By Michel Moushabeck / Truthout
In a landmark opinion issued today, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has said that Israel’s 57-year occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip is in breach of international law.
The proceedings came out of a UN resolution passed in December of 2022. In the resolution, the UN General Assembly requested an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on “Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.” The ICJ, also known as the World Court, is the UN’s principal judicial organ that adjudicates disputes between member states and provides advisory opinions on international legal matters.
This case is separate from the one brought forth by South Africa last year, in which the ICJ provisionally ruled that Israeli practices in Gaza are plausibly genocidal. Following that ruling, Israel indicated that it rejects the ICJ’s findings. In a post on X, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote, “Nobody will stop us – not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anybody else.”
Public hearings on Israel’s occupation of Palestine were held at The Hague on February 19 and lasted for six days, during which 52 countries participated and presented arguments. The panel of 15 judges on the court was asked by the UN General Assembly to consider “the legal consequences arising from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, from its prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.”
The hearings commenced with remarks by Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, in which he asserted the rights of Palestinians to live “in freedom and dignity in their ancestral land.” He asked the ICJ to recognize the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and called on the court to “declare Israel occupation is illegal and must end it completely and unconditionally.”
Israel did not participate in the oral arguments, but the Office of the Prime Minister issued a statement saying, “Israel does not recognize the legitimacy of the discussion at the International Court of Justice in The Hague regarding the ‘legality of the occupation’ — a move designed to harm Israel’s right to defend itself against existential threats.”
Israel’s Occupation Is Sustained by a Combination of State-Sponsored Violence and Apartheid
Israel was born of British colonialism; it was created through a mixture of state violence and vigilante terrorist acts that displaced Palestinians and dispossessed them from their homes and land; it is supported — financially, militarily and diplomatically — by Western, primarily U.S., imperialism-serving war profiteers; and it is sustained by a combination of state-sanctioned violence and a system of apartheid that denies Palestinians — who form half the people in the land under Israeli control from the river to the sea — their equal rights.
After the Nakba of 1948, the State of Israel was established on 78 percent of the land of what had been British Mandate Palestine. During the June 1967 war, Israel took over the West Bank, Gaza and Arab East Jerusalem, the remaining 22 percent of historic Palestine, now known as “the Occupied Territories.” In 1980, Israel unilaterally formalized its annexation of East Jerusalem — a move that was condemned as illegal by the international community.
Over the past 57 years, successive Israeli governments have brutally terrorized Palestinians, demolished homes, confiscated large tracts of Palestinian lands, expanded Israeli settlements in the West Bank — considered illegal under international law — and added many new ones that effectively rendered the “two-state solution” impossible. Now West Bank settlers number more than 700,000; they are heavily armed and are constantly terrorizing Palestinian residents in neighboring villages in an effort to force them to leave, as described in a report by Amnesty International.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, since October 7,575 Palestinians — of whom 138 are children — were killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem by soldiers and armed settlers.
Israel employs oppression, violence, persecution, checkpoints, house demolitions, displacement, expulsion, imprisonment, land theft, torture of children and collective punishment to ethnically cleanse non-Jewish inhabitants.
Racism in Israel is not a flaw in the system; it is the system. International human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have issued extensive reports that concluded that Israel practices apartheid. United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory Francesca Albanese has come under vicious attacks following her report highlighting Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid. Hagai El-Ad, director of B’Tselem, Israel’s oldest human rights organization, recently said in a report, “Israel is not a democracy that has a temporary occupation attached to it: It is one regime between the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, and we must look at the full picture and see it for what it is: apartheid.”
Unlike the framing commonly put forth by politicians and mainstream media, it is not“complicated.” It is not “an age-old religious feud.” And, it is not “a conflict by extremists on both sides.”
The ICJ’s Advisory Opinion Is the Court’s Latest Blow to Israel and Its Allies
At a public sitting at the Peace Palace in The Hague, Judge Nawaf Salam, president of the World Court, read the ICJ’s advisory opinion regarding Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.
The panel of judges concluded by 14 votes to 1 that the ICJ has jurisdiction to give the advisory opinion requested by the UN General Assembly. By 11 votes to 4, the court is of the opinion that “the State of Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful” and that “Israel is under an obligation to bring to an end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible. “
With only a single “no” vote by Judge Julia Sebutinde of Uganda, the remaining 14 judges on the panel agreed that Israel’s settlement policies are in breach of international law and that “the State of Israel is under an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities, and to evacuate all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” Also, by 14 votes to 1, the court agreed that “Israel has the obligation to make reparation for the damage caused to all the natural and or legal persons concerned in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
By 12 votes to 3, the ICJ is of the opinion:
- that all States are under an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory;
- that international organizations, including the United Nations, are under an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory;
- that the United Nations, and especially the General Assembly, which requested this opinion, and the Security Council, should consider the precise modalities and further action required to bring to an end as rapidly as possible the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Today’s highly significant opinion by the ICJ will have far-reaching effects —despite the fact that it is considered as advisory and nonbinding. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to blast the opinion, releasing a July 19 statement saying: “The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land — not in our eternal capital Jerusalem, nor in our ancestral heritage of Judea and Samaria” (a reference to the occupied West Bank), and adding, “No decision of lies in The Hague will distort this historical truth, and similarly, the legality of Israeli settlements in all parts of our homeland cannot be disputed.”
