From Gaza the spark which brought the light on Palestine pt2
In this second part of our examination of the documents and arguments presented by the nations which have testified before the International Court of Justice of The Hague, we will discuss more of the requests made by the 52 state members which have decided to give their deposition in the regards of the israeli illegal and prolonged occupation and annexation of the Palestinians land to the International Court of Justice..
On this particular paper I will discuss mainly, about some of the arguments presented by the United Nations’s State members in the last day of the earring.
Before that, I will point out at some of the latest atrocious crimes committed by the apartheid wannabe state and by its brutal militias, as well as more informations regarding the current situation in Palestine.
First of all, since this holocaust is built on the false excuse and pretext according to which, israelis have been taken hostages, what you must be made aware of is that the so called kidnapped, are in effect war prisoners taken for forcing negotiations for the release of the thousands kidnapped Palestinians held “some for years” without charges or trial by the rogue and Genocidal entity.
Note
We condemn any violence and the taking of civilians as hostages, but facts are that those which managed to return to Gaza after the military operation conducted by the Palestinian militias against the Israeli army base, operation during which many other armed groups managed to brake out of their caged and fortified concentration camp, the taking of the war prisoners or hostages, had became a necessity, not for economic reasons, but for both, hoping not to get shot at while holding prisoners, and mange to make a deal for the release of their own people.
People sometimes arrested and held in prisons and detention centers for unlimited time, without charges, and without the possibility to a lawyer or to an appeal.
It is also important to point out that the rate of those who have been kidnapped and imprisoned by the apartheid wannabe state without charges and without a fair trial for then being starved and abused, often sexually assaulted and tortured , is estimated to be as high as over the 90 percent of the population.
Over 90 percent Palestinian have been experiencing unlawful detention, and 100% of them is in Palestine, constantly subject to the humiliation of check points, body searches, and inhumane treatment by the hand of the rogue entity, practically on a daily base.
This mistreatments, warcrimes and abuses have not begun on October 2023, but since the very institution of the supremacists entity’s apartheid regime and wannabe state on the stollen Palestinian land.
Furthermore, it should also be understood by now that the isramerican regime has no intention to save any of the kidnapped, as they are and have been bombing, shooting, and killing them by gas, as well as how from the start of this holocaust, continue to be opposed to a prisoner release deal.
Here about starvation
As of yesterday, the death toll of those who died in the hospitals for starvation and dehydration in the north of Gaza alone was of 26.
No one knows the real number of the victims, as many are forced to bury their loved ones for than them selfs being killed before reporting the number of their friends, relatives or unknown people which they them self had buried.
Also many people afraid of being killed on the road, have stoped going to hospitals for to report about the number or identity of their lost ones or of the bodies they had too bury
Much more should be written about the horrors and atrocities taking place at this moment in Palestine, and I encourage everyone to write more about it and share it with the world.
After this brief introduction to the reality of the horrors unleashed by the self proclaimed zionist president of the USA, and by his sponsored and armed rogue entity and apartheid wannabe state, I will point out a few other brilliant testimonies given by countries which testified to the International Court of Justice.
On this article I will use only a few examples and well articulated sentences delivered on the very last day of the hearing which took place on the 26 February 2024.
As the full hearing of that day is presented in well over 100 pages of depositions, in this article, I will only mention few of the points dealt with during that day of hearing, and as the depositions presented during the 6days earrings, are together comprising of a book of over 600 pages, I will discuss more about them in my next articles.
The extracts of which I will be here discussing about, may not include all of the best examples and points pointed out in the brilliant speeches produced by the many emeritus representatives which gave their testimony on that very day, but anyway they are in my opinion extremely important and well worth mentioning.
I will so start with some of the brilliant statements made by Spain, to followed by the ones made by the Maldives, for to ending the post with the ones of the Arab league, which took place during the first half of the hearing which took place in the morning hours of the 26 of February.
Note Spain and Maldives spoke in the second half of the presentation which took place in the afternoon of the same day.
But back to Spain, which like all other countries, a part from an handful of others asking for the case to be dismissed like US, UK, and some other insignificant banana republics of which’s sold out representatives have sided with the terrorism, colonialism, apartheid, warcrime and Genocidal actions and intent of the isramerican entity, and for which is not worth to waist the time or effort to write about it, Spain, delivered a speech requesting the court to issue clear orders to help other nation deal with issue in a way which would punish the breach of the international laws, and set guidelines for the world’s nations to follow.
Spain asked the court to go beyond making simple recommendations, and to issue more comprehensive guidelines in order to assure the end of the atrocities being committed.
