Back in January of 2024, the U.N.’s International Court of Justice, the ICJ, located in the Hague, ruled against Israel. The ICJ advised Israel to act in a way that would prevent genocide.
It was a strange ruling. As articulated in the ruling, Israel was not actually committing genocide but, in their opinion, there were conditions that could lead to genocide and they wanted Israel to try to prevent that from happening.
Now, once again, on July 19, 2024, the same ICJ ruled against Israel.
This time it was a sweeping condemnation of Israel. This time, the ICJ ruled that Israel’s annexation, Israel’s policies and Israel’s control in the areas that the Jewish State captured from Jordan and Egypt in 1967, in a war, as discriminatory against Palestinians and a violation of international law.
The decision was unanimous. Not the first, second or third time that this has happened, I am certain that it will not be the last.
For the record, Israel does not recognize the court and hence, Israel did not defend itself. Israel did, however, submit a written note that asserted that the proceedings of this court do not consider Israel’s security needs.
The ICJ decision was a staggering 80 pages long. Even more staggering is that the president of the court is Nawaf Salam and Salam is hardly an impartial judge. From 2007 to 2017 Salam served as Lebanon’s ambassador to the United Nations.
During his tenure as ambassador, Salam voted, over and over and over again, to condemn Israel. Salam voted to condemn Israel 210 times.
UN Watch is an independent, nongovernmental organization, whose mandate is to monitor the United Nations. UN Watch released some of his statements made by Salam while ambassador.
In 2008, Salam delivered a speech accusing "terrorist Jewish organizations" of committing "organized massacres." In 2015, he called Israel a "Triumph of blatant racist & colonialist choices" on Twitter.
In June 2015, he tweeted "#Israel Occupation of #Gaza & the #WestBank: UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU - 48 YEARS OF OCCUPATION". He also wrote: "Israel must stop the violence and end the occupation" and "portraying critics of Israeli policy as antisemites is an attempt to intimidate and discredit them, which we reject."
One reason Israel does not recognize the International Court of Justice is because the lead ICJ judge, in a matter against Israel, is completely, blatantly, unabashedly, biased against Israel. That is just one why Israel does not recognize the ICJ.
The silver lining to this ruling against Israel, the only positive element in this travesty of justice, is that the International Court of Justice wields no power. It is an advisory court. And this case against Israel was brought at the suggestion of the Palestinians — who are not members of the United Nations and, therefore, have no standing.
It was U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres who brought the case to the ICJ on behalf of the Palestinians. Guterres will now bring the ICJ decision back to the General Assembly which, for the record, like the ICJ, has no authority either.
The GA is nothing more than a group of 193 countries that passes resolutions. Not surprisingly, many of those resolutions are directed against Israel.
The General Assembly, hands down, passes more anti-Israel resolutions than resolutions against any other country in the whole, entire world.
The Israeli government issued a predictable condemnation of the ruling. Then Jerusalem added another element. Israel added that these proceedings by the Palestinians are a ploy to place international pressure on Israel to force political resolution to a conflict that can only be resolved diplomatically.
Israel said that this decision would undermine the peace process, a process that has already been stalled for more than a decade.
A statement issued by the office of the Israeli prime minister reads: “The Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land — not in our eternal capital Jerusalem and not in the land of our ancestors in Judea and Samaria … No false decision in The Hague will distort this historical truth and likewise the legality of Israeli settlement in all the territories of our homeland cannot be contested.”
For their part, the adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Riad Maliki, referred to the case as “a watershed moment for Palestine, for justice and for international law.” He indicated that other nations must now “uphold the clear obligations” outlined by the court. There should be “No actions of any kind … to support Israel’s illegal occupation.”
That is the international pressure that the Israeli prime minister’s office was referring to. Case closed.
Micah Halpern is a political and foreign affairs commentator. He founded "The Micah Report" and hosts "Thinking Out Loud with Micah Halpern," a weekly TV program, and "My Chopp," a daily radio spot. Follow him on Twitter @MicahHalpern. Read Micah Halpern's Reports — More Here.