The consequences of the ICJ’s latest Israel ruling go beyond historic.

Right, so it’s not often that I can begin a video by saying something truly historic has just happened, but the latest ruling by the International Court of Justice with regards to Israel and Palestine is truly seismic because every lousy excuse that Israel has given for it’s presence in Palestine, it’s conduct in the West Bank and in Gaza, have just been rendered null and void. Whilst the apartheid state of Israel and Netanyahu himself attack this decision, on the basis of their alleged religious entitlement to the land they occupy, despite being historically incorrect as that is, as signatories to the Geneva Conventions, to the UN Charter, as a UN member state, the law will decide what is true and right and just, and it has in no uncertain terms effectively said, get the hell out of Palestine, you don’t belong there, have no right to remain there a single day longer and then some on top of that besides.
Right, so there aren’t many moments these days it seems when sanity prevails and that has certainly been the case when considering the mad, genocidal actions of Israel, not just since October 7th, but certainly that is when what they are really all about with regards to Palestine entered the public psyche. That ruling from the ICJ, a clip of which you just saw, does count as one of those moments though.
It might surprise you to consider any kind of occupation as being legal, but under the terms of the Geneva Convention, this can be the case and the rules are clearly laid out governing that, what the occupying state can and cannot do and this has been the basis for Palestine being left under Israeli control since the after math of the 6 day war back in 1967.
An occupying power must, as a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, in this case the fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49 which states that:
‘“The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.’
This of course we know has been happening and happening for years, extensive use of land, in the West Bank as this applies to, where the West Bank has been divided up in to 3 areas, Areas, A, B and C, with only areas A & B under control of the Palestinian Authority.
It’s not news that Israel have been illegally building settlements and displacing Palestinians, driving them from their land and their homes for years to make way for settlers and that this is something the settler movement, the likes of Nahala, want for Gaza too, to take over, already having drawn up plans for new settlements there.
On top of that as I covered a few weeks ago, Israel’s hard right finance minister, with a foot in the door of the Israeli ministry of defence as he also has, Bezalel Smotrich, has procured new powers from the IDF in relation to the West Bank, where he himself lives as a settler, to build even more settlements there, announcing the other week plans to build another 5,300 homes for Israelis in Palestinian territory.
All of this, as should be quite clear, is against the Geneva Conventions and Article 49 of the fourth convention and therefore the legality of Israel’s occupation is now null and void. The Israeli occupation of Palestine is now recognised in the International Court of Justice as an illegal occupation. It’s taken 57 years, but Israel, now acknowledged in law, albeit only advisory, has no business being in Palestine and the rulings the ICJ have made in relation to this case, which it should be noted was brought to the ICJ, not by the likes of a single or handful of nations like South Africa in this instance, the United Nations General Assembly itself, asked the ICJ to look at this and after the court decided it did indeed have jurisdiction to answer the General Assemblies questions put to it, relating to the ongoing violations of Israel versus the Palestinian people’s right to self determination and how that affects the legal status of the occupation, the ICJ delivered some damning verdicts and I don’t think these points have been nailed nearly hard enough in the media.
The continued presence of Israel in Palestinian territory is now unlawful. As such the presence of Israel in Occupied Palestinian Territory must end and Israel must withdraw as soon as possible. In light of that, Israel is obliged to cease all settlement activities immediately and evacuate all settlers from Occupied Palestinian Territory. On top of that, the court has voted that Israel is responsible for making reparations for the damage they have caused to all the natural or legal persons of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The next ruling they made is going to cause massive headaches worldwide, so I’ll quote this one directly:
‘All States are under an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.’
No aid, no weapons, no nothing to Israel if there is any risk it could be used to enable the ongoing, now legally recognised illegality of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. No more weapons from the US is the kneejerk immediate thought, but it goes for everyone else too and as the next ruling made clear that doesn’t just extend to all other nations, but it extends to the United Nations itself, so anyone voting against blocking aid and weapons at the UN Security Council for example, would in theory be violating this ruling.