Obviously, as Spain pointed out, such must include the termination of the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories, reparation for the victims, and for a clear message to all nations, in order to assure their full and unconditional compliance with the International law.
Spain’s lawyer, explained also in technical terms during the course of its presentation, the reasons why the court must reject the requests to dismiss the case and its jurisdiction on the matter, and indeed accept the case in order to fulfill its duty, as well as the need for the court to held account all israeli authorities and their nation’s sponsors, as they all are indeed responsible for egregious violation of ethics and laws, and which must be Internationally held account and punished by the law.
For second, will be then the turn of Maldives, which discussed about what is the existentially most essential right of which the Palestinian people have been robbed of, and are still constantly being deprived of, Water.
And for final, the deposition of the Arab Emirates Union.
Spain argued the illegality of the occupation since 1967, which in my opinion, is an understatement, as the violent explosion of the occupation’s brutality and land illegal confiscation, of Palestine, actually started in the 30s under the so called transfer agreement.
For those of you not aware of such agreement/deal, the transfer agreement, was in effect the deal made between the nazi and the zionist, a deal which in effect, brought the largest number of colonizers to Palestine, and gave to the zionist all the money, weapons and military backup to begin their true colonization of Palestine.
While we are at it, to learn the how the Nazi were able to identify the jews which the zionists did not to wanted to allow into Palestine, and how they consequentially managed to round them up, to be denounced, branded, and arrested for to be used as lab rats and slaves for both the nazi and zionist war effort. or to be executed or expelled, I would also suggest you research about the 150000 jewish soldiers of hittler .
The actual number was estimated at over half million, of which 150000 of them have been identified.
Ho an other funny not so funny, research the jewish model used to represent the Arian race by the nazi.
This inconvenient truth, which have been for decades repressed, and ignored, is very well explaining that zionism and nazisms, are in effect one of the same.
This is further proven by the past and current situation in which the Palestinians have been forced to live in, as well as the brutality of a genocidal entity which should have already been destroyed and which instead is now openly once again committing a Genocide.
Worth mentioning also, as many scholars, historians and lawyers have pointed out during the 6 days earrings that, the so called “resolution” signed by the United States in 1948 which gives rights to the existence of that colonization project in Palestine, and which supposedly gave legitimacy to the state of israel to be established, had been rejected not just by the rightful inhabitants and owners of that land, but also by all other nations.
On this bases, such resolution, which once again was actually only adopted by the US, which illegally delegitimized the Palestinian people, which did not agree in the partition of their land, is actually unlawful and should be considered “legally” null and void.
Anyhow, since at the current moment, all the Palestinian political factions, hamas included, have agreed to a two state solution which would see the reinstatement of the pre 1967 borders on the conditions of legitimacy and sovereignty over their territories, and the fact that the Spanish statement, was received with the blessing of the Palestinian establishment, I will post part of their arguments before discussing the rest of the depositions.
Direct link to the entire case here
From the representative of Spain.
“In the 1967 armed conflict, Israeli forces occupied all the territories that had constituted Palestine under the British Mandate (including those known as the West Bank) located east of the Green Line. This occupation was immediately and unanimously condemned by Security Council resolution 242 (1967), which underlined that “all Member States, in accepting the Charter of the United Nations, have undertaken to act in accordance with Article 2 of the Charter”.
This was not the case anyway, as the military occupation has been maintained ever since, and more villages have been emptied of their inhabitants, to cordon off by walls checkpoints and fences, and as we all know, more villages have been constructed on the stollen land and rebranded with the apparent benign name of “settlements”.
Any how the Spanish spokesman went on saying;
“ 8. The principle of prohibition of the use of armed force is one of the fundamental principles of international law and, as formulated in General Assembly resolution 2625 (XXV), is accompanied by the following corollary: “No territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal”.
The Court, which has on several occasions affirmed the importance of this principle has not hesitated to apply this principle to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. In the Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (2004), the Court has recalled the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. The Court concluded: “Under customary international law, these were therefore occupied territories in which Israel had the status of an occupying Power”. Finally, the Court added: “Subsequent events in these territories . . . have done nothing to alter this situation.
All these territories (including East Jerusalem) remain occupied territories and Israel has continued to have the status of occupying Power”. Although Israel finally withdrew its civilian and military presence from the Gaza Strip in 2005, it has maintained full control of its borders, coastline and airspace ever since. Consequently, as the Security Council has affirmed, the Gaza Strip constitutes an integral part of the territory occupied in 1967.
