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More than 50 countries have joined the lawsuit, which continues until this week. On Tuesday, 10 countries took part in presentations, all including the Netherlands and Belgium, calling out Israel’s underlying policies of occupation and settlement that lead to systemic racism and apartheid that countless rights groups argue was mainly blamed. Millions of Palestinians in the West Bank live without the same political and civil rights as neighboring Israel, while Gaza has survived years of economic blockade.
Representatives from South Africa have filed a separate ICJ lawsuit alleging that Israel is in violation of the Genocide Convention by waging war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip after it attacked Israel on October 7. , but said the Jewish state is doing even more. Calling it a more extreme form of “apartheid” than what South Africa has endured for decades, it urged the court to force Israel to make political concessions to the Palestinians.
Vusimuzi Madonsela, South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands, told the judge: “Legally clarifying the nature of the Israeli regime vis-à-vis the Palestinian people will help redress ongoing delays and achieve a just settlement. Only,” he said.
The representative of Saudi Arabia asserted, “There is no room for serious debate that Israel’s policies and practices also amount to racial discrimination and amount to apartheid, which seriously violates the human rights of the Palestinian people.” A senior Djibouti official also said that the decades-long Israeli occupation of the West Bank had the effect of “systematically discriminating against Palestinians in favor of Jews living in the settlements.”
The day before, the Palestinian delegation made its case. “Palestinians have endured colonialism and apartheid,” said Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki. “Some people are outraged by these words. They should be outraged when they see the reality of our suffering.”
Fighting back tears, Riyad Mansour, the UN special envoy for Palestine, told the court: “We will guide the international community to uphold international law, end injustice, and achieve a just and lasting peace.” “For a future where Palestinian children are treated well.” Not as a demographic threat, but as children. ”
The US is expected to begin defending Israel in The Hague on Wednesday. Unlike other cases related to genocide and the Gaza war, Israel itself is not present at these hearings. “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office stated: statement “He took to social media to deny the legitimacy of the hearing, claiming it was a violation of Israel’s right to protect itself from existential threats,” his colleagues said.
In the coming months, the court is expected to issue a nonbinding opinion that could have minimal legal implications. Late last month, the ICJ called on Israel to refrain from attacks on Gaza that have killed at least 29,000 Palestinians, destroyed Gaza’s civilian infrastructure and displaced much of the enclave’s population. Announcing “temporary measures.” But the ruling appears to have done little to deter Israel, which continues to prepare for an attack on the southern border city of Rafah, where more than a million Gazan refugees are camped in desperate conditions.
Across the pond, officials at the United Nations’ highest decision-making body were once again unable to see a way forward. The United States has vetoed an Algerian-led Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of all hostages held by Hamas. Thirteen countries, including allies such as France and Japan, voted in favor of the resolution, with the UK abstaining and the Biden administration voting alone.
“A vote in favor of this resolution is support for the Palestinian people’s right to life,” Algeria’s ambassador to the UN, Amal Bendjama, said before the vote. “On the contrary, voting against them means supporting the brutal violence and collective punishment inflicted on them.”
In a statement, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield called the resolution “aspirational and irresponsible” and floated a watered-down proposal for a “temporary” ceasefire more directly linked to the release of all hostages. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted: “We are fully committed to continuing the war until we achieve all our goals.” “There’s no pressure to be able to change this.”
What also hasn’t changed is the growing global recognition that Israel is at odds with the international system and dependent on the United States to protect it from further criticism. Israeli authorities are furious at UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ claim last year that the October 7 Hamas attack did not occur in a “vacuum”, a view Israel says legitimizes Hamas’s terrorism. He claimed that there was.
But this week’s proceedings in The Hague delve into what Mr. Guterres was referring to, given the deeper tragic context spanning more than half a century. The current drumbeat of extreme rhetoric by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s right-wing political allies includes rejection of any talk of the creation of a Palestinian state or equality of political rights, and calls to carry out de facto ethnic cleansing in Gaza. , and even a denial of the Palestinian Authority. presence of Palestinians — reminds us of a parallel conversation taking place inside Israel.
“Successive Israeli governments have offered the Palestinian people only three options: expulsion, conquest or death,” Maliki, the Palestinian envoy, told the judge. “But our people have the right to remain here and live with freedom and dignity on their ancestral land. They will not give up their rights.”
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