The United Nation’s top court filed a ruling Friday that echoed what Palestinian advocates have been saying for decades: Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, including its settlements in the West Bank, is illegal and must end.
The International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion also called for reparations for Palestinians who have lived under Israel’s occupation since it began in 1967, an unprecedented step for the court.
The court also notably declared Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians to be a form of segregation and apartheid. It further ruled that nations cannot offer aid in support of the illegal occupation without violating international law, and upheld the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
While ICJ officials read out their ruling on Friday from the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, Mack received new reports of Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank.
“In the West Bank, it’s business as usual unless governments have the political will to force both Israelis and Palestinians” into implementing a two-state solution that gives Palestine sovereignty.
Soon after, Israel began to establish settlements inside the occupied territories, supporting Israeli civilians as they built communities atop land taken from Palestinians.
And in recent months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government has used its war in Gaza as a cover to expand its settlements at a rate faster than previous decades.
The Israeli government immediately dismissed the ICJ ruling, with a defiant Netanyahu calling Jerusalem “our eternal capital” and referred to the West Bank as “the land of our ancestors,” using the biblical names “Judea and Samaria.”
B’Tselem, an Israeli-based human rights group, was among a host of organizations that welcomed Friday’s ruling after decades of their own advocacy calling for an end to Israel’s occupation.
The original article contains 887 words, the summary contains 176 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Western sanctioned genocide, nothing to be done. Thr Hague is likely to see sanctions more than Israel.
The U.S is the primary supporter, and they dont acknowledge courts “they are not party of”. Bush removed the US in 2002.
This is good for the rest of world, and for posterity, but it’s not going to have an immediate impact. The main supporter of isreal doesn’t recognize the court.
It still finally starts to break the narrative that Israel and right-wingers in the US have been spinning for the past 70 years, which has value.
Once that spell is broken there’s no putting it back in place, and as Israel starts being seen by people as just another country it becomes easier and easier for the discussion to be about why the world is supporting them in behaving this way.
We will see it discussed more openly and frankly by our political candidates, it opens the real possibility of getting zionism out of our politics in the US eventually. Sadly it does not help people who are suffering right now, but it’s a pretty huge shift in the perception of Israel and that’s important.
This is good news. I hope that it will translate into some effective action.
Edit: Misleading headline. This is an advisory opinion, which appears to be non-binding. I don’t think “ruling” is entirely appropriate.
In general, advisory opinions are not binding, but may inform the development of international law. According to the ICJ website, advisory opinions:
“carry great legal weight and moral authority. They are often an instrument of preventive diplomacy and have peace-keeping virtues. Advisory opinions also, in their way, contribute to the elucidation and development of international law and thereby to the strengthening of peaceful relations between States.”
Even if this were considered binding I’m hardpressed to think the US would play along with it.
I think the best outcome would be if Europe were to lead with the first sanctions on Israel. The US will protest but will be forced to cover their ears when the EU reads off their thorough rationale. Maybe eventually, so long as the Democratic candidate succeeds for 2025, we will see concrete action.
Even if this were considered binding I’m hardpressed to think the US would play along with it.
Is not the US breaking its own law by continuing to provide Irarael monetary and military support? The Leahy Law says we can’t do that if the recipient of aid is commiting war crimes. All aid should be suspended while an impartial and independent party investigates Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank.
That’s the fun part! When the US government is also in charge on enforcing the law, they can do whatever they want!
Which Democratic candidate are you thinking of? Surely not the one who has been bankrolling this whole thing so far…
I don’t think any “viable” candidate from any party will support the ICJ judgement.
Holy shit that’s some serious results.
Oh well, not like the US cares about violating international law. Biden et al will keep arming, funding, and defending them.
I think the real question here is, how is this court not corrupt? Does it just not have any real power so corrupt people aren’t attracted to it? Is there some process involved that keeps corrupt people out? We need to figure out how they have been able to stay uncorrupted and start farming that out to everywhere.
the advantage of having a supranational organization is that everybody is looking at it and its reputation relies on how good it is. the disadvantage is that they have no power other than advisory
There are other terrible international organizations, though. Like the IOC or FIFA.
fifa is weird, it is a private company kinda but not really. And they have all rights to the word football (?)
FIFA is absolutely private. They’re an association. Which is also the case for their members, which are national football associations, and that’s generally also the case for the members of those, which are the clubs. Long story short the reason FIFA sucks is because its members don’t properly reign it in. Part of the issue is that it’s not just handling the world cup, it’s also handling erm development aid, lots of money flowing to poorer regions so that they can buy cleats to develop more players which is all well and proper trouble is it invites corruption.
OTOH they’re not actually as powerful as it seems, in the end the Brits are severely over-represented when it comes to laying down the laws of the game.
The IOC is also an association, also under Swiss law, but a quite different beast: They’re basically a gentleman’s club travelling around the world making deals. It’s not like the world association of track and field or whatnot (which do exist for pretty much any sport) are members of it.
That Israel is a shitty apartheid state anchored in a history of systemic ethnic cleansing. Dismantle it already and give everyone from the river to the sea the same rights. We’re all humans at the end of the day.
