US Defends Israeli Occupation at World Court
February 23, 2024
Consortium News
Among nations participating in the ICJ proceedings on Israel’s occupation, only the U.S. and Fiji are urging the court not to issue an opinion that declares the nearly six-decade occupation of Palestinian territory illegal.
Richard Visek, the U.S. State Department’s acting legal adviser, speaking at the International Court of Justice on Wednesday. (International Court of Justice)
An attorney from the U.S. State Department told the International Court of Justice this week that it should not put its weight behind global calls for Israel to withdraw its forces from the occupied Palestinian territories.
Richard Visek, the U.S. State Department’s acting legal adviser, argued that “it would not, as some participants suggest, be conducive to the achievement” of lasting peace for the United Nations’ highest court to “issue an opinion that calls for the unilateral, immediate, and unconditional withdrawal that does not account for Israel’s security needs.”
“The court should not find that Israel is legally obligated to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from occupied territory,” said the U.S. representative.
Visek reiterated the Biden administration’s stated support for a two-state solution but rejected the argument — made by other nations before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) — that an end to Israel’s illegal, decades-long occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem is a necessary prerequisite to securing peace and a durable political solution.
“International law does not impose specific time limits on an occupation,” Visek said Wednesday.
The U.S. presentation came two days after Paul Reichler, an American lawyer representing Palestine during the ICJ proceedings on Israel’s occupation, said that “occupation can only be a temporary state of affairs” and criticized the U.S. government for defending “whatever offenses against international law Israel commits.”
“A permanent occupation is a legal oxymoron,” said Reichler. “What makes Israel’s ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territory unlawful is precisely its permanent character.”
Among nations participating in the ICJ proceedings on Israel’s occupation, only the U.S. and Fiji are urging the court not to issue an opinion that declares the nearly six-decade occupation of Palestinian territory illegal.
Israel has opted not to take part in the hearings, with far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denouncing them as illegitimate.
The hearings come more than a year after the U.N. General Assembly requested a nonbinding opinion from the ICJ on the “legal consequences” of Israel’s open-ended occupation of Palestinian territory. Just last month, the ICJ ruled that Israel’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip plausibly amounts to genocide—a characterization that the U.S. and other Israeli allies have rejected.
Speaking just before Visek on Wednesday, representatives of Colombia, Cuba, and Egypt condemned the Israeli occupation and implored the ICJ to act decisively.
“The situation that is taking place in the eyes of all confirms the ongoing genocide. Innocent victims—girls, boys, women—number in the thousands,” Cuban diplomat Anayansi Rodriguez Camejo said Wednesday, slamming “those who for years have supported each and every one of the policies and practices of Israel, which denied the existence of the Palestinian people and their rights.”
“Taken in total,” she said, “the unbearable situation of the Palestinian people, the honorable International Court of Justice should take a stand in the clearest, strongest, and most forceful legal terms in support of international law.”
Jake Johnson is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Post Views: 2,971
Tags: ICJ International Court of Justice Israeli Occupation Jake Johnson Richard Visek World Court
———————–
The obvious Israeli intent has been to render Gaza totally uninhabitable and kill enough Gazans to drive them out into the Sinai desert, thereby allowing the Israelis to annex the land as many of their political leaders have proposed.
———————-
Zionism:
In 1944 Lehi resumed its attacks on the British. It narrowly missed eliminating High Commissioner to Palestine, Harold MacMichael, but succeeded in assassinating the Colonial Minister, Lord Moyne.
Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte until the latter’s assassination by Jewish terrorists in 1948. As the first United Nations Mediator to Palestine, Bernadotte had firmly supported return for Palestinian refugees.
——————
The Grand Wizard of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, had this to say:
“The wealthy Jews rule the world; the fate of the governments lies in their hands. They start wars between countries, and when they wish, the governments make peace. When the wealthy Jews sing, the nations and their leaders dance along, and meanwhile the Jews get richer!” (Published by Herzl in a German newspaper)
Critical jewish concept because the Ashkenazi news descended from Turkic Khazars by conversion while the Sephardics came by way of Spain mostly and lots of false-conversos so hardly anyone could prove they’re descended from Sarah by way of her son Isaac, because Abraham had Ishmael from Hagar, supposedly to the Arab Palestinians. Jewish birth comes from mother. Jew’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother was Jewish and father being Jewish doesn’t matter at all.
I n 1976 when Arthur Koestler’s The Thirteenth Tribe was published he thought he would be thanked by fellow news for showing the fallacy of the raBut also see 2009 book Invention of the Jewish people by Shlomo Sand history professor in Tel Aviv who proves Khazars theory beyond doubt and also uses genetic DNA analysis to prove the imposters lie Palestine (the indigenous Arab Population) about descent from Abraham and having a racial reason for stealing their Land illegally
The Immigration of non-semite Jews from Europe to Arab Palestine over a century.
—————-
Palestine 2024 in color
BIG BROTHER in the 21. Century 