Today marks one year since South Africa filed the landmark case against Israel at the World Court, charging Israel with the crime of genocide.. But as the slaughter in Gaza continues, the question remains: what, if anything, did the case achieve?
The recent UN General Assembly vote on the illegality of the Israeli occupation shows Israeli impunity is no longer guaranteed and the foundations of Israeli settler-colonialism and apartheid have begun to crumble.
A vote this week in the U.N. General Assembly provided decisive global pushback against the U.S. and Israeli war on international law.
Halting military aid to Israel is the bare minimum the U.S. can do to stop the Gaza genocide. An arms embargo is not only supported by 80% of Democratic Party voters, it is demanded by international and U.S. law.
The ICJ’s authoritative ruling on the Israeli occupation makes clear that boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israeli occupation, colonization, and apartheid are not only a moral imperative but also a legal obligation.
“The [recent] Advisory Opinion by the International Court of Justice,” Archbishop Justin Welby writes, “makes definitively clear that Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is unlawful and needs to end as rapidly as possible.”
The ICJ’s ruling that international law protects the rights of Palestinians, and they need not negotiate with their oppressors for those rights, dealt a definitive blow to decades of Western efforts to situate Israel outside the reach of the law.
Craig Mokhiber discusses the importance and impact of the International Court of Justice’s ruling that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is illegal.
The New York Times and the rest of the U.S. mainstream media downplayed, covered up, and even ignored the historic ICJ opinion declaring the Israeli occupation illegal.
Netanyahu ought to be persona non grata in Washington, for his war crimes and nullification of U.S. policy, but the Biden administration is welcoming him with open arms.