Spoiler: Israel cannot be an 'occupier' in its own land.
The Palestinians are trying to weasel their way out of their Oslo Accords responsibilities via the quasi-legal entity known as the International Court of Justice.
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This is a guest essay written by Nachum Kaplan of Moral Clarity.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
The World Court (also known as the International Court of Justice) said on Friday in a non-binding advisory opinion that Israel’s continued presence in Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank) is illegal and that it should come to an end “as rapidly as possible.”
Israel does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction in the matter, meaning it has none, since both parties must recognize it for it to do so. Israel did not even turn up to make a representation (though it made a small written submission).
The International Court of Justice can issue only a non-binding Advisory Opinion. The court pompously claims, and the media uncritically parrots, that its advisory opinions carry “great legal weight and moral authority.”
What a bunch of (kosher) bologna.
Here is why.
The case against Israel before the International Court of Justice is a cynical and wicked Palestinian ploy to weasel out of their obligations under the 1990s Oslo Accords. They hope that an International Court of Justice ruling Israel is illegally occupying Judea and Samaria will exert pressure on Israel to withdraw, ideally without the Palestinians having to meet any of their Oslo Accords obligations.
Under the Oslo Accords, which Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed, each side committed to direct talks to negotiate a settlement over disputed Judea and Samaria, Gaza, borders, settlements, recognition of Israel’s right to exist, and Israel’s legitimate security concerns. These Oslo Accords created the Palestinian Authority, which now corruptly governs much of the Palestinian territories.
The Palestinians’ successful lobbying of the United Nations (under which the International Court of Justice falls) to ask the ICJ for a ruling is a transparent attempt to resolve Judea and Samaria’s status through international legal bodies rather than through direct negotiations, like the Oslo Accords demand. It proves yet again, in case any remaining recalcitrants doubt it, that Israel has no Palestinian partner for peace.
Having rejected many comprehensive peace offers from Israel in favor of violence, including the bloody Second Intifada beginning in 2000, the Palestinians have not even tried to address Israel’s security concerns. As the Hamas-led October 7th massacres show, these concerns are exquisite and tangible.
It is obvious that the Palestinian leadership — indeed, polling shows most Palestinians — do not want Israel to exist. The conflict has never been about the Palestinians having their own state. They have been trying to destroy Israel since the Jewish state declared independence in 1948.
The Arabs attacked in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, and 2006, right through to the October 7th attacks from Gaza and the multi-front war that Israel is now fighting. This is why the international community’s belief in a two-state solution is ill-informed and delusional, and its desire to reward terror amoral.
This Palestinian strategy will fail. The World Court ruling does not matter because it will change nothing. The court has no jurisdiction, Israel will not give up its strong sovereign claim to Judea and Samaria, and Israel pulling out would be crazy given what happened when it pulled out of Gaza and Hamas took over, turning it into a terror state.
Another reason the ruling does not matter is that the International Court of Justice is not impartial. It is the feckless United Nations’ top court, so it is not the independent judicial body that it pretends to be, and that commentators pretend it to be.
UN members appoint jurists to the court to secure legal rulings that support their political positions. Many International Court of Justice judges come from dictatorships without independent or credible judiciaries. It is preposterous to think that judges from such countries would rule against their government’s position. Anyone who thinks otherwise has probably not seen how a dictatorship works up close.
This case is really about the Palestinians and 52 anti-Israel UN members asking the court to conjure up a legal basis for their anti-Israel political positions, which are mired in antisemitism and their own strategic interests.
A certainty — one as sure as death and taxes — is that the news media is already ignoring these facts as they report on the ruling. As predictable as rats in a maze in a behavioral psychology experiment, the media is once again descending into a frenzied performative anti-Israel group monkey dance.
Among the main arguments being put before the court to assert that Judea and Samaria is illegally occupied is how long Israel has been there. Rather than withdrawing as Israel did in Gaza, or annexing the region, as Israel did with East Jerusalem, Israel’s foes accuse it of choosing continued “occupation” illegally.
This is disingenuous.
