At the ICJ hearings in January, the United States government argued: “the court should not find that Israel is legally obligated to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from occupied territory.” The ICJ has warned states “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
Neither Israel nor the United States obey international law so the genocide continues. On Wednesday 25 July 2024, Netanyahu was celebrated with standing ovations by members of the US Congress. The first half of his speech was a roll call of IDF soldiers engaged in the genocide. The US Congress celebrated the IDF and the captives released by the Palestinian resistance as heroes.
The Israeli Prime Minister is free to fly to the United States despite his war crimes. In May 2024, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan applied for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes committed during Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip. The UK is currently opposing the issue of the warrants in the ICC. The United States is not a signatory to the ICC convention so it will disregard any warrants should they be issued.
So by what right does Israel exist to conduct a war on Palestinian children. There can be only one answer, Israel exists because of support from the United States which includes the President and both houses of Congress, The President may criticise how Israel conducts its war but the US military still gives arms so that Israel can prosecute its murderous assault on Gaza and the occupied territories.
In his speech to the nation, Joe Biden claimed that, under his presidency, the US was not at war anywhere in the world. This is clearly untrue. Not only is the United States conducting a proxy war against Russia in the Ukraine. The US is also conducting a real war against opponents of the genocide. In June, the US shot down missiles and drones launched by Teheran against Israel. The US is currently bombing Yemen because the Houthies have challenged the passage of Israeli ships through the Red Sea. The Yemenis have called for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the genocide.
Australian government out of step with ICJ?
I wonder if the most recent ICJ ruling provides a basis to challenge the Australian government refusal to sanction Israel? In 2018/19 the Australian government prevented APHEDA from supporting BDS using withdrawal of government funding as leverage. Can the present government lawfully take away funding from NGOs like APHEDA and its sister organisation in Gaza, MA’AN development, who were giving aid to people in Gaza and the occupied territories?
ICJ rules occupation unlawful Despite the ICJ ruling the Australian government continues to provide a platform Israeli spokespeople. For example, DFAT has allowed a visit from the IDF spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, and Director General International Relations of Histadrut. Histadrut, or the General Organization of Workers in Israel, is Israel’s national trade union center and claims to represent the majority of Israel’s trade unionists. In his union role, Colonel Lerner told the ABC that he is talking (off the record) to Australian unions about the situation in Palestine (read try to convince unions that the genocide is necessary). I think this visit and any associated meetings between Peter Lerner and unions has to be heavily condemned unionists who support the Palestinian rights.
Outlawing Sanctions
A few years ago now there was a real difficulty over BDS because APHEDA had an $11M grant taken off it by the Australian government because, during the Great March of Return APHEDA was giving money to agricultural projects in Gaza. In May 2018 one of the community workers for APHEDA’s long term local partner, the MA’AN Development Center, was murdered by an Israeli sniper. Israeli organisations looked at the dead man’a social media and asserted he had been a member of the left political party, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is on the Australian Consolidated List of terrorist entities. In June 2018, the Murdoch Press accused APHEDA of funding PFLP, a ‘terrorist’ organsation. The Morrison government withdrew the funding and placed it under audit by DFAT.
So then APHEDA became ultra cautious and decided that it would no longer publicly support BDS because the Australian government rejects BDS as well as outlawing various resistance groups in Gaza and the occupied territories. This did not help because the Labor government on coming to office did not restore the grants for those projects. Now Gaza is destroyed and needs a lot more than what APHEDA can do.
Palestinian Unity in Beijing. Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have reconciled in Beijing. They entered into a unity agreement with a number of other factions of the Palestinian resistance making arrangements for future government of Gaza. This locks out Israel. The agreement will make it harder for the US to say resistance groups are terrorist organisations while, at the same time, it publicly supports the Palestinian Authority. However nothing about the US government’s position is rational, even less so now that Washington has become a violent soap opera.
What does Australia fear from Israel?
Ian Curr, 25 July 2024
We post below an article ICJ severs Penny Wong’s line of retreat on Palestine by Kellie Tranter. I do not think this will change anything Penny Wong will do because the Australian government is joined at the hip with US policy, supporting the Israeli genocide. For example BDS is effectively outlawed in both the United States and Australia.