9. The Court concluded that Israel’s settlement policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the measures taken with regard to Jerusalem and the construction of the wall have been established in violation of international law, not only because they are contrary to the Fourth Geneva Convention, but also because they prevent the exercise by the Palestinian people of their right to self-determination. In its construction, the Court points out that the wall, the temporary nature of which is open to doubt, is accompanied by a regulatory régime aimed at annexing the occupied territories.
This aim constitutes a serious violation of the rules of international humanitarian law incumbent upon Israel as the occupying Power, has the effect of violating the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people, and the human rights of the inhabitants of these territories.
These statements are also applicable to the Gaza Strip. Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 has not meant that the occupation of the territory came to an end, as Israel has retained effective control over the territory through its control of airspace, territorial sea and external land boundaries.”
About the duty of states members under the international law
6. Mr President, let me move on now to consider the two particular duties included in Article 41, paragraph 2, of the 2001 Draft Articles: namely the duty not to recognize the illegal situation and the duty not to render aid or assistance in maintaining this situation.
What situation?
The last resolutions adopted by the Security Council and the General Assembly on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict update the scope of the current situation that should not be legally recognized.
Certainly, resolution 74/88 of the General Assembly, the first one including this formula,
“[c]alls upon all States . . . not to recognize, and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining, the situation created by measures that are illegal under international law, including those aimed at advancing annexation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
Since these two obligations have been reiterated by the Court and other United Nations bodies in this, but also in other situations, they are to be considered as customary law (something that by the way the International Law Commission has already affirmed).
7. Finally, let me, Mr President, refer briefly to paragraph 3 of Article 41 of the Draft Articles, which states that international law may recognize additional legal consequences deriving from the legal régime to which the primary rule that has been violated belongs.
These particular obligations can be found either in the foundation of the legal régime particular or in Security Council resolutions.
Articles 47 and 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention are good examples of obligations provided for in the foundational treaties of a concrete, a particular legal régime, like international humanitarian law. While Article 47 establishes the inviolability of the rights of persons in occupied territories, Article 146 refers to the obligation of the States parties to the Convention to prosecute and condemn persons who commit or order to be committed any of the grave breaches of the Geneva Convention.
That said, these obligations linked to a particular legal régime sometimes are specified by the Security Council itself. This is the case of resolution 2334 (2016) which requires a State to distinguish in their relevant dealings between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.
8. Mr President, distinguished Members of the Court, Spain formulates these considerations within the framework of a consultative procedure, aware that the Court guardian of international legality can offer the United Nations arguments to adopt decisions to address the situation and, at the same time, contribute to the clarification and development of the international legal order”
Like so the closing statement of Spain.
And so, we look now into what Maldives have reminded the court of which I will here repost some of its most compelling arguments.
From the democratic republic of the Maldives.
“I. INTRODUCTION AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WATER RESOURCES
1 Mr President, Members of the Court, representing the final State appearing, I have the honour of identifying the main points addressed during the course of this hearing on the violations by Israel of international law.
2. The Maldives provides this analysis with a focus on the issue of water resources. Why? Because of two streams of significance.
3. First, the significance of water resources to the Palestinian people: in fact, it has been described as the “most vital resource in the [Occupied Palestinian Territory]” by Palestine25. A tidal wave of suffering has been unleashed by Israeli policies and practices with respect to water resources, which are characterized by deprivation, denial, discrimination and destruction:
(a) Deprivation of access to water many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip simply have, I use the
Court’s own words, “no access to . . . potable water”26.
(b) Denial of enjoyment of those resources on a discriminatory basis in the West Bank, where
Israel has seized control of water resources27, use of vital groundwaters is marred by grossly
inequitable allocations between Israelis and Palestinians28.
(c) Destruction of vital infrastructure, with Israel demolishing sanitation structures and pipelines29.
4. The second stream of significance is to the questions before the Court. The issue of water resources flows through four key aspects of the unlawfulness of Israeli policies and practices on which the Oral Submissions have focused. I address each aspect in turn.
II. VIOLATION OF RIGHT OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE TO SELF-DETERMINATION
5. The first key aspect: the violation of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. 6. The following points are crystal clear.
7. First, the Palestinians are a distinct people with a right to self-determination30, an inalienable norm of jus cogens31.
8. Second, Israel’s conduct has violated different components of that right32, notably the right to territorial integrity, the right not to be subjected to demographic manipulation within that territory by a foreign Power, the right of the people to pursue its chosen economic, social and cultural development and its right to exercise permanent sovereignty over its natural resources.
