The landmark ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on July 19 requires the fast finish of Israel’s unlawful occupation and apartheid rule. This ruling reinforces a transparent pathway to peace – based mostly on a sovereign State of Palestine within the context of the two-state resolution.
In keeping with the ICJ, Israel should withdraw from the entire occupied Palestinian territory, stop all settlement actions, evacuate all settlers and pay damages.
Ending the unlawful occupation just isn’t conditional upon a bilateral peace course of between Israel and Palestine. In his declaration, ICJ President Nawaf Salam acknowledged: “[Israeli] withdrawal can’t be conditional on the success of negotiations whose final result will rely on Israel’s approval. Particularly, Israel can’t invoke the necessity for a previous settlement on its safety claims for such a situation might result in perpetuating its illegal occupation.”
The ICJ ruling is a vindication of the rights of the Palestinian folks, who’ve endured a long time of oppression. It’s also a rejection of the place of the USA, which insists on Israel’s settlement on a political settlement as a situation for ending the occupation.
The sovereignty of Palestine, based mostly on the two-state resolution and the borders of June 4, 1967, can’t be held hostage to Israel’s apartheid insurance policies. The 2-state resolution is a matter of worldwide regulation, not of Israel’s home politics, a lot much less its extremism. Diplomatic negotiations, underneath the auspices of the United Nations, can and will give attention to the implementation of Israel’s withdrawal from occupied territory and mutual safety preparations of the 2 states dwelling facet by facet.
The US has been a decades-long proponent of a cynical “peace course of” between Israel and Palestine that’s designed to fail. The plain fact is that the occupying energy, Israel, and the folks underneath occupation, Palestine, won’t ever be on a good footing in negotiations. Palestinians have been pressured to barter underneath excessive duress whereas Israel has continued its blatant violations of worldwide regulation.
But the inequality of bargaining energy has been far worse than the gross inequality of energy between the occupier and the occupied. The US has held the playing cards for many years and has constantly been a dishonest dealer. The US political elite is pro-Zionist to the hilt as it’s notoriously financed by the Israel foyer (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and others) and deeply entwined with Israel’s army and safety equipment, particularly CIA-Mossad hyperlinks.
The US blames Palestine for each failure in negotiations, even when Israel’s intransigence and opposition to the two-state resolution are the apparent, certainly blatant, obstacles to peace. Most not too long ago, the Israeli Knesset voted to reject the two-state solution.
The newest show of the US politics was the reception given to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the US Congress. Regardless of – or extra precisely due to – the call by the ICC prosecutor for Netanyahu’s arrest for struggle crimes, Congress obtained Netanyahu’s lies with repeated ovations.
The obeisance of Congress to the Israel foyer was particularly vile on condition that the UN, the ICJ and the Worldwide Legal Courtroom have all not too long ago concluded that the Israeli army is systematically concentrating on civilians, ravenous them, inflicting collective punishment and intentionally destroying the infrastructure of Gaza.
A devastating regional struggle is simply across the nook except the worldwide group acts rapidly and decisively to safe the two-state resolution. In Lebanon, cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel have intensified. The battle additionally grows with assaults between Israel and Yemen’s Houthis. The US might finish the struggle now if it selected. With out American monetary and army help, Israel doesn’t have the means to combat a struggle on a number of fronts.
After rejecting a number of ceasefire proposals, even US-backed ones, it’s clear that the Israeli authorities just isn’t desirous about ending the struggle. Israel’s extremist authorities desires a wider battle that lures the US into an open struggle with Iran. The newest outrage is Israel’s assassination of Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. This can be a harmful escalation, on overseas soil, that intentionally and flagrantly undermines negotiation efforts and a peaceable diplomatic decision to the battle.
Whereas Congress cheered Netanyahu’s lies, the extra necessary story of US politics was occurring outdoors Congress on the streets of Washington (and the campuses throughout the nation). The American folks, particularly America’s younger folks, are uninterested in the US authorities’s complicity in Israel’s genocide. By March, a majority of Americans had turned against Israel’s actions in Gaza. They need the struggle to cease, to not develop.
The world’s governments are rallying on the facet of justice as within the UN General Assembly’s overwhelming help for Palestine to grow to be the 194th UN member state. Palestinian political factions have additionally joined collectively, supported by Chinese diplomacy, to kind a nationwide unity authorities. The world group has broadly welcomed the ICJ’s choice to finish Israel’s unlawful occupation.
A complete peace based mostly on the two-state resolution is achievable and inside attain. In keeping with the latest choice of the ICJ and the votes of the UN Common Meeting and the UN Safety Council (however for the US veto), the trail to peace is obvious: Palestine ought to instantly be welcomed as a UN member state with the borders of June 4, 1967, and with its capital in East Jerusalem.
Peace, in brief, is far nearer than it might appear, constructed on the unity of the folks of Palestine; the robust and repeated backing of the Arab and Islamic states for the two-state resolution; the goodwill of just about the entire world group, together with the American folks; and the help of worldwide regulation and the United Nations.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.