Israeli occupation, colonialism and apartheid exceed the worst of South Africa’s high crimes.
In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled the West Bank occupied. The same holds for Gaza and East Jerusalem.
According to the ICJ,
“Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territory, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and an obstacle to peace and to economic and social development (and) have been established in breach of international law.”
The ICJ also ruled against Israel’s Separation Wall, calling it illegal, ordering completed sections dismantled, and “all legislative and regulatory acts relating thereto” repealed or rendered “ineffective forthwith.”
In its ruling, the ICJ mandated reparations for the “requisition and destruction of homes, businesses, and agricultural holdings (and) to return the land, orchards, olive groves, and other immovable property seized,” obligating member states to reject the illegal construction and demand Israel comply with international law.
Israel spurned the ruling, the way it treats all international law. Clearly it’ll dismiss other international court rulings against its actions, but they matter longterm — establishing a judicial record of Israeli lawlessness.
The UN and other international bodies declared Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegally occupied territories, their residents protected persons under international law.
The UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (the Declaration on Colonialism — 1960), condemned “colonialism in all its forms and manifestations,” including illegal settlements.
According to the UN International Convention for the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (the Apartheid Convention — 1973), this practice is state-sanctioned discriminatory “inhuman” racism “committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”
Resisting tyranny is a universal right. For long-suffering Palestinians, resisting Israel’s repressive boot is the only way to achieve long sought liberation.
Israeli and other Zionist ideologues hold Palestinians responsible for Jewish state high crimes committed against them.
In April 2018, the US Supreme Court refused to hear a February 2015 district court $655.5 million terrorism judgment against the Palestinian Authority (PA) during the Second Intifada for survivors of 33 US citizens killed during the Israeli-instigated September 2000 – February 2005 period.
The High Court effectively upheld a US Appeals Court ruling, ordering the judgment dismissed on grounds of no jurisdiction over a foreign organization in a foreign country.
The appeals court called it a mistake in judgment for a district court to allow the case to be heard.
Shurat Hadin, the Israeli law center, operating in cahoots with Israeli intelligence, ruling regime hardliners, and Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry uses unscrupulous tactics against Jewish state critics.
They include politically motivated lawsuits and other dubious actions against legitimate Israeli critics like BDS activists, supporting what demands condemnation.
In response to US judicial action, ruling against their without merit lawsuit, the organization called the justifiable decision “a horrible travesty of justice” — what applies to filing it, not the proper ruling, throwing the case out.
Shurat Hadin ignored the horrific five-year Second Intifada Israeli toll on defense Palestinians, including:
- 4,166 Palestinian deaths, including 886 children and 271 women;
- 554 extrajudicial assassinations; including 253 bystanders;
- 3,530 disabled or maimed Palestinians;
- 8,600 imprisoned, including 288 children and 115 women;
- 576 students killed, including 199 university-level ones and 32 teachers;
- another 4,713 students injured and 1,389 detained;
- 2,329,659 dunums of confiscated Palestinian land;
- another 73,613 dunums of razed land plus 1,355,290 uprooted trees; and
- 7,761 demolished homes and another 93,842 damaged.
The devastating over-seven decade/post-1948 Israeli toll on millions of defenseless Palestinians is incalculable, including the theft of their country, dispossessing them from their own land — the world community doing nothing to enforce the rule of law against oppressive Jewish state terror.
Shurat Hadin didn’t quit. On Monday, a Jerusalem District Court, hostile to Palestine rights, disgracefully ruled the PA liable for civil damages on behalf of eight families of Second Intifada victims.
Further judicial hearings will follow. Depending on the case’s disposition in Israeli courts, the PA could be liable for up to $1 billion in damages — despite Israeli responsibility for years of mass slaughter and destruction, Palestinians their victims during the Second Intifada, along with throughout its history.
The International Court of Justice may one day hear the case — even though its ruling will have no effect on how Israel and Zionist ideologues operate.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
Featured image is from The Bullet
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Stephen Lendman, Global Research, 2019