9. The critical importance of this well-established33 latter component the Palestinian people’s right to exercise permanent sovereignty over their natural resources was recently stressed by the General Assembly in its resolution of December 202334. Such resources clearly include water. Israel’s policies and practices with respect to water resources the deprivation, denial on a discriminatory basis and destruction thus constitute one acutely serious and ongoing facet of the breach of the Palestinian people’s right of self-determination. Described by a United Nations body
as “one of the most fundamental conditions for survival”35, for a people sufficient clean water is indispensable.
III. PROHIBITION OF ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY BY FORCE
10. Turning to the second key aspect, the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory violate the prohibition of the acquisition of territory by force.
11. This afternoon, we have heard some attempts to muddy the waters in this regard, so I will recall the points of crystal clarity.
12. First, a corollary of the jus cogens prohibition of use of force is the prohibition of any36 acquisition of territory by threat or use of force37. Irrespective of international recognition of Palestine’s borders, the applicability of this prohibition to the Occupied Palestinian Territory cannot be in doubt38, as expressly recognized in resolutions of both the General Assembly and Security Council39.
13. Second, international law requires that occupation be temporary40.
14. Third, any purported exercise of the use of self-defence must be necessary and proportionate41.
15. Fourth, and flowing from the three previous points, an occupying Power cannot acquire sovereignty over an occupied territory, including by annexation, irrespective of whether it claims to have acted in self-defence at any point during the occupation42.
16. Yet Israel has annexed all of the Occupied Palestinian Territory43, whether through Israeli law or conduct manifesting a de facto annexation, creating a “fait accompli”44. There is no shortage of evidence on this reality, as emphasized by many United Nations bodies45 and demonstrated by the map recently shown by the Prime Minister of Israel before the General Assembly referred to on the first day of this hearing46.
17. Israel’s deprivation, denial on a discriminatory basis and destruction with respect to water resources is one facet of this annexation47. The scale and nature of Israel’s conduct in this regard makes clear that it forms an integral element of Israel’s establishment of control through coercive measures reflecting its intention to appropriate that territory permanently48, the occupation having (to quote the Special Rapporteur) “burst through the restraints of temporariness long ago”
49.
18. Israel’s settlement expansion is plainly another integral element of that annexation, with Palestinians reduced to inhabiting a “fragmented archipelago of disparate patches of land”50.
19. Of course, the different aspects of Israel’s violations of international law are not watertight from one another. Such prolonged occupation, annexation and settlement expansion also violate the right of self-determination51, to which I referred earlier, a right which cannot be exercised in the face of a foreign occupier purporting to appropriate territory for itself and thereby dispossess the Palestinian people.
IV. VIOLATION OF THE LAW OF OCCUPATION
20. The third key aspect is that the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory violate the law of occupation.
21. The indisputable starting-point is that, as an occupying power, Israel is bound to respect, throughout the occupied territory, its obligations under international humanitarian law52, a régime designed to ensure the protection of the people under occupation53.
22. The Maldives agrees that the continuing applicability of international humanitarian law is without prejudice to the unlawfulness of Israel’s occupation54.
23. Now, many examples of international humanitarian law breaches have been cited before the Court, including with respect to Israel’s settlement policy as a breach of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention55. Israel’s policies and practices with respect to water resources constitute a cascade of further violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the 1907 Hague Regulations, notably:
a) Israel’s conduct is a violation of the rules prohibiting destruction of property, which includes water and sanitation infrastructure, in circumstances where it is clearly not “absolutely necessary” for military operations56.
(b) It is a violation of the prohibition on destruction or removal of objects essential for survival of the civilian population57, with water installations and supplies obviously qualifying as such.
(c) It is a violation of the prohibition on pillage58, as well as the rules of usufruct59.
(d) It is also a violation of the obligation to ensure and maintain public health and hygiene in territory it occupies60. This goes to a point of grave practical concern a raft of horrific diseases spring
directly from the lack of clean water, with little children particularly vulnerable61.
V. VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW INCLUDING THE PROHIBITION OF DISCRIMINATION
24. The fourth and final key aspect is that Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied
Territory are in violation of international human rights law, including the fundamental jus cogens prohibition of discrimination.
25. The irrefutable starting-point: this is that Israel bears a duty to secure respect for the applicable rules of international human rights law throughout the territory that it occupies62.
26. International human rights law encompasses the right to water. Notably:
(a) That right emanates from Articles 11 and 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights63. As the General Assembly affirmed in 2016, “the human rights to safe
This was not the full deposition of the Maldives representative but any how essential for a full understanding of the horror which Palestinian people had to endure, not just from 1967, nor just from 1948, when they were first massacred and thrown out from their land, but already from before, as the poisoning of the wells and the land grab begun in the 30s, when once again the came from Germany with nazi coins.
