Upon a request by the UN General Assembly from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legality of Israel’s occupation of Palestine, the Court may delegitimize the occupation altogether, marking a historical victory for Palestinians.
In a historical move to announce Israel’s 55-year occupation of Palestinian territories as illegal, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is set to issue an opinion upon the request of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
The UNGA vote to the request was held on 31 December and called on the ICJ to look at the occupation in terms of legal consequences, the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the responsibility of all UN member states to bring the protracted Israeli occupation to an end.
The move is particularly important because this time, the court will be offering its view on Israel’s attempt to make permanent what was meant to be a temporary military occupation. To put it simply, the ICJ could, and most probably will, delegitimize every single action that Israel has taken in occupied Palestine since the start of the occupation in 1967. This time in fact, the consequences for Israel’s occupation will not be just words, but a legally binding decision from the ICJ.
The last time that the ICJ was asked to give its legal opinion on the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories was 19 years ago in 2004. However, back then, the opinion was largely centered around the “legal consequences arising from the construction of the [Israeli Apartheid] wall, not the whole matter of occupation itself.
That’s why in fact the UNGA vote and the upcoming opinion by the ICJ angered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has done more than any other Israeli leader to “normalize” the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Israel furious over the UN’s historical move
Following the UN vote, Netanyahu described the move as “despicable”, nothing that “the Jewish people are not occupiers on their lands nor in our eternal capital Jerusalem and no UN resolution can wrap that historical truth.”
His coalition partners also rebuked the UN vote, with Knesset Member Zvika Fogel saying in an interview with Israeli Radio 103FM that “The Israeli occupation of the West Bank is permanent and Israel has the right to annex it. Gone are the days of political ambiguity regarding Israel’s ultimate right in the Occupied Territories.”
The UNGA vote was in fact a direct result of Israel’s own extremist moves taken, or planned to be taken, by the far-right members of Netanyahu’s cabinet. The new government in Israel is indeed packed with extremists such as Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Yoav Galan, each one holding high-ranking positions in Netanyahu’s government. As expected, these names are now committed to an anti-peace approach as their political agenda.
Just to give an example, hours after swearing in on 28 December, the new government announced that it “will advance and develop settlements in all parts of Israel.”
Ben-Gvir’s sudden and provocative visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem was yet another move in showing how serious the new government is in expanding its occupation in all the Palestinian lands.
In other words, Israel, under the new government, is now trying to manage a whole new phase of its colonial project in Palestine, an endeavor that began in earnest in 1947-48 and, in Israel’s own calculation, is about to end with the total colonization of Palestine, an Israel’s version of a “one-state solution” that is predicated on apartheid and racial discrimination.
However, legally binding opinion by the ICJ on the illegality of the Israel’s occupation altogether can be a historical victory for Palestinians and a slap in the face of Netanyahu and his extremist comrades.
