Friday, International Court of Justice in The Hague An advisory opinion would be issued that would be a devastating blow to Israel, tarnish the court’s reputation, and potentially incite further violence and anti-Semitism.
At the request of Less than half of the total number of UN member statesThe court is expected to issue an opinion on the legal status of what the UN General Assembly calls the “Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
Although advisory opinions are not binding, they are extremely important given the Court’s authoritative status as a “World Court.”
This is the same court that is hearing cases under the Genocide Convention alleging that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The court’s rather opaque interim rulings are widely known, Used to falsely conclude that Israel is committing genocideOf course not, and the court has not made a final ruling.
Also in The Hague, Palestinians are pressuring the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute Israeli leaders for violating the Rome Statute in Palestinian territory, even though Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute and Palestine is not a state.
All this “legal battle” in The Hague is the result of a decade-long campaign driven by the Palestine Liberation Organization. Founded by Arab countries in 1964, the PLO is the vehicle for destroying the Jewish state and replacing it with an Arab state from the river to the sea. The PLO is committed to using violence to destroy Israel. Despite a promise made by former PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat to President Clinton in 1993, the PLO has never amended its charter or changed its mission.
Instead, Arafat He turned down President Clinton’s offer at Camp David. that’s all 97 percent of the West Bank in 2000 And so the Second Intifada began. 1,600 Israelis killed and 9,000 injuredSince then, the PLO has promoted (and funded) terrorism against Israel.
In 2011, Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, announced a new strategy for the PLO: to abandon negotiations with Israel and ask the International Court of Justice in The Hague to recognize the claim to statehood. The first step was to mobilize nations in the UN General Assembly to grant Palestine statehood. “UN non-member observer state status” in 2012.
Most Western countries abstained from the vote, allowing the UN to create a virtual Palestinian state on paper that bore little resemblance to reality, and allowing Palestinians to operate as if they were a state in courts and international institutions.
The reality on the ground is that the Palestinians have failed to create effective government institutions capable of ensuring the rule of law for their people, nor have they made any effort to comply with basic international norms.
Hamas controls Gaza The Palestinian Authority is corrupt and incompetent On the other hand, Israel openly pays terrorists. Israel’s presence in the West Bank is essential to root out terrorist organizations and prevent the area from descending into chaos. As a result, Palestine is not yet a state under generally accepted principles of international law.
But the request for an advisory opinion prompted the Court to ignore all this and assume that Israel’s presence in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza is illegal and that all disputed Palestinian territory belongs to the Palestinians, who have the right to unilateral statehood. In their petition, the Palestinians (backed by Islamic and Arab countries) demand that Israel immediately, unconditionally and completely withdraw all military and civilian personnel from the “occupied territories.”
These claims are not only at odds with reality, but are based on faulty legal assumptions. Israel’s reunification of Jerusalem and administration of the West Bank since 1967 is not a nation-state occupation and is not illegal. East Jerusalem and the West Bank are not “Palestinian” property and do not have absolute statehood rights under international law. International law requires the parties to negotiate this complex matrix of competing rights and obligations, including Palestinian autonomy and Israeli security rights.
Calling for Israel to unilaterally withdraw from the West Bank and East Jerusalem without firm guarantees of its security would be disastrous for both Israel and the Palestinian people. As has happened in Gaza, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) would soon seize control of the West Bank, giving Iran’s revolutionary regime free rein to further expand its repressive influence in the region.
But the Palestinians The International Court of Justice goes furtherThey want the court to rule that Jews have no national rights and that the establishment of a Jewish state under the Balfour Declaration (1917) and the Mandate for Palestine (1922) was illegal.
That would require the Court to completely rewrite both history and law, and it also shows that what the Palestinian leadership seeks is not a two-state solution, but the elimination of the Jewish state and its replacement with a river-to-sea Palestinian Arab state that excludes Jews.
The PLO is manipulating the advisory opinion process in order to continue its hostile legal campaign against Israel’s existence. It is hoped that the International Court of Justice will not succumb to this pressure. At stake is the Court’s own reputation as a trustee of fairness, due process and the rule of law.
Andrew Tucker is ddirector GThe Hague-based think tank, the Hague International Cooperation Initiative, argues that international law is being misused to undermine legitimacy in the international community. sThe State of Israel advocates for the fair interpretation and application of international law.
