If there was any lingering ambiguity about the illegality of Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory, it should have been quashed by a landmark ruling from the world’s top court. In a detailed 83-page advisory opinion released last week, the International Court of Justice probed Israel’s activities in Palestinian lands it has controlled since 1967. The result was damning.
The UN court found that virtually every Israeli action in the territory violated international law. The settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem that are home to some 700,000 Israeli Jews. The restrictions on the free movement of Palestinians. Their forced displacement and the demolitions of their homes. It concluded that Israel’s practices amount to annexation of large parts of the occupied territory, adding that they are designed to “create irreversible effects on the ground”. Israel’s presence was “unlawful” and it was obliged to end it as “rapidly as possible”.
The opinion is non-binding, and it will not temper the behaviour of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, which includes ultranationalist settlers who advocate annexing the West Bank. Indeed, settlement construction has accelerated under Netanyahu’s watch as he has boasted of thwarting Palestinian ambitions for statehood. Israel also has a history of ignoring UN resolutions and international court judgments critical of its actions, with the quiet acquiescence of its western allies.
But the findings of the ICJ — which is also hearing a separate case brought by South Africa alleging that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza — are significant. They have put a microscope on the full extent of Israel’s illegal practices in the occupied territory at a time when the war triggered by Hamas’s horrific October 7 attack has put renewed focus on the need for a two-state solution.
US President Joe Biden will no doubt raise the issue of a path to Palestinian statehood if, as expected, he meets Netanyahu in Washington this week. He will probably push for a ceasefire in Gaza and reinforce Washington’s insistence that Israeli troops withdraw from the strip when the war ends. But the more permanent and expansive Israel’s West Bank settlements become, the harder it will be for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. The ICJ’s opinion states that Israel’s policies breach its “obligation” to respect Palestinian rights to self-determination.
None of this should come as a shock. The UK, EU and much of the rest of the world long deemed Israeli settlements illegal, while the US considers them illegitimate. Yet the west has treated Israel with kid gloves, essentially giving it a free pass as it violates international law. Goods flow freely between the settlements and the west. When Israel unveils a new burst of construction in the West Bank, governments at best issue stock statements of condemnation. There was barely a peep in June when Israel announced the biggest seizure of Palestinian land since the 1990s.
Such inaction feeds perceptions of western hypocrisy and undermines the notion of a just, rules-based international order. That sentiment has been exacerbated by the west’s failure to rein in Israel’s devastating offensive in Gaza.
The US and its allies are pressuring Israel and Hamas to agree to end the war and a return of Israeli hostages taken during the October 7 attack. But as long as Israel is able to deepen its creeping annexation at no cost, the prospect of a durable negotiated settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis will remain a pipe dream. The ICJ’s ruling must force a re-calibration of the west’s policies towards Israel’s violations of international law in occupied territory. In its wake, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the gap between the law and what happens on the ground has never been so insurmountable, all “under the watchful eye of a powerless international community”. It need not be that way.