{"id":166570,"date":"2024-07-19T19:54:26","date_gmt":"2024-07-19T19:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/?p=166570"},"modified":"2024-07-19T19:54:26","modified_gmt":"2024-07-19T19:54:26","slug":"top-un-court-says-israels-presence-in-occupied-palestinian-territories-is-illegal-and-should-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/top-un-court-says-israels-presence-in-occupied-palestinian-territories-is-illegal-and-should-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Top UN court says Israel\u2019s presence in occupied Palestinian territories is illegal and should end"},"content":{"rendered":"

The top U.N. court said on Friday, July 19, 2024, that Israel\u2019s presence in the Palestinian occupied territories is \u201cunlawful<\/em>\u201d and called on it to end and for settlement construction to stop immediately, issuing an unprecedented, sweeping condemnation of Israel\u2019s rule over the lands it captured 57 years ago.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In a non-binding opinion, the International Court of Justice pointed to a wide list of policies, including the building and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, use of the area\u2019s natural resources, the annexation and imposition of permanent control over lands and discriminatory policies against Palestinians, all of which it said violated international law.<\/p>\n

The 15-judge panel said Israel\u2019s \u201cabuse of its status as the occupying power<\/em>\u201d renders its \u201cpresence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful<\/em>.\u201d It says its continued presence was \u201cillegal<\/em>\u201d and should be ended as \u201crapidly as possible<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

It said Israel needs to end settlement construction immediately and that existing settlements must be removed, according to the 83-page opinion read out by court President Nawaf Salam.<\/p>\n

Israel, which normally considers the United Nations and international tribunals as unfair and biased, did not send a legal team to the hearings. But it submitted written comments, saying that the questions put to the court are prejudiced and fail to address Israeli security concerns. Israeli officials have said the court\u2019s intervention could undermine the peace process, which has stagnant for more than a decade.<\/p>\n

In response to the ruling, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the West Bank and east Jerusalem were part of the Jewish people\u2019s historical \u201chomeland<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land \u2013 not in our eternal capital Jerusalem and not in the land of our ancestors in Judea and Samaria<\/em>,\u201d he said in a post on the social media platform X. \u201cNo false decision in The Hague will distort this historical truth and likewise the legality of Israeli settlement in all the territories of our homeland cannot be contested<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court\u2019s opinion, sought by the U.N. General Assembly after a Palestinian request, is unlikely to effect Israel\u2019s policy. But its resounding breadth \u2014 including saying Israel could not claim sovereignty in the territories and was impeding Palestinians\u2019 right to self-determination \u2014 could impact international opinion.<\/p>\n

It came against the backdrop of Israel\u2019s devastating 10-month military assault on Gaza, which was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel. In a separate case, the International Court of Justice is considering a South African claim that Israel\u2019s campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide, a claim that Israel vehemently denies.<\/p>\n

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three areas for an independent state.<\/p>\n

Israel considers the West Bank to be disputed territory, whose future should be decided in negotiations, while it has moved population there in settlements to solidify its hold. It has annexed east Jerusalem in a move that is not internationally recognized, while it withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but maintained a blockade of the territory after Hamas took power in 2007. The international community generally considers all three areas to be occupied territory.<\/p>\n

At hearings in February, then-Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki accused Israel of apartheid and urged the United Nations\u2019 top court to declare that Israel\u2019s occupation of lands sought by the Palestinians is illegal and need to end immediately and unconditionally for any hope for a two-state future to survive.<\/p>\n

The Palestinians presented arguments in February along with 49 other nations and three international organizations.<\/p>\n

Erwin van Veen, a senior research fellow at the Clingendael think tank in The Hague, said that if the court rules that Israel\u2019s policies in the West Bank and east Jerusalem breach international law, it would \u201cisolate Israel further internationally, at least from a legal point of view<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said such a ruling would \u201cworsen the case for occupation. It removes any kind of legal, political, philosophical underpinning of the Israeli expansion project<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would also strengthen the hand of \u201cthose who seek to advocate against it<\/em>\u201d \u2014 such as the grassroots Palestinian-led movement advocating boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel.<\/p>\n

He said it also could increase the number of countries that recognize the state of Palestine, in particular in the Western world, following the recent example of Spain and Norway and Ireland.<\/p>\n

It is not the first time the ICJ has been asked to give its legal opinion on Israeli policies. Two decades ago, the court ruled that Israel\u2019s West Bank separation barrier was \u201ccontrary to international law<\/em>.\u201d Israel boycotted those proceedings, saying they were politically motivated.<\/p>\n

Israel says the barrier is a security measure. Palestinians say the structure amounts to a massive land grab because it frequently dips into the West Bank.<\/p>\n

Israel has built well over 100 settlements, according to the anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now. The West Bank settler population has grown by more than 15% in the past five years to more than 500,000 Israelis, according to a pro-settler group.<\/p>\n

Israel also has annexed east Jerusalem and considers the entire city to be its capital. An additional 200,000 Israelis live in settlements built in east Jerusalem that Israel considers to be neighborhoods of its capital. Palestinian residents of the city face systematic discrimination, making it difficult for them to build new homes or expand existing ones.<\/p>\n

The international community considers all settlements to be illegal or obstacles to peace since they are built on lands sought by the Palestinians for their state.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s hard-line government is dominated by settlers and their political supporters. Netanyahu has given his finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, a former settler leader, unprecedented authority over settlement policy. Smotrich has used this position to cement Israel\u2019s control over the West Bank by pushing forward plans to build more settlement homes and to legalize outposts.<\/p>\n

Authorities recently approved the appropriation of 12.7 square kilometers (nearly 5 square miles) of land in the Jordan Valley, a strategic piece of land deep inside the West Bank, according to a copy of the order obtained by The Associated Press<\/em>. Data from Peace Now, the tracking group, indicate it was the largest single appropriation approved since the 1993 Oslo accords at the start of the peace process.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

yogaesoteric
\nJuly 19, 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The top U.N. court said on Friday, July 19, 2024, that Israel\u2019s presence in the Palestinian occupied territories is \u201cunlawful\u201d and called on it to end and for settlement construction to stop immediately, issuing an unprecedented, sweeping condemnation of Israel\u2019s rule over the lands it captured 57 years ago. In a non-binding opinion, the International […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1093],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-censored-news-social-5127-en-censored-sensational-news-3480-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166574,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166570\/revisions\/166574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}