The deposition are available online and are so far divided into two files for each day of deposition, one of the morning session, and the other from the afternoon therefore 12 files in which you will find the full text transcript
You can read the rest of the deposition in here.
“26 2 2024
The right to water is a universal right, and as water is at the base of life, so is the right too it.
Water deprivation, is a crime which amounts to torture and when applied to an entire population, collective punishment.
This deposition and the evidences by it provided, prove beyond any doubts, the systematic torture and collective punishment suffered by the Palestinian people from the time of the establishment of the isramerican colony in Palestine, too this very days.
On this bases the emphasis to right to water, as an inalienable right of which the Palestinians have been deprived of starting from before the foundation of the apartheid wannabe state in 1948 and which is continuing to this day, as it is a well known and unequivocal practice of the occupying forces of the wannabe state, not just the one of blocking access, steeling and depriving of access the Palestinian people from their own water, but of also deliberately polluting their already limited and scarce water resources.
It is also well established that such practice was and is still done, with the deliberate intent to torture and induce the Palestinian population into desperation, for to consequentially forcing them out of their owned land.
A warcrime of the worst kind.
And finally, to conclude this long article, the brilliant deposition made by the representative of the UAE
Mr WILDE:
1. Mr President, distinguished Members of the Court, it is a great honour and privilege to appear before you, and to represent the League of Arab States7.
1. MORE THAN CENTURY-LONG DENIAL OF SELF-DETERMINATION OF, AND WAR AGAINST, THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE, ON THE BASIS OF RACISM
2. The Palestinian people have been denied the exercise of their legal right to self-determination through the more than century-long violent, colonial, racist effort to establish a nation State exclusively for the Jewish people in the land of Mandatory Palestine.
3. When this began after the First World War, the Jewish population of that land was 11 per cent8. Forcibly implementing Zionism in this demographic context has necessarily involved the extermination, or forced displacement of, some of the non-Jewish Palestinian population; the exercise of domination over, and subjugation, dispossession and immiseration of, remaining
non-Jewish Palestinians; the emigration to that land of Jewish people, regardless of any direct personal link; and the denial of Palestinian refugees the right to return. All operating through a racist distinction privileging Jewish people over non-Jewish Palestinian people.
4. This has necessitated serious violations of all the fundamental, jus cogens and erga omnes norms of international law — the right of self-determination, the prohibitions on aggression, genocide, crimes against humanity, racial discrimination, apartheid and torture ⎯ and the core protections of international humanitarian law9.
5. Today I will address, first, violations of international law arising out of the régime of racial domination — apartheid — perpetrated against the Palestinian people across the entire land of historic Palestine, and then, second, the existential illegality of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967.
6. As a necessary prerequisite, I must begin with the special right granted to the Palestinian people in the League Covenant.
2. PALESTINIAN SELF-DETERMINATION UNDER ARTICLE 22 OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS COVENANT10
7. The legal right of self-determination of the Palestinian people originates in the “sacred trust” obligations of Article 22 of the League Covenant, part of the Versailles Treaty. Palestine ⎯ an “A” class Mandate under British colonial rule ⎯ was, after the First World War, supposed to have its existence as an independent State “provisionally recognized”: a sui generis right of self-determination11. The United Kingdom and other members of the League Council attempted to bypass this, incorporating the 1917 Balfour Declaration commitment to establishing a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine into the instrument stipulating how the Mandate would operate12. However, the Council had no legal power to bypass the Covenant in this way. It acted ultra vires, and the relevant provisions were, legally, void13. There was and is no legal basis in that Mandate instrument for either a specifically Jewish State in Palestine, or the United Kingdom’s failure to discharge the “sacred trust” obligation to implement Palestinian self-determination.
3. SELF-DETERMINATION IN INTERNATIONAL LAW AFTER THE SECONDWORLDWAR —
ANADDITIONALRIGHT
8. After the Second World War, a self-determination right applicable to colonial peoples generally crystallized in international law.
9. For the Palestinian people, this essentially corresponded to, and supplemented, the pre-existing Covenant right, regarding the same, single territory. The 1947 proposal to partition Palestine was contrary to this; the Arab rejection an affirmation of the legal status quo.
10. In 1948, then, Palestine was, legally, a single territory with a single population enjoying a right of self-determination on a unitary basis.
