Palestine welcomes UN vote on Israel’s illegal occupation

Palestinian leaders last night welcomed a United Nations General Assembly vote insisting on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to answer the legal consequences of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.

The General Assembly voted 87 to 26 with 53 abstentions on the resolution, reported Aljazeera. A number of Western nations were split on the vote while the Islamic world was almost unanimous in support of Palestine. Russia and China also voted in favour of the resolution.

Israel, the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and 22 other members voted against it while France abstained with 53 other nations.

The ICJ, based in the Hague, Netherlands, deals with disputes between international states. Its rulings are binding, though the ICJ has no power to enforce them.

Senior Palestinian official Hussein al-Sheikh welcomed the vote adding that it “reflects the victory of Palestinian diplomacy.”

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesperson for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said…

“The time has come for Israel to be a state subject to law, and to be held accountable for its ongoing crimes against our people.”

Palestine’s UN ambassador Riyad Mansour made known that the vote came one day after the swearing-in of a new hard line, far-right Israeli government, which stated it plans more illegal Jewish settlements and will accelerate “colonial and racist policies” toward Palestinians.

Mansour praised the nations that voted in favour of the resolution and were “undeterred by threats and pressure.”

The UN General Assembly asked the ICJ to provide an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s “occupation, settlement and annexation … including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures.”

The UN resolution also asks the ICJ to advise on how those policies and practices “affect the legal status of the occupation” and what legal consequences arise for all countries and the UN from this status.

The ICJ last spoke about Israel’s illegal occupation in 2004, when it ruled that Israel’s wall in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem was illegal. Israel rejected that ruling, accusing the court of being politically motivated.

Understandably, Israel rejected the vote.

Israel’s UN ambassador Gilad Erdan said…

“No international body can decide that the Jewish people are ‘occupiers’ in their own homeland. Any decision from a judicial body which receives its mandate from the morally bankrupt and politicised UN is completely illegitimate.

New Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the UN vote was “despicable.”

“The Jewish people are not occupiers on their own land nor occupiers in our eternal capital Jerusalem and no UN resolution can warp that historical truth.”

Israel expelled 300,000 Palestinians from their homes during the 1967 war while also claiming the Syrian Golan Heights in the north and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula in the south. Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1978 which led to Israel withdrawing from Egyptian territory.

The occupied Palestinian territories have been under Israeli military control since 1967.

The 2 State Solution is dead – killed by the Apartheid State of #Israel, thanks to #US + #EU. It has been used as a smokescreen to pretend concern for the Rights of #Palestinians while leaving Israelis to pursue their Genocide. Palestinians have to fight for their Human Rights… pic.twitter.com/bLnOOgdoNO

— Mick Wallace (@wallacemick) December 25, 2022