ICJ severs Penny Wong’s line of retreat on Palestine
It’s easy to see why the advisory opinion of the United Nations International Court of Justice (the World Court) might give Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, a few matters for consideration. Some of the Court’s findings include that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful, that all states are under an obligation not to recognise as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of Israel and that states are under an obligation not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
However, she should be relieved that the Court seems to have anticipated that and has provided guidance in Part VII.B of its Opinion (“Legal consequences for other States”), including requiring other states:
…to abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territory or parts thereof which may entrench its unlawful presence in the territory; to abstain, in the establishment and maintenance of diplomatic missions in Israel, from any recognition of its illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory; and to take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory
Apart from the question of Australian support for Israel in terms of military, “defence” or technology contracts or other commercial arrangements that fund Israel or otherwise assist it in performing its illegal activities, she might also consider what sanctions might appropriately be imposed by Australia and all other countries that claim to support an international rules-based order to compel or at least encourage Israel’s compliance with the Court’s findings.
The likelihood of Israel voluntarily complying with the Court’s orders is nil, as was made clear by Netanyahu’s contumelious response to the orders of the World Court: “The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land… No absurd opinion in the Hague can deny this historical truth or the legal right of Israelis to live in our own communities in our ancestral home. …”
Although the Court’s ruling was not in any way directed at the events of 7 October 2023 it will have incidental consequences for viewing the events of that day and subsequently in a proper historical perspective.
Israel consistently asserts its right of self-defence as justifying its invasion and destruction of Gaza and the killing en masse of its citizens, and from Day 1 that assertion has ingenuously been picked up and supported by its Western lackeys.
Certainly Penny Wong is correct to say, as she did, that “We have been consistent in Israel having a right to self-defence” but as Israel has been found to be an occupier at all relevant times it is under particular international law duties to those under its occupation.
Although international law recognises a right to self-defence, that defence’s availability to occupying powers – if it exists and can be invoked in this case at all- is limited and nuanced. (See for example the ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a wall in Occupied Palestinian Territory(2004)). It must be balanced with its responsibilities and obligations as the occupying power under international humanitarian law. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) the occupying power must ensure that any actions allegedly taken in self-defence are necessary and proportional, and it must prioritise the protection of civilians and maintenance of order in the occupied territory. Israel is also subject to Additional Protocol 1, Art.53 which protects civilians from attack unless they are taking a direct part in the hostilities.
Instead of complying with those duties Israel’s actions to date have killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians and displaced more than a million others, and physically destroyed much of Gaza’s food, water, energy, educational and cultural infrastructure.
This murderous rampage is continuing:
Even less egregiously inhumane conduct indeed gave rise to the ICJ finding of a plausible case of genocide against the occupied people of Gaza.
Another important aspect of the Court’s recent Advisory Opinion is the findings (paras. 224-229) about Israel’s apartheid practices against the Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
In para 280 of its Advisory Opinion the Court considered it important to stress “the urgent necessity for the United Nations as a whole to redouble its efforts to bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which continues to pose a threat to international peace and security, to a speedy conclusion, thereby establishing a just and lasting peace in the region”
In light of the findings that Israel is guilty of a breach of anti-apartheid laws and of building illegal settlements on Palestinian land, the fact that it has wilfully disobeyed the orders of the ICJ in relation to its invasion of Rafah, the fact that it is facing the real risk of an adverse finding against it on a plausible case of genocide, and its openly brazen contumacy in the face of the orders of the highest court in the world and the entreaties and criticisms of allies and foes across the globe, topped with the risk that its actions will provoke a dangerously widespread war, what is rest of the world to do?
In the face of Israel’s intransigence the only way to secure Israel’s compliance with international law is the application of political and economic sanctions along the lines of those imposed upon South Africa which led to the deconstruction of that apartheid State.
The sooner those sanctions are in place the better for world peace given that Israel’s belligerence is the source of the perceived obligation of Western nations to amass forces in the Middle East and of the actions against it by Hezbollah and Ansar Allah (the Houthis), each entity having stated consistently that they would cease their attacks on Israel if it ceased its attacks on Gaza.
Rather than take that course Israel has committed flagrant breaches of international law by actions like the bombing of the Iranian embassy in Damascus and it has attempted to drag Iran and hence the US and its minions into a wider war in which no-one wishes to be involved.
Kellie Tranter
24 July 2024
See also Kellie Tranter
Nick Deane
Margaret Reynolds