Israeli politicians’ eagerness to assure their public and the world that the World Court’s decision will be ignored comes as no surprise given how they reacted in May to the International Court of Justice when it ordered an end to Israel’s military offensive on Rafah as part of the broader genocide case.
The ICJ’s order relating to Israel’s Rafah offensive required Israel, “in conformity with its obligations” under the Genocide Convention, to “immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” The court also ordered Israel to open the Rafah crossing and allow aid trucks of food, water and medical supplies to reach displaced Palestinians. It also required that Israel provide access for investigators and report back on its progress within one month.
But as we have seen, Israel complied with none of the above. Instead, it went ahead with its military offensive on Rafah and has further intensified its assault on Gaza City and northern Gaza. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Israel killed 309 Palestinians and wounded 640 across Gaza since July 11, raising the death toll to 38,794 and the number of wounded to 88,881 in the Gaza Strip. Among the dead, 28,428 have been fully identified. These include 7,779 children, 5,466 women and 2,418 elderly people. In addition, around 10,000 more are estimated to be under the rubble.
The Lancet, a respected British medical journal, calculated that the real death toll, including those missing under the rubble and “indirect” deaths from malnutrition, disease, and other conditions brought on by the conflict, could be around 186,000 people — roughly 8 percent of Gaza’s population. Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives just passed a bill to ban the State Department from accurately sharing the death toll in Palestine.
Gaza has been pulverized. Gaza today is thirsty; Gaza today is hungry; Gaza today is bleeding and is crying for help — for a ceasefire and an end to the suffering of its people. Nearly 80 percent of the Palestinians in Gaza have been forced from their homes and a colossal humanitarian crisis has taken hold, including, per the United Nations, a full-blown famine. The United Nations experts warned that the number of deaths of Palestinian children due to hunger and malnutrition leaves no doubt that famine has spread across the entire Gaza Strip.
Seventy-Five Percent of All UN Member States Recognize the State of Palestine
Today’s damning ICJ opinion is in line with what two-thirds of all UN member states agree on. As of June 2024, the State of Palestine is recognized as a sovereign state by 146 of the 193 member states of the United Nations, or over 75 percent of all UN member states. Spain, Ireland, Norway and Slovenia most recently recognized the State of Palestine.
By going to the ICJ, the internationally recognized State of Palestine is calling upon all countries of the world to genuinely support democracy and equal rights for Palestinians to achieve a peace that would be in the best interest of Palestinians and Israelis alike.
Despite numerous UN Security Councilresolutions, the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the establishment of an independent State of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The current extremist, right-wing Israeli leaders of the settlement movement such as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir have openly called for ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and Gaza to create a Greater Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
In anticipation of the ICJ opinion, the Israeli parliament passed a resolution on July 18 — the day before the ICJ announced its advisory opinion — affirming its opposition to Palestinian statehood. The resolution, which was opposed only by the nine Arab members of the Israeli Knesset, states that “the establishment of a Palestinian state in the heart of the Land of Israel would constitute an existential threat to the State of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilize the region.”
In a Haaretz article on July 18, far right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionist Party was quoted as saying in a post on X: “With a decisive majority of 68 to 9, the Knesset voted against the establishment of an Arab terror state in Israel, not now, not in the future, not unilaterally, and not within an agreement.” Referring to the annexation of the West Bank, he added: “The awakening of the overwhelming majority in Israeli society is amazing. Now is the time for sovereignty.”
While the Biden administration continues its insincere rhetorical support for the two-state solution, the U.S. has remained Israel’s staunchest supporter, always using its veto power to shield it from accountability and prevent Palestinian statehood despite Israel’s repeated violations of international law and UN Security Council resolutions.
The Palestinian people have faced a long history of injustice — from colonialism to displacement to present-day apartheid. The countries of the Global South recognize that the unimaginable suffering being inflicted every minute of every day on the Palestinian people must come to an end. Time will tell if the ICJ’s opinion will produce a change in the policies of Western governments and succeed in finally allowing Palestinians to return to their homes and live their lives with freedom, equality and dignity.
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Michel Moushabeck
Michel Moushabeck is a Palestinian American writer, editor, translator and musician. He is the founder and publisher of Interlink Publishing, a 37-year-old Massachusetts-based independent publishing house. Follow him on Instagram: @ReadPalestine.