Of course this ruling is advisory, it isn’t in and of itself a legally binding judgement, that would take far longer to arrive at, however the final ruling they arrived at does make clear what the UN ought to do in light of these other rulings:
‘The United Nations, and especially the General Assembly, which requested this opinion, and the Security Council, should consider the precise modalities and further action required to bring to an end as rapidly as possible the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.’
It's incumbent on the UN and Security Council to not ignore this ruling, after all, that undermines the point of there even being an International Court of Justice, and undermines it’s authority if it just gets ignored for the sake of Israel and any state now ignoring this, would effectively be placing the importance of Israel above the importance of the United Nations itself.
Now the interesting thing here is this ruling on the illegality of the Israeli occupation, is that really, if you think about it, because Israel withdrew it’s settlers from Gaza in 2003, this really only applies to the West Bank, however because Gaza is part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the ruling would cover Gaza too, despite actually from a legal standpoint, this ruling doesn’t apply to Gaza. You can’t split a nation state though, even if geographically they are separate, so it’s a quirk of this ruling I found rather novel anyway.
It's also worth noting that ruling comes from a United Nations request, made to the ICJ, back in December of 2022, so well before the most recent atrocities in Gaza took place, and was backed by 87 countries to make this request of the ICJ for an advisory opinion. It was notably opposed by of course the US, but also the UK, Germany and obviously Israel itself, all the same countries still falling over themselves for Israel’s sake now, trying to block those arrest warrants for Netanyahu at the ICC as the UK and now Germany are trying to do, shamefully.
Effectively the court has ruled that Israel have illegally annexed the West Bank in practice if not in name and Israeli responses have not really denied that at all!
Naturally Israel have rejected the ruling, so the UN should come down on them like a ton of bricks over that, with Netanyahu himself tweeting out that:
‘The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land, including in our eternal capital Jerusalem nor in Judea and Samaria, our historical homeland. No absurd opinion in the Hague can deny this historical truth or the legal right of Israelis to live in their own communities in our ancestoral home.’
But it isn’t your ancestral home. The father of the Jewish people was Abraham and he came from Iraq. The region you now occupy has historically been under Muslim occupation for far longer than it has Jewish and given, along with Christianity, all three of those religions have their roots in the Middle East, why does Jewish occupation take precedence anyway? Netanyahu and many others as well cite religion as their right to be there, but it was British Imperial idiocy that actually put them there, a legal framework, stupid as it was, but laws can be extremely stupid as we know, get over yourself, your occupation has been ruled illegal, you have no right to be in those territories any longer, if the UN does not enforce that and censure any nation siding with Israel on this, then it will severely undermine itself. It’s over, Israel must leave, it has been recognised as an apartheid state in law now as well as these ruling also do, which is why reparations must now be paid and from a narrative standpoint, so must it be case for everyone who has been calling this out for so long.
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaigners have been vindicated, it is no longer a debate that Zionists have a justifiable position on any longer, not that they had any before, but their arguments are now irrelevant.
Israel has been declared by the ICJ to be a rogue state enacting apartheid and land occupation and illegal settlement, operating outside of international law, so anyone who claims to respect international law, so I’m looking at you Keir Starmer, having just this week spoken of your profound respect for international law, cannot possibly side with Israel for a moment longer. End the nonsense at the ICC, stop the shame of this country backing Israel constantly, because that is now no longer a justifiable position at all for as long as they remain in Palestinian territory, or move over for someone else who isn’t as bought and paid for by the Israel Lobby as you are. People are watching.
Meanwhile matters for Netanyahu go from bad to worse as the Houthis in Yemen, for months now having been a major source of economic and military conflict over Israel’s war in Gaza, have now successfully struck Tel Aviv itself with a new drone capable of travelling the distance and if they have it now, Iran backed as they are, how long before Hezbollah do? More and more the case is made for a responsible withdrawal from Gaza and with them now legally required to get out of the West Bank too, the global narrative towards the rogue state has likely shifted to a point there is no going back. Get the details of that Houthi strike in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.