" — combining
and understandings does the observer
Judaism and Christianity — such that
EDMUND
choose to emphasize, or even mention?
Jewish identity is not transmitted to their
C. CASE
Although Fishman says that the personal
children, even though they say that these
Special
stories of her subjects, along with her analy-
festivities have no religious significance to
Commentary them.
sis, "now become texts themselves for a
broader discussion," only glimpses and
This central conclusion is not supported
excerpts, not the underlying interview tran-
by the research itself, is inconsistent with other
scripts, are available for interpretation by others.
available evidence and provides a wholly inade-
"Double or Nothing" is replete with comments
quate basis for the very dangerous policies it will
suggesting that Fishman is not a neutral observer. At
be used to justify.
one point, she even implies that outreach advocates
Twice, Fishman suggests that the participation
are "Christianizing."
CASE on page 26
7/16
2004
25