Bdos: Beware of thought

Do Caribbean journalists think at all? If a country is not a signatory to a pact, then that pact is not binding on or enforceable in relation to that country.

With regard to Israel and the recent ICJ court decision, the Nation's editorialist believes that Israel should abide by the ICC pronoucement because it is the "rule of law" though non-binding.

In order to argue as he does, the editorialist ignores the true context of the Israeli wall, which the ICJ finds so objectionable, and creates a false one, which is the U.S. war in Iraq. Ignored is the Arab terrorism which has resulted in the deaths and maimings of so many Israelis, and that the erection of the wall has reduced terrorist murders of Israeli citizens. That has no value to the editorialist. Nor does the anti-Israeli bias which prevails at the U.N. and its institutions such that Israel has no chance of receiving a fair shake from the world body.

In the fantasy land in which the editorialist resides,

the ICJ was set up by the UN and is the embodiment of the rule of law for relations among the international community of nations. Its members apply credible, clear legal values to deliberation brought before them.

For Israel to reject the ruling because, in its view, the ICJ did not fully consider terrorism and other related reasons aired in erecting the barrier, is to derogate from the value of the rule of law by making it contingent upon political circumstances.

Never once does the editorialist ask how can the ICJ hand down a decision on a wall which is a defense against terrorism without fully considering the terrorism and related reasons which necessitated its erection. To ask and answer that question might force the writer to think and to realize that something is rotten in the ICJ and the U.N.