UN Security Council Resolution 242 — which was passed in 1967 after the Six-Day War that Israel did not start but won — does not make Israel’s presence an illegal occupation. It sets out a non-binding framework for a solution linking Israel withdrawing from territories captured in the war with Israel’s right “to peace with secure and recognized boundaries from threats or acts of force.”
The resolution never mentioned “Palestine” or the Palestinians because no such country or people ever existed.
Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (formed in 1964) then negotiated bilateral treaties, beginning with the Oslo Accords, which set out the framework for a negotiated peace, following the principle of land-for-peace or land-for-security.
Although the Palestinian Authority (an outgrowth of the PLO) has rejected all offers of a comprehensive peace settlement in favor of Jihadism and murder, the framework that the Oslo Accords created remains in place. It is why the Palestinian Authority still administers parts of Judea and Samaria, which is divided into areas A, B, and C.
The Palestinian Authority administers Area A, which makes up 18 percent of the territory and is the most densely populated part. The Palestinian Authority also administers Area B but shares security responsibilities with Israel.
Israel has overall security responsibility and authority over Jewish residents, while the Palestinian Authority has jurisdiction over Arab residents. It accounts for 21 percent of the area. Most Palestinians live in areas A and B.
Israel administers Area C, which is 61 percent of Judea and Samaria. It is sparsely populated, undeveloped, and home to the Jewish settlements on which much of the media likes to mostly misreport.
This sounds complicated, and it is, but it was never imagined as a permanent solution. Rather than being based on geographical size, it was designed to allow the greatest number of Palestinians to live under Palestinian rule, and address Israel’s security concerns, while the two sides negotiated a permanent solution.
Indeed, the Oslo Accords that created the Palestinian Authority and allow it to govern are unequivocal that direct negotiations should be how border and territorial claims are resolved, not via any quasi-court, international body, or forum.
The Palestinian Authority is seeking a court ruling that would afford it the benefits of the Oslo Accords, such as governing Judea and Samaria, without the Palestinians having to fulfill their obligations to address Israel’s security concerns.
This shows that the duplicitous and despicable Palestinian Authority has no interest in peace, and no interest in a two-state solution beyond it being a stepping stone for its Jihadist goal of wiping out Israel and its Jews.
Given the horror attacks of October 7th and the Palestinian Authority’s official pay-for-slay policy, which incentivizes and encourages the murder of Jews, it is obvious that the Palestinians have no intention of meeting their Oslo Accords security obligations.
In fact, the Palestine Liberation Organization was formed in 1964, before Israel controlled Judea and Samaria, with the aim of annihilating the Jewish state, so they cannot credibly pretend it is Israel’s alleged occupation that they care about.
So, the International Court of Justice handed down its non-binding Advisory Opinion, the international community is huffing and puffing, the media marionettes misreport it, and nothing will change.
The court determined in its ruling on Friday:
“The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying power through its annexation and assertion of permanent control over occupied Palestinian territory, and its continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination violates fundamental principles of international law, and renders Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful.”
“This illegality relates to the entirety of Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in 1967. This is the territorial unit across which Israel has imposed policies and practices to fragment and frustrate the ability of the Palestinian people to exercise its right to self-determination, and over large swaths of which it has extended Israeli sovereignty in violation of international law.”
Israel will be rightly unmoved by this mumbo-jumbo.
And the Jewish state should remind the Palestinians and their blood-soaked international backers, that it, too, can abandon the Oslo Accords frameworks — the results of which would be disastrous for so-called “Palestine.”
I am waiting for the day when Israel rips up the Oslo Accords, takes over Judea and Samaria and incorporates it into Israel, and kicks out the sodomite palestinians who live there right over the Allenby Bridge. They can also swim across the Jordan.
I am the same age as Israel. I have watched my whole life as Israel was attacked time and time again. I am only one person but in my humble opinion peace can only come about when the entire Arab world, not just the Palestinians, desires peace. Then and only then can there be a true peace. For as long as Israel is under attack there can be no peace. Until all parties are willing to sit down and talk about real peace with an end to all hostilities it is fruitless to try to reach an agreement when no matter what it is Israel's destruction that they seek. How can you have peace when all you can talk about is war?