4. NAKBA IN 1948 — VIOLATION OF SELF-DETERMINATION AND CREATION OF A RÉGIME INVOLVING AN ONGOING VIOLATION OF THIS RIGHT,
AS WELL AS RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND APARTHEID
AND A DENIAL OF THE RIGHT TO RETURN
11. Despite this, a State of Israel, specifically for Jewish people, was proclaimed in 1948 by those controlling 78 per cent — more than three quarters — of Palestine, accompanied by the forced displacement of a significant number of the non-Jewish Palestinian population — the Nakba, catastrophe14. This illegal secession was an egregious violation of Palestinian self-determination. Israel’s statehood was recognized, and Israel admitted as a United Nations Member, despite this illegality. Israel is not the legal continuation or successor of the Mandate
12. This violation of Palestinian self-determination is ongoing, and unresolved. Two key elements are:
13. First, Palestinian people not displaced from the land proclaimed to be of Israel in 1948, and their descendants, have been forced to live as citizens— presently they constitute 17.2 per cent — of a State conceived to be of and for another racial group, under the domination of that group, necessarily treated as second class, because of their race15.
14. Second, Palestinian people displaced from that land, and their descendants, cannot return.
15. These are serious breaches of the right of self-determination, the prohibitions of racial discrimination and apartheid, and the right of return. They must end, immediately.
5. 1967 ISRAELI CAPTURE OF THE PALESTINIAN GAZA STRIP AND WEST BANK (INCLUDING EAST JERUSALEM)
16. As if this ongoing Nakba was not catastrophic enough, in 1967 Israel captured the remaining 22 per cent of historic Palestine — the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem — the Naksa16. It has maintained that use of force to remain in control for the 57-year period since.
6. ILLEGAL RACIAL DOMINATION — APARTHEID — FROM THE JORDAN RIVER TO THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
17. For more than half a century, then, a State defined to be of and for Jewish people exclusively has governed the entire land of historic Palestine and the Palestinian people there. And the régime of racial domination — apartheid — and denying return, has been extended throughout. In the case of Palestinians living in the occupied territory, this has involved the same serious violations of international law, supplemented by serious violations of norms applicable in occupied territory
18. Indeed, these people are subject to an even more extreme form of racist domination, as they are not even citizens of the State exercising authority over them. Even in East Jerusalem, which Israel has purported to annex, the majority non-Jewish Palestinian residents do not have citizenship, whereas Jewish residents, including illegal settlers, are citizens.
19. Just as in territorial Israel, in occupied territory, these serious violations concerning how Israel exercises authority over the Palestinian people must end immediately.
20. However, here, a more fundamental matter must also be addressed. The illegality of the exercise of authority itself.
7. THE GAZA STRIP AND WEST BANK AS PALESTINIAN TERRITORY, WITH THE CONSEQUENCE THAT ISRAEL’S PURPORTED ANNEXATION, AND ATTEMPTED COLONIZATION, ARE ILLEGAL
21. The enduring Palestinian right of self-determination means that the Palestinian people, and the State of Palestine, not Israel, are sovereign over the territory Israel captured in 196718. For Israel, the land is extraterritorial, and, given what I said about the Mandate, territory over which it has no legal sovereign entitlement19.
22. Despite this, Israel has purported to annex East Jerusalem and taken various actions there and in the rest of the West Bank constituting de jure and de facto purported annexation, including implanting settlements. It is Israeli policy that Israel should be not only the exclusive authority over the entire land between the river and the sea, but also the exclusive sovereign authority there.
23. This constitutes a complete repudiation of Palestinian self-determination as a legal right, since it empties the right entirely of any territorial content20.
24. Actualizing this through de facto and de jure purported annexation is, first, a serious violation of Palestinian self-determination and, second, because it is enabled through the use of force, a violation of the prohibition on the purported acquisition of territory through the use of force in the law on the use of force, and so an aggression21. Serious violations of further areas of law regulating
the conduct of the occupation are also being perpetrated, notably the prohibitions on implanting settlements and altering, unless absolutely prevented, the legal, political, social and religious status quo22.
25. The occupation is, therefore, existentially illegal because of its use to actualize purported annexation. To end this serious illegality, it must be terminated: Israel must renounce all sovereignty claims and all settlements must be removed. Immediately.
26. However, this is not the only basis on which the occupation’s existential legality must be addressed.
27. We need to delve deeper into both the law of self-determination and the law on the use of force.
8. SELF-DETERMINATION AS A RIGHT TO BE SELF-GOVERNING, REQUIRING THE OCCUPATION TO END IMMEDIATELY
28. Beginning with self-determination: this right, when applied to the Palestinian people in the territory Israel captured in 1967, is a right to be entirely self-governing, free from Israeli domination. 29. Consequently, the Palestinian people have a legal right to the immediate end of the occupation. And Israel has a co-relative legal duty to immediately terminate the occupation.
