International Court of Justice favors ethnic cleansing
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is demanding that Israel immediately give up sovereignty over the eastern part of its capital Jerusalem and remove more than half a million Israelis who live in the disputed territory of Judea and Samaria, which Israel controls by virtue of international law and treaties.
The ICJ opinion, though non-binding, follows on the heels of trumped-up arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant by the International Criminal Court earlier in July. Both actions are part of efforts to isolate Israel using condemnations with a false veneer of legitimacy through “international law.”
Indeed, the ICJ itself is a travesty. It is not an actual judicial body but a kangaroo court whose members are accountable not to international law but to the political dictates of their respective countries, many of which flagrantly embrace anti-Israel policies.
The ICJ, which is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, ruled that “Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful” and “Israel is under an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities and to evacuate all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
In fact, the ICJ’s opinion contravenes international law. Judea and Samaria were never legally part of another country, nor were they ever under Palestinian sovereignty — therefore no occupation exists. The settlement of Israeli citizens in Judea and Samaria is also perfectly legal since it constitutes the ancient and continuous Jewish homeland, and Israel legally controls the territory.
Finally, by calling for an end to Israel’s “occupation” of Judea and Samaria, the ICJ is trying to nullify international agreements and UN resolutions that call for a negotiated settlement to the status of the territory. This includes the Oslo Accords, by which Israel and the Palestinians agreed to settle all issues pertaining to Judea and Samaria through negotiations.
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The ICJ is a political forum masquerading as a court of international law. The Court consists of 15 judges appointed by UN member states. They are not impartial jurists accountable to international law; rather, they follow the directives of the governments that appoint them and their own proclivities. The current Court includes judges from countries that have traditionally sided with the Palestinians against Israel, such as China, Somalia, South Africa and Lebanon.
•Nawaf Salam, the current president of the ICJ, once served as Lebanon’s ambassador to the UN. During his term, he voted 210 times to condemn Israel. He has accused Israel of crimes against humanity and apartheid, and functions as a pawn of Iran’s Islamist dictatorship. In fact, he opposed all 11 General Assembly resolutions condemning Iran’s violations of the rights of its own citizens.
•The ICJ’s opinion that Israel “occupies” Judea and Samaria is baseless. Under international law, an occupation exists when one country seizes control of another country’s territory. Judea and Samaria were never legally part of another country. Jordan seized control of the territory in the 1948 war. Rather than give the Palestinians a state in the territory, the Jordanians illegally annexed it. Yet the ICJ never demanded an end to Jordan’s unlawful occupation.
•Israel expelled Jordan after the Six-Day War in 1967 and Jordan later signed a treaty with Israel relinquishing all control of the territory. Since Judea and Samaria were never legally part of Jordan, nor part of a Palestinian state or any other country, Israel’s control of the territory is 100% legal.
•Furthermore, international law mandates that a country inherits the borders of a former entity. Thus, Israel would have inherited the borders of the preceding entity — the British Mandate for Palestine, which included Judea and Samaria.
•Finally, Israel, as the nation-state of the Jewish people, has an inherent right to sovereignty over Judea and Samaria because it is the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people. This is supported by endless evidence, including archeological findings and historical records stretching back thousands of years.
The ICJ opinion completely contradicts the existing international law that it is supposed to uphold. Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria is completely legal, as is the residence of Israeli citizens in the territory. No ICJ “opinion” changes this reality.
Nevertheless, Israel’s enemies will surely use the ICJ’s opinion as an excuse to further isolate Israel and make it a pariah state — a status more befitting tyrannical dictatorships like Iran and North Korea, not the sole outpost of freedom and democracy in the Middle East.
All nations that respect international law — especially the US and Israel’s other Western allies — should reject the ICJ’s opinion and oppose all such illegitimate measures to further isolate the Jewish state.
