President of the ICJ, Nawaf Salam from Lebanon reading the decision in the Hague, July 19, 2024 (Screenshot)
The UN’s World Court, also called the International Court of Justice, issued an 80-page attack on the state of Israel in the late afternoon of Friday, July 19, 2024. It had been five months since the Court heard oral arguments and yet the Court chose to release their missive on the eve of Shabbat. The majority opinion was accompanied by hundreds of pages of further declarations and opinions by various judges. Formally, it was called an “advisory opinion.” Actually, it was a legal obscenity from start to finish.
The only judge to consistently dissent from the opinion was ICJ Vice President Julia Sebutinde from Uganda.
The Who
The Court is the “World Court” of the United Nations, a body controlled by an entrenched anti-Israel majority. The members of the Court are elected by the United Nations. Its legal “experts” include alleged authorities from places devoid of the rule of law, such as China and Somalia.
The man who read the non-binding “opinion” aloud to the world, all dressed up in judicial robes with pomp and circumstance, was ICJ President Nawaf Salam. Salam is a Lebanese politician, whose name was on the ballot in the last two elections for prime minister of Lebanon — a country that does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. He was his country’s UN ambassador for 10 years up until 2017, serving as president of the Security Council and vice-president of the General Assembly during that time. His social media activities include memes telling Israel “unhappy birthday to you.”
President of the ICJ, Nawaf Salam from Lebanon reading the decision in the Hague, July 19, 2024.
The What
The request for the non-binding “advisory opinion” from the Court came from the UN General Assembly in early 2023. The General Assembly resolution was adopted with only 87 votes in favor, less than half of the UN membership.
The question posed by the hostile mob was framed as: Israel is guilty of the following violations of international law, so what are the consequences? (“What are the legal consequences arising from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to…”)
There were no Palestinian violations of anything on the agenda.
The How
The Court said that it would nevertheless reconsider Israel’s guilt, proceeded to summarily declare Israel guilty, and then held forth on the consequences. How did it find Israel guilty? In its words, without the facts.
The Court shockingly said: “It is not necessary for the Court to make findings of fact with regard to specific incidents allegedly in violation of international law.” It was sufficient, they said, that the UN Secretary-General said so. That would be the same Secretary-General, António Guterres, who has repeatedly invented ways to backstop Hamas. As early as October 9, 2023, he explained that the atrocities of October 7th did “not come in a vacuum.”
The Results
Among the results, this grotesque kangaroo court said Israel was guilty of the crime against humanity of apartheid. It took them less than 250 words to come to this far-reaching conclusion, intended to create an avalanche of legal and political ramifications isolating and permanently debilitating the Jewish state.
The case also calls for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from whatever land Palestinian Arabs and the UN say belongs to Palestinians. “All settlers” must leave; “all Palestinians” must be allowed “to return;” “the wall” (that put an end to the suicide-bombing carnage) must be dismantled wherever they say so. What is actually “Apartheid Palestine” is apparently just fine.
“Palestinian” territory — which Israel is said to occupy, including Gaza and the West Bank/Judea and Samaria — is suddenly defined by the Court to consist of “a single territorial unit, the unity, contiguity and integrity of which are to be preserved.” It is not clear where the Jews are left in this actually non-existent contiguous Palestinian territory.
The “opinion” has a whole section called “Violence against Palestinians.” There is no section on violence against Israelis. In fact, there is no discussion or findings about violence, terrorism, rockets, suicide-bombing, knifings, vehicle-rammings, shootings, kidnappings and rapes against Israelis at all, ever. The only mention of “gender-based violence” paints Palestinians as the victims. One more disgusting example from the UN of “MeToo_Unless_Ur_A_Jew.”
The “opinion” rests on lethal historical fiction. The opinion says: “On 14 May 1948, Israel proclaimed its independence with reference to the General Assembly resolution 181 (II); an armed conflict then broke out between Israel and a number of Arab States, and the Plan of Partition was not implemented.” “Broke out” is the UN-euphemism for the attempted annihilation of the nascent Jewish state by Arab states and Palestinian Arabs.
Likewise, the opinion says: “In 1967, an armed conflict (also known as the “Six Day War”) broke out between Israel and neighbouring countries Egypt, Syria and Jordan,” And again: “In October 1973, another armed conflict broke out between Egypt, Syria and Israel.”
“Broke out” is how the UN covers up the systematic campaign by Arab states and Palestinians to destroy the Jewish state from May 14, 1948 onward, through the UN and on the field. This blatant historical revisionism from the UN’s highest legal body makes a mockery of its subsequent conclusions built on a mountain of lies.
The opinion is heavily reliant on lengthy discussions of Palestinian Arab “self-determination” and associated “rights.” There is no mention whatsoever of Jewish self-determination. The Court says the “key element of the right to self-determination is the right of a people freely to determine its political status and to pursue its economic, social and cultural development.” Except for Jews. For Jews, the UN decides the political status of Jews in the Jewish state and authors an “opinion” clearly intended to drive BDS — sanctions, boycotts, and global efforts to devalue and destroy economic, social, and cultural development in the case of Israel.
Moreover, a mere 75 years after the Holocaust, the UN Court twisted the laws written in response to the atrocities committed against Jews, to demonize the refuge of the Jewish people. The Court purported to use the law addressing the Nazi’s criminal deportation of Jews from their homes to concentration camps as a means to criminalize the voluntary movement of Jews within the land of Israel. This isn’t law. It is war by another name. It’s the contorted face of modern antisemitism. The spectacle saw German judge Georg Nolte and Japanese judge Iwasawa Yuji sitting on the UN court, and joining the majority in applying a law for Nazis and their followers to the Jewish survivors and their families in Israel.
The inversion of right and wrong was on full display when Hamas reacted to the decision. An organization dedicated to the violation of law and the basics of human decency immediately welcomed the Court’s opinion.
The Real Consequences
The so-called “peace process” is dead, killed off by alleged peace-loving UN judges. From now on, Palestinians have zero incentive to negotiate anything or finally accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state. The UN has purportedly decided the outcome of all the items that were supposed to be subject to negotiation — as specified in Oslo and other agreements — territory, borders, settlements, Jerusalem. All the Palestinians have to do is sit back and enjoy the squeeze play. And perpetuate more Jew-hatred, incite more violence, and foment more wars, with impunity.