30. This right exists and operates simply and exclusively because the Palestinian people are
entitled to it. It does not depend on others agreeing to its realization. It is a right.
31. It is a repudiation of “trusteeship”, whereby colonial peoples were ostensibly to be granted freedom only if and when they were deemed “ready” because of their stage of “development” determined by the racist standard of civilization24. The anti-colonial self-determination rule replaced this with a right based on the automatic, immediate entitlement of all people to freedom, without preconditions. In the words of General Assembly resolution 1514, “inadequacy of . . . preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence
2. Some suggest that the Palestinian people were offered, and rejected, deals that could have ended the occupation. And, therefore, Israel can maintain it pending a settlement. Even assuming, arguendo, the veracity of this account, the “deals” involved a further loss of the sovereign territory of the Palestinian people.
33. Israel cannot lawfully demand concessions on Palestinian rights as the price for ending its impediment to Palestinian freedom. This would mean Israel using force to coerce the Palestinian people to give up some of their peremptory legal rights: illegal in the law on the use of force and, necessarily, voiding the relevant terms of any agreement reached. The Palestinian people are legally entitled to reject a further loss of land over which they have an exclusive, legal, peremptory right. Any such rejection makes no difference to Israel’s immediate legal obligation to end the occupation.
9. THE OCCUPATION AS AN ILLEGAL USE OF FORCE IN THE JUS AD BELLUM AS A GENERAL MATTER (BEYOND THE LINK TO PURPORTED ANNEXATION)26
34. Turning to the law on the use of force: Israel’s control over the Palestinian territory since 1967, as a military occupation, is an ongoing use of force. As such, its existential legality is determined by the law on the use of force, as a general matter, beyond the specific issue of annexation.
35. Israel captured the Gaza Strip and West Bank from Egypt and Jordan in the war it launched against them and Syria. It claimed to be acting in self-defence, anticipating a non-immediately imminent attack. The war was over after six days. Peace treaties between Israel and Egypt and Jordan were subsequently adopted27.
36. Despite this, Israel maintained control of the territory — continuing the use of force enabling its capture.
37. Israel’s 1967 war was illegal in the jus ad bellum — even assuming, arguendo, its claim of a feared attack, States cannot lawfully use force in non-immediately imminent anticipatory self-defence
38. Alternatively, assuming ⎯ again arguendo ⎯ that the war was lawful, the justification ended after six days. However, the jus ad bellum requirements continued to apply to the occupation as itself a continuing use of force. In 1967, with self-determination well established in international law, States could not lawfully use force to retain control over a self-determination unit captured in war, unless the legal test justifying the initial use of force also justified, on the same basis, the use of force in retaining control. Moreover, this justification would need to continue, not only in the immediate aftermath, but for more than half a century. Manifestly, this legal test has not been met
39. Israel’s exercise of control over the Gaza Strip and West Bank through the use of force has been illegal in the jus ad bellum since the capture of the territory, or, at least, very soon afterwards.
40. The occupation is, therefore, again existentially illegal in the law on the use of force — an aggression — this time, as a general matter, beyond illegality specific to annexation. To terminate this serious violation, the occupation must, likewise, end immediately.
10. ILLEGAL FORCE DOES NOT BECOME LAWFUL IN RESPONSE TO RESISTANCE TO IT29
41. What of Israel’s current military action in Gaza? This is not a war that began in
October 2023. It is a drastic scaling-up of the force exercised there, and in the West Bank, on a continual basis, since 1967. A justification for a new phase in an ongoing illegal use of force cannot be constructed solely out of the consequences of violent resistance to that illegal use of force. Otherwise, an illegal use of force would be rendered lawful because those subject to it violently resisted — circular logic, with a perverse outcome.
11. ISRAEL CANNOT LAWFULLY USE FORCE TO CONTROL THE PALESTINIAN TERRITORY FOR SECURITY PURPOSES/PENDING A PEACE AGREEMENT30
42. More generally, Israel cannot lawfully use force to control the Palestinian territory for security purposes pending an agreement providing security guarantees. States can only lawfully use
m and Zambia suggested here that there is a sui generis applicable legal framework, an Israeli-Palestinian lex specialis. This somehow supersedes the rules of international law determining whether the occupation is existentially lawful. Instead, we have a new rule, justifying the occupation until there is a peace agreement meeting Israeli security needs. This is the law as these States would like it to be, not the law as it is. It has no basis in resolution 242, Oslo or any other resolutions or agreements31. Actually, you are being invited to do away with the very operation of some of the fundamental, peremptory rules of international law itself. As a result, the matters these rules conceive as rights vested in the Palestinian people would be realized only if agreement is reached, and only on the basis of such agreement. At best, if there is an agreement, this means one that need not be compatible with Palestinian peremptory legal rights, determined only by the acute power imbalance in Israel’s favour32. At worst, if there is no agreement, this means that the indefinite continuation of Israeli rule over the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories, on the basis of racist supremacy and a claim to sovereignty, would be lawful33. This is an affront to the international rule of law, to the United Nations Charter imperative to settle disputes in conformity with international law, and to your judicial function as guardians of the international legal system34.
