"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," said the Financial Times. In an 83-page advisory opinion released last week, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) scrutinised Israel's activities in Palestinian lands controlled since 1967.Â
"The result was damning," said the FT. The top U.N. court found that "virtually every Israeli action in the territory violated international law." It demanded that Israel halt settlement construction immediately.Â
'More than a legal setback'Â The ICJ ruling is nonbinding and unlikely to "temper the behavior of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government, which includes ultranationalist settlers who advocate annexing the West Bank," said the FT. Settlement construction has "accelerated under Netanyahu's watch," and Israel has a "history of ignoring U.N. resolutions and international court judgments critical of its actions, with the quiet acquiescence of its Western allies."Â
The court's ruling is "more than a legal setback for Israel," Kenneth Roth, a former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said to The Guardian. It's a "virtual invitation for Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, to prosecute the officials behind the settlements".Â
'Fortress mentality'Â The ruling has sparked widespread "outrage" across the political spectrum in Israel, as Palestinian leaders hailed the ruling a "watershed moment," said Tortoise. Pushing back on the ruling, a defiant Netanyahu declared that the "Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land, including in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], our historical homeland."Â
There has "long been a fear that Israel may eventually go ahead and annex the occupied West Bank," as it did with East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, said Al Jazeera. However, Mai El-Sadany, the executive director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, suggested the ICJ decision could have consequences. "Even some of Israel's closest allies, including the U.S., have recognized parts of the advisory opinion, particularly on the illegality of the settlement policy," she said. As more countries "choose to support the rule of law when it comes to the occupation," said Al Jazeera, "that pressure may eventually reach a point where Israel, and its backers, buckle." |