Occupied Palestine, 19 July 2024 – The International Court of Justice (ICJ), having confirmed the plausibility of Israel’s genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza in January, just declared Israel guilty of apartheid and its military occupation illegal. The World Court ordered Israel to completely end its military occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
The ICJ ruling today affirms beyond doubt the legal obligation for all States to end complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation and gross violations of human rights, and to act to ensure respect for international law. This demands imposing immediate targeted sanctions on Israel, starting with a comprehensive military embargo.
Now, states have no excuse to ignore their legal obligation to ensure that corporations, banks, investment funds, and institutions, including universities, domiciled under their jurisdiction must end all complicity in Israel’s apartheid and illegal occupation.
The judgment of the world’s top court confirms what was put to it by the majority of member states of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), that Israel’s military occupation is a racially discriminatory system, amounts to annexation and aggression against the Palestinian people, denying it its inalienable right to self-determination.
Saleh Hijazi, the BDS movement’s Apartheid-Free Policy Coordinator, said:
“The ICJ’s historic ruling that Israel is guilty of apartheid and annexation, that its occupation is illegal, and that it has to dismantle its colonial settlements, provide reparations and let refugees return to their original place of residence, is a crucial step towards ending its 76-year-old regime of settler-colonialism, apartheid and now genocide.
“We still have to continue exercising our collective agency, our people power, to make states to end their complicity with apartheid Israel’s genocidal regime and impose targeted, meaningful sanctions against it. We need to escalate our struggle everywhere to push for suspending Israel from all international fora, such as the United Nations, FIFA and the Olympics, as was done against apartheid South Africa. We must also escalate pressure on every complicit corporation and institution to make it end its own complicity.
“Given Israel’s ongoing, live-streamed, Western-enabled genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, the Indigenous people of Palestine believe more than ever that to exercise our inalienable right to self-determination, the return of our refugees, and to achieve justice, Israel’s entire regime of colonial oppression must be dismantled. Ending state, corporate and institutional complicity in this regime is the most effective and meaningful form of international solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle.”
Maren Mantovani, Stop the Wall’s international relations representative in the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), which leads the global BDS movement, added:
“This is the second damning judgement by the World Court against Israel this year, having confirmed the plausibility of genocide in January and triggered states’ legal obligation to prevent genocide. It is the third judgment against Israel in total, as the ICJ had already in 2004 confirmed the illegality of Israel’s Wall and settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territory and, for the first time, laid out the binding obligations of Third States and the UN to end Israel’s violations of international law.
“If states do not want to relegate the ICJ to oblivion or transform it into yet another instrument of the colonial West to rule, pillage and subjugate peoples of the Global South, it is fundamental for the global majority to ensure the ICJ rulings are consistently and thoroughly respected and implemented.”
The BDS movement calls for maximum grassroots and civil society pressure on all states, the United Nations, and regional bodies to:
Immediately impose a comprehensive military embargo on Israel, including the export, import and transfer of weapons, military equipment, and dual-use items, as well as an end to all other forms of military cooperation (training, joint research, investments, etc.).
Impose lawful targeted sanctions against Israel, including diplomatic, economic, and financial sanctions.
Immediately end all other forms of complicity with Israel’s illegal military occupation, its ever more brutal genocide in Gaza, and the root cause of all this: Israel’s 76-year-old regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid.
Re-activate the UN Special Committee against Apartheid to help eradicate Israel’s regime of apartheid and hold those responsible accountable.
Suspend Israel from the United Nations and strip it of its privileges and membership rights, just as was done with apartheid South Africa.
Suspend Israel from the Olympics, FIFA, and international and regional fora and events.
Background
In total, 57 countries submitted written pleadings to the Court. Over the course of six days of hearings, an unprecedented 49 States gave an oral presentation on their positions regarding the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The majority of submissions made arguments that the occupation is illegal and addressed the consequences for Israel. 25 submissions included analysis, or at least a reference, to apartheid and/or systematic discrimination or discriminatory policy.
The following countries used the word apartheid, some provided lengthy analysis of the applicability of the apartheid framework: Jordan, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the African Union, Bangladesh, Chile, Lebanon, the League of Arab States, South Africa, Kuwait, The Gambia, Belize, Bolivia, Cuba, Qatar, Palestine, Pakistan, Yemen, Indonesia, Namibia, China. Brazil, France, and Spain referenced discrimination.