Jewish Groups React to ICJ Ruling That Israeli West Bank Settlements Violate International Law
Jewish groups from across the country criticized the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) nonbinding ruling on July 19 that Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem violate international law.
According to Axios, the court called for all settlers residing in those areas to be evacuated as soon as possible and that the Israeli government should provide reparations to Palestinians who have been harmed by these government policies; the ICJ claimed that these settlements resulted in violence against Palestinians.
“Israeli officials are extremely concerned the advisory opinion will be used by Western countries, including the U.S., to impose sanctions against settlers, private entities which operate in the settlements, and the Israel government itself,” Axios reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement rejecting the ruling: “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 ancestral home.”
Reactions to the ruling by Jewish groups was overwhelmingly negative.
“The ICJ’s advisory opinion denies and denigrates Jewish history and the Jewish people’s 3,000-year connection to Jerusalem and the holy sites, including the more than 2,000-year-old Western Wall,” the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) posted on X. “It also outrageously places sole blame for the current situation on Israel and fails to consider the long history of Palestinian terrorism and rejection of multiple Israeli peace offers … Unfortunately, the ICJ’s opinion will likely result in increased anti-Israel and antisemitic hostility around the world and bolster those seeking to delegitimize Israel and the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.”
Simply put, the ICJ’s advisory opinion denies and denigrates Jewish history and the Jewish people's 3,000-year connection to Jerusalem and the holy sites, including the more than 2,000-year-old Western Wall.
— ADL (@ADL) July 19, 2024
It also outrageously places sole blame for the current situation on Israel and fails to consider the long history of Palestinian terrorism and rejection of multiple Israeli peace offers.
— ADL (@ADL) July 19, 2024
Unfortunately, the ICJ’s opinion will likely result in increased anti-Israel and antisemitic hostility around the world and bolster those seeking to delegitimize Israel and the Jewish people's right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.
— ADL (@ADL) July 19, 2024
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) criticized the ICJ ruling for “falsely” concluding “that Israeli practices are ‘inconsistent’ with the state’s legal obligations under international law and that Israel’s presence in the territories is ‘unlawful’ and should end ‘as rapidly as possible.’ In doing so, it ignored the historical circumstances that led to the current situation, namely Israel’s 1967 capture of the West Bank, the Old City of Jerusalem, and Gaza in response to existential threats and unprovoked attacks by neighboring Arab states in a clear-cut case of self-defense. It also ignored the multiple peace overtures that Israel has made toward the Palestinians over the years, including offering the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and the bulk of the West Bank with its capital in East Jerusalem, and the Palestinian leadership’s repeated rejection of these offers.” Additionally, the AJC contended that the ICJ “ignored the immense security challenges Israel faces today, including Hamas’ use of the Gaza Strip as a launching pad for firing tens of thousands of rockets against Israel’s civilian centers for years following Israel’s voluntary withdrawal from the Strip in 2005 and its misuse of millions of dollars in international humanitarian funding to build a robust terror infrastructure rather than improving the lives and living conditions of Gazan civilians. These security risks were on full display by Hamas’ rampage of rape, torture, murder, and kidnapping of Israelis in Southern Israel on October 7, 2023.” The AJC concluded that “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only be resolved around the negotiating table.”
The International Legal Forum, an Israel-based NGO of 4,000 lawyers, said in a statement, “Today’s obscene opinion by the International Court of Justice, which will only serve as a reward to Hamas over the Oct. 7 massacre, is yet another utterly baseless and politically motivated decision of the court, masquerading as a legal opinion, that will only further erode the ICJ’s credibility and place it squarely as a tool of Palestinian lawfare. Furthermore, albeit nonbinding, this opinion, delivered by the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese presiding Judge, with a preexisting deep-seated history of anti-Israel bias, is rooted in historical revision and denial of the Jewish people their inalienable connection to their holy sites, including Jerusalem. It will also only push peace further away, by removing any incentive for the Palestinian Authority to negotiate, and pour more fuel on worldwide antisemitism.”
Professor Eugene Kontorovich of the Antony Scalia School of Law at George Mason University posted to X that the ruling is “the millionth nail in coffin of two-state solution, by telling Palestinians they have all the marbles: starting position is Israel must leave all territory, evacuate all settlements, etc. This maximalist rhetoric is what has made it impossible to them to compromise for decades … For Israel, the lesson should be clear: Jerusalem must urgently quit treaties, like the Genocide Convention and a dozen others, where it agrees to give the ICJ jurisdiction. Israel cannot [carry] on with The Hague as if it is business as usual. [Too] often Israel takes diplomatic blows without a meaningful response.”
The ICJ decision is also the millionth nail in coffin of two-state solution, by telling Palestinians they have all the marbles: starting position is Israel must leave all territory, evacuate all settlements, etc. This maximalist rhetoric is what has made it impossible to them to…
— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) July 19, 2024
For Israel, the lesson should be clear: Jerusalem must urgently quit treaties, like the Genocide Convention and a dozen others, where it agrees to give the ICJ jurisdiction. Israel cannot cary on with The Hague as if it is business as usual. To often Israel takes diplomatic blows…
— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) July 19, 2024
J Street, by contrast, called the ICJ ruling is “a blaring warning siren for Israel to reverse course – and veer away from the path to annexation that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies have charted. J Street has long warned that failure to make meaningful progress toward a peaceful, negotiated resolution to this conflict – a shift that ensures the security, rights and freedoms of Israelis and Palestinians alike – invites the kind of scrutiny we see in today’s International Court of Justice advisory opinion.” The statement added that “what many experts, including many Israelis, have long acknowledged: Relentless right-wing efforts to deepen the occupation of the Palestinian Territory involve not just multiple serious violations of international law and human rights, but constitute an illegal program of annexation. While one can reasonably disagree with some of the Court’s determinations, one underlying fact is undeniable: Ongoing occupation – driven by the settlement movement and with attendant systematic deprivations, displacement and discrimination against the Palestinian people – is inconsistent with international law and Israel’s own founding values of justice, equality and peace.” J Street urged the Biden administration and members of Congress “to view the Court’s disheartening but foreseeable judgment as further evidence of the urgent need for bold, regional diplomacy to end the suffering, violence and injustice that the conflict and deepening occupation have visited upon far too many Israelis and Palestinians for far too long.”
