Last week’s ruling by the International Court of Justice against Israel is just the latest sign of the growing public pressure the country faces over its ongoing war on Gaza.
But the case predates the war – the result of a 2022 request by the UN General Assembly for the court to issue an opinion on the continued occupation of Palestinian territory.
The ICJ strongly condemned Israel in its opinion issued on Friday, calling the occupation illegal and declaring the construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem illegal. It rejected any argument that Israel has sovereignty over the territories, despite its claims. The court president also said that Israeli laws in the occupied territories “amount to the crime of apartheid.”
The Palestinian Authority welcomed the court’s ruling, with Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki calling it a “turning point for Palestine.” As expected, Israel rejected the decision, calling it “wrong.”
But if it’s such a big event, what can we expect next?
The ICJ’s decision is an “advisory opinion” and is not binding. Since the initial request for the opinion was made by the UN General Assembly, the matter will now return to the body, which “will decide how to proceed on this matter,” confirmed Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the UN secretary-general.
Resolutions adopted by the General Assembly are not binding, but they nevertheless carry weight because they come from a body that represents all member states.
And while the General Assembly does not have the power to expel a member state from the UN without the approval of the UN Security Council, it does have the ability to suspend its rights and privileges, meaning that the state would not be able to participate in sessions of the General Assembly and other UN bodies.
This was notably what happened in 1974, when member states voted to suspend the participation of apartheid South Africa, despite the objections of the United States, the United Kingdom and France, thereby helping to transform the apartheid regime in South Africa into a pariah state, despite Western objections.
Hassan Ben Imran, a board member of Law for Palestine, believes that with the UN Security Council “compromised and paralyzed” by the US veto, the General Assembly should take the lead.
“Israel has given us no reason to believe that it will abide by the ICJ’s rulings. In fact, its top leaders have stated this publicly,” Ben Imran said. “Therefore, the only way forward is political, economic and military sanctions through the UN General Assembly. Just like apartheid South Africa, Israel should be suspended or removed from its membership in the UN, FIFA, the Olympics and other forums. The UN General Assembly can take the lead on this course of action.”
Omar H Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, told Tel Aviv Tribune that the ICJ ruling “provides Palestinians and their supporters with a potentially powerful tool to mobilise the international community to put pressure on Israel”.
Israeli Isolation
As Israel faces a separate genocide case brought by South Africa at the ICJ, and the International Criminal Court seeks arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Israelis face growing legal challenges.
The ICJ’s decision last week on Israel’s presence in the occupied territories only increases the likelihood that Israel will lose in these cases as well.
Mai El-Sadany, executive director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, said the ICJ ruling would have consequences.
“The world’s highest court clearly establishes the illegality of the Israeli occupation and its settlement policies and practices; it characterizes the situation as racial segregation and apartheid; and it underlines the obligation of other states not to aid or assist in the continued Israeli presence in the occupied Palestinian territories,” El-Sadany said. “In doing so, it sets out facts and conclusions that can then be used by diplomats in their negotiations, that can be used by states in their bilateral relations, that can be reported and used by journalists covering the issue, and that can be used by lawyers and advocates in further litigation and civil society work.”
El-Sadany added that the ICJ’s confirmation that Gaza is part of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel could have implications for the separate genocide case, as occupying powers have “obligations and duties” to the people who live on the lands they occupy. Ben Imran argued that this “puts an end to the legal debate on whether Israel, the occupying power, is entitled to claim the right of self-defense against attacks emanating from a territory it occupies.” With the ruling that the Palestinian territories are illegally occupied, Ben Imran believes that Israel can no longer claim self-defense.
Annexation
Israel reaffirmed its position, refusing to give up East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
“The Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land,” Netanyahu said, adding that “the legality of Israeli settlements in all territories of our homeland cannot be disputed.” Other far-right politicians have called for annexation of the West Bank, and even before the ICJ ruling, the Israeli parliament overwhelmingly rejected the creation of a Palestinian state.
There have long been fears that Israel might one day decide to annex the occupied West Bank, as it did with occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied Golan Heights.
This latter action was acknowledged by former – and perhaps future – US President Donald Trump, and the Israeli government may now be counting on a new Trump administration to provide it with the pretext to annex the West Bank, intensify the destruction of Gaza and ignore international pressure to grant Palestinians their rights.
Rahman does not believe the ICJ ruling makes West Bank annexation more likely, but sees it as a continuation of “decades of deliberate policy by Israel to create the conditions on the ground for annexation.”
“Even though the ICJ decision should make them think twice about whether the international community will accept (annexation), the consequences in terms of establishing an apartheid regime have always been the same,” he said.
Israel’s fortress mentality and its attempts to discredit the ICJ and other key international bodies mean that it will likely continue on its current path, at least in the short term.
The country has so far ignored a 2004 ICJ ruling that the separation wall it built – much of which is on Palestinian land – is illegal.
This raises doubts about the power of the ICJ and international human rights law when it comes to Israel and Palestine, although Ben Imran stresses that the problem is that countries are not implementing the law and are behaving as if they are above them.
As more countries choose to support the rule of law in the face of occupation, this pressure could eventually reach a point where Israel and its backers give in.
“Even some of Israel’s closest allies, including the United States, have acknowledged parts of the advisory opinion, including on the illegality of the settlement policy,” El-Sadany said. “The majority of countries around the world agree with the ICJ’s advisory opinion. It will take collective, coordinated action and a long-term, multi-pronged strategy by the majority to maintain the momentum generated by the case and bring about significant change on the ground, but the potential for change is there.”