HOPEFULLY, THE JUDGES AT THE HAGUE WILL NOT DISAPPOINT ...

On Friday, 19 July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague will publish a legal opinion on whether Israel's occupation of the West Bank constitutes an annexation. If the court decides that Israel has moved from a temporary to a permanent occupation, this could be considered an annexation and thus illegal.

The ICJ is expected to publish a legal opinion on the Israeli West Bank occupation.

One of the ICJ's roles is to provide legal opinions to UN agencies. On Friday, the judges will respond to a request made by the UN General Assembly in December 2022. The Assembly requested a legal opinion on whether the Israeli occupation could be regarded as permanent and thus unlawful.

I can sense the Israeli panic that the court might indeed rule that Israel is maintaining a permanent occupation regime in the West Bank that breaches international law. Such an opinion will pile more pressure on Israel to end the occupation and stop the illegal building of settlements on the West Bank.

 The Israelis keep building illegal settlements on the West Bank.

While nonbinding, the main potential fallout of a ruling regarding the occupation as illegal could be the reaction of individual countries. In recent months, a growing number of Western governments, including the United States, France, and Britain, have imposed sanctions on individuals and organizations linked to the settlements movement and criticized Israel for turning a blind eye to the unprecedented levels of violence by extremist settlers in the West Bank toward Palestinians. If the court declares the occupation illegal, I expect sanctions to increase.

In the last paragraph of my book “Cursed Victory: A History of Israel and the Occupied Territories,” I wrote that the international community “must not stand idly by as the Israeli occupation – one of the cruellest and brutal in modern history - continues.”

I hope that the ICJ judges will not disappoint; that they define the Israeli occupation of the West Bank as illegal and call on Israel to end it unconditionally.