The United States as a staunch backer of Israel should seize the opportunity to urge visiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to observe United Nations resolutions and international laws, experts said.
They also said the international community needs to work together to ensure the International Court of Justice’s decision to call Israel’s presence in Palestinian territory unlawful is implemented.
Netanyahu, who left for the US on Monday, traveled to Washington to meet with US President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris. Netanyahu told reporters before he boarded the plane that his visit would be an opportunity to discuss the goals for both Israel and the US in the “critical months ahead”.
Ayman Yousef, a professor of international relations at the Arab American University in Jenin in the West Bank, said the meeting would be a chance for the Democratic Party to apply pressure on Netanyahu.
Yousef said they can push the Israeli prime minister to agree to a cease-fire deal with Hamas and also avoid any negative intervention by him in the coming US elections.
The ICJ said on Friday that Israel’s presence in the Palestinian territory was unlawful. The call came just a day after the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, rejected a resolution establishing Palestinian statehood, which was widely criticized.
Netanyahu has slammed the ICJ ruling as “absurd”, adding that no opinion from The Hague “can deny the historical truth or legal right of Israelis” to live in their “ancestral home”.
The UN Security Council had previously passed several resolutions on Gaza. The latest one, Resolution 2735, passed in June.
Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi, secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, said the ICJ’s legal opinion “confirms and reinforces the Palestinian people’s attainment of their legitimate and legal rights in accordance with international and UN resolutions to regain the Palestinian territories seized by the Israeli occupation forces”.
The countries that have backed the ICJ’s decision include Belgium, Iceland, Norway, Ireland, Slovenia, Spain, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt. Traditional US allies Australia and the United Kingdom said they respected the ICJ’s role in upholding international law and the independence of the ICJ, respectively.
Omar Awadallah, Palestine’s assistant foreign minister for the UN and Specialized Agencies, said the “historic” advisory opinion was “not only for the question of Palestine but for justice and for all the legal system”.
Awadallah, who was part of the delegation to the ICJ sessions, said he believed that this determination “will help in achieving justice and stability in the region if it’s implemented”.
“Our move will be toward countries bilaterally. That means that we will be working with states toward taking irreversible steps, toward taking actions by putting consequences on this illegal occupation,” Awadallah told China Daily.
Hassan Ben Imran, board member at Law for Palestine, a nonprofit human rights organization, lauded the court’s advisory opinion as it offered several legal grounds for Palestinians “to further their legal struggle for freedom and liberation”.
But he said he is not optimistic that Israel would comply with the resolutions, suggesting that the only way forward could be imposing economic, political, and military sanctions on Israel, including suspending its UN membership.
