Israel should withdraw from occupied Palestinian territories Says International Court of Justice ruling

A  panel of 17 judges at the Hague-based United Nations top court  International Court of Justice  said in a landmark ruling on Friday 15 July 2024   that  Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian lands  violate international law and should cease all new settlement activities and evacuate settlers from Palestinian territories.

The ICJ added that Israel’s  policies in the occupied Palestinian territory amount to annexation  and  ruled that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and should come to an end “as rapidly as possible”. The court also  said Israel has no right to sovereignty of the territories, is violating international laws against acquiring territory by force and is impeding Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

In the June 1967 war of aggression    Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem – areas of historic Palestine that the Palestinians want for a state –. It has since built settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and steadily expanded them.

Qatar based Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, Marwan Bishara said: “There is a lot of room for hope that this ruling will support a movement, an international movement, across the board in the West and elsewhere in the world in favour of more sanctions, more pressure on Western governments to put more pressure on Israel.”

Palestinian politician and activist  Mustafa Barghouti, described the ruling   as  ‘a big victory for the Palestinian cause , and a big blow to   Israel as a state, an establishment, a government and as settlers.

Barghouti added that “for the first time in 75 years, Israel is stripped of its impunity in front of international law.” It is a victory for accountability, long overdue . This  decision represents a comprehensive and complete condemnation of Israel, its occupation, settlement, and its racist policies, which have been classified as a system of apartheid ,and the illegal annexation of the occupied territories, including Al-Quds.”

“The court’s decisions represent a solid legal basis for imposing sanctions and boycotts on Israel for violating international laws, he said.

 Jeffrey Nice, a human rights barrister, told that it will be hard for world leaders to completely “disregard” the ICJ ruling even though it is nonbinding.“ This is one part of the legal system saying enough is enough. It would also be “difficult for the interested, informed, concerned public not to say, ‘It’s time Israel put its house in order.’

However oppressed and brutalized   Palestinian activists  said they cannot celebrate the ICJ’s ruling when the situation across the occupied territory is worse than ever before. They cited Israel’s war in Gaza, which has   rendered the enclave uninhabitable.   “A year ago, a ruling like this would have been great.   “But right now, the priority is a permanent ceasefire [in Gaza] and an end to the occupation.”

Mohamad Alwan, a Palestinian rights activist monitoring settler attacks in the West Bank,  said that while recognises the ruling hurts Israel’s image abroad, there is no way for the court to apply or enforce it. He is pessimistic about whether states will take action against Israel after the ruling.

He cited perceived indifference to the ICJ’s binding order in January 2024, in which the court called on Israel to scale up aid and prevent further harm to civilians in Gaza after concluding that “the rights of Palestinians were at risk” under the Genocide Convention.

“In my opinion, this decision will have no immediate impact on the situation on the ground.” However, in the long run, there might be an impact. The world has seen now how Israel kills people and kills children, and their views are changing about Israel and its occupation.”

 SomePalestinian activists stressed that the ICJ’s advisory ruling  must be understood in the context of the Nakba, or “Catastrophe”, of 1948 when Zionist militias expelled about 750,000 Palestinians from their lands to create the state of Israel.

Diana Buttu, a Palestinian legal expert, said she wished the ICJ had referenced the Nakba to highlight the historic pattern of Israel’s behaviour in the occupied territory. “While I’m happy about the outcome of this case, I also think that this focus just on the West Bank and Gaza ignores the bigger picture of the origins of this situation and the ways in which Israel was created, which was through the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,” Buttu told’

She accused the PA of having long given up advocating for stateless Palestinians to be able to exercise the right of return to their former homes and lands lost during the Nakba or calling for an end to the discrimination that Palestinian citizens of Israel face .Experts and activists have previously attributed the PA’s shortcomings to the Oslo Accords “The PA a long time ago took a position that it is all about the two-state solution and ending occupation, so their entire discourse has just been about that,” Buttu said.

 “The Nakba is where this all started. How can we not mention the cause of the issue and where this all started? This is not the right way to address an issue like this,” she said.

“We would definitely like to see the international community recognise the Nakba, recognise all the people we lost in 1948 and to recognise the consequences of the Nakba that we are still living through today.”

However Israel remains lawless and its  fascist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on the prime minister to annex the occupied West Bank if the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rules Israeli settlements are illegal  .Smotrich told reporters, “no one will move the people of Israel from their land”, the Times of Israel quoted him as saying on Monday.

The ICJ has no real mechanism to enforce its decisions, the matter could be pushed to a vote in the U.N. Security Council, where members can order economic sanctions or military action.

If a U.N. Security Council vote does happen, “the Biden administration will once again face the choice of protecting Israel politically by casting a veto, and by that, further isolate the United States, or allowing the Security Council to act and pay a domestic political cost for ‘not standing by Israel,’” said Trita Parsi, the co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington, D.C. think tank. Ends

Latheef Farook-Senior journalist is based in Colombi-Sri Lanka