PALESTINIANS ACCUSE ISRAEL OF COLONIALISM & APARTHEID AT ICJ
February 19, 2024“Representing the Palestinian Authority in the International Court of Justice hearings today, international lawyer Paul Reichler presents arguments asserting that Israel’s 56-year-long rule over the West Bank and East Jerusalem amounts to an “illegal occupation” of the territory.
“The illegal occupation of Palestine must end!” He said precisely.
He also shows the court a picture of a map of the region used by Netanyahu in a speech to the UN General Assembly in September 2023 where Israel is depicted as including all the territory west of the Jordan River with no demarcation at all of the West Bank as evidence that Israel seeks to “eliminate all traces of Palestine.”
The evidence, drawn from authoritative sources including United Nations agencies and resolutions, points to Israel’s unabashed pursuit of sovereignty over Palestinian land – a violation of international law prohibiting the acquisition of territory by force.
Against this backdrop, the ICJ faces a crucial decision. Palestinians urged the court to declare Israel’s occupation and annexation illegal under international law, emphasizing the urgent need for its termination to pave the way for a viable two-state solution.
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English Script:
Paul Reichler: According to former U.S. President Barack Obama in the memoir he published in 2020. “Just about every country in the world considered Israel’s continued occupation of the Palestinian territories to be a violation of international law. As a result, our diplomats found themselves in the awkward position of having to defend Israel for actions that we ourselves opposed.” This is exactly what the United States is doing again, in these proceedings. Mr. President, members of the court, the evidence is before you, in the written submissions of the State of Palestine and dozens of other states and international organizations, and in the voluminous materials supplied to you by the Secretary General, and it is indisputable. Under the umbrella of its prolonged military occupation, Israel has been steadily annexing the occupied Palestinian territory, and it continues to do so. Its undisguised objective is the permanent acquisition of this territory and the exercise of sovereignty over it in defiance of the prohibition on acquisition of territory by force. The evidence is not only indisputable, it is of the highest probative value. Investigative reports of authoritative United Nations agencies, reports of the Secretary General, resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly, legislative and administrative acts by the Israeli government and public statements against interest by the most senior government officials admitting that Israel’s objective is sovereignty over all the territory east of the Green Line and its incorporation into a single Jewish state from the river to the sea.
In this case, there is no reason not to take them at their word because their deeds have been entirely consistent with it. For Israel, as its successive governments had made clear, there is no Palestine. It simply does not exist. In November 2023, Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that his government would never agree to a Palestinian state in the occupied territory. He later declared, “I will not compromise on full security control over all the territory west of Jordan, and this is contrary to a Palestinian state.” Israel’s intransigence was confirmed by its staunchest ally in December 2023, when US President Joe Biden publicly lamented that Israel’s leaders, quote, “don’t want anything remotely approaching a two-state solution.” That is the very solution demanded by the Security Council, the General Assembly, the overwhelming majority of states and the state of Palestine itself. It is in fact the only solution that can lead to lasting peace and security for the Israeli people, as well as the Palestinian people. And it is this very solution that has been frustrated by Israel’s defiant insistence on maintaining its dominion over Palestinian territory in perpetuity. This is why the court’s advisory opinion is so critical and so urgent. The best and possibly the last hope for the two-state solution that is so vital to the needs of both peoples is for the court to declare illegal the main obstacle to that solution. The ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine and for it to pronounce in the clearest possible terms that international law requires that this entire illegal enterprise be terminated. Completely, unconditionally and immediately. Mr. President, the law is clear and it demands nothing less. A permanent occupation, one that is founded upon annexation and massive settlement of the occupied territory, and which aims to exercise sovereignty over it, is manifestly and gravely unlawful. It is an ongoing international wrong that must be brought to an immediate end.