44. A final potential basis sometimes invoked to justify continuing the occupation should be addressed. Occupation and human rights law — applicable to illegal and lawful occupations alike — oblige Israel to address security threats in occupied territory. However, they only regulate the conduct of an occupation when it exists. They do not also provide a legal basis for that existence itself. Existential legality is determined by the law of self-determination and the jus ad bellum only. There
is no “back door” legal basis for Israel to maintain the occupation through the imperatives of occupation and human rights law35.
12. EXISTENTIAL ILLEGALITY OF ISRAEL’S OCCUPATION OF THE PALESTINIAN GAZA STRIP AND WEST BANK, INCLUDING EAST JERUSALEM
45. In sum: the occupation of the Palestinian Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is existentially illegal on two mutually reinforcing bases.
46. First, the law on the use of force. Here, the occupation is illegal both as a use of force without valid justification, and because it is enabling an illegal purported annexation. As such, it is an aggression.
47. Second, the law of self-determination. Here, it is illegal again because of the association with illegal purported annexation, and also, more generally, because it is, quite simply, an exercise of authority over the Palestinian people that, by its very nature, violates their right to freedom.
48. This multifaceted existential illegality — involving serious violations of peremptory norms — has two key consequences.
49. First: the occupation must end: Israel must renounce its claim to sovereignty over the Palestinian territory; all settlers must be removed. Immediately. This is required to end the illegality, to discharge the positive obligation to enable immediate Palestinian self-administration, and because Israel lacks any legal entitlement to exercise authority.
50. Second, in the absence of the occupation ending, necessarily, everything Israel does in the Palestinian territory lacks a valid international legal basis and is, therefore (subject to the Namibia exception), invalid, not only those things violating the law regulating the conduct of the occupation36. Those norms entitle and require Israel to do certain things. But this does not alter the more fundamental position, from the law on the use of force and self-determination, that Israel lacks any valid authority to do anything, and whatever it does is illegal, even if compliant with or pursuant to the conduct-regulatory rules
13. THE WORDS OF REFAAT ALAREER
51. I will close by quoting Palestinian academic and poet Refaat Alareer, from his final poem posted 36 days before he was killed by Israel in Gaza on 6 December 2023:
If I must die, you must live to tell my story [...]
If I must die
let it bring hope, let it be a story.37
Thank you for your attention
Like this the closing statement from UAE
And as we are waiting for a verdict from the International Court of Justice on the Palestinian issue, we are also waiting for them to deliver in the regards of the ongoing Genocide now turned into a full blown holocaust.
The court will have take a stand to stop the onslaught, or itself will see its entire own institution, being dragged in the mud, for to become itself complicit in the Genocide, which from the time in which it was called in to issue a formal demand the immediate ceasefire on the 29 of December 2023, have costed the lives of over ten thousands people, most of which women and children.
So, how long will we have to wait?
How many more massacres will the Palestinians have to suffer before the judges are going to stop?
Join groups to raise awareness, and support the Palestinian people, because supporting them, is supporting humanity.
Launch lawsuits against anyone who supports Genocide, as who ever does, represents a threat to life.
Demonstrate and protest in solidarity with the Palestinian cause because their cause is standing up to apartheid and brutalities and demanding for the unalienable rights to self determination and justice.
End apartheid, stop Genocide.
Peace freedom and dignity for Palestine.
Sol Sön
As usual when I copy and paste from my editor into substack, I always have issues, so be patient, correction and more links will be made and provided
Starvation as a Genocidal weapon
https://theintercept.com/2024/03/13/intercepted-gaza-mass-starvation/
And here some of the israeli proven brutalities, warcrimes, and violations of the Genocide convention and of the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/war-gaza-israel-torture-executions-babies-die-sexual-abuse-crimes
And here one more about the proven israeli lies
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/03/15/claims-of-mass-rape-by-hamas-unravel-upon-investigation/