New York (20 October 2022) -- There are reasonable grounds to conclude that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is now unlawful under international law due to its permanence and the Israeli Government’s de-facto annexation policies, according to the first report to the General Assembly issued today by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.

Underlining that under international humanitarian law the occupation of territory in wartime is a temporary situation and does not deprive the occupied Power of its statehood nor its sovereignty, the three-person Commission called on the General Assembly to request an urgent Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legal consequences of Israel’s continued refusal to end its occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

“Recent statements by the Secretary-General and numerous member States have clearly indicated that any attempt at unilateral annexation of a State’s territory by another State is a violation of international law and is null and void; 143 member States including Israel last week voted in favour of a General Assembly resolution reaffirming this”, stated Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission. “Unless universally applied, including to the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, this core principle of the United Nations Charter will become meaningless”, she added.

In reaching its findings, the Commission reviewed the policies and actions employed by the Governments of Israel to maintain the occupation, and annex parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The Commission’s review was based on interviews with experts and stakeholders, and submissions received following a call for submissions issued on 22 September 2021.

The 28-page report focuses on the sustenance and advancement of the settlement enterprise, including statements made by Israeli officials indicating the intent to maintain permanent control over the land in violation of international law. The Commission concludes that by continuing to occupy the territory by force, Israel incurs international responsibilities and remains accountable for violations of the rights of the Palestinians individually and as a people.

“By ignoring international law in establishing or facilitating the establishment of settlements, and directly or indirectly transferring Israeli civilians into these settlements, successive Israel governments have set facts on the ground to ensure permanent Israeli control in the West Bank”, Ms. Pillay stated.

In producing its report, the Commission reviewed Israel’s expropriation and exploitation of land and natural resources, and Israel’s restrictive urban planning and zoning policies in the West Bank, noting that land is often confiscated for military purposes but is then used for settlement construction. The Commission reviewed statements by Israeli officials indicating that Palestinian construction is seen as an impediment to Israeli settlements, requiring action such as confiscation, demolitions and displacement. The Commission also observed similar processes in East Jerusalem where the restrictive planning and zoning regimes, which have obstructed adequate housing, infrastructure and livelihoods, have contributed to shrinking space for Palestinians.

The report also points to Israeli Government policies which have had a serious and multi-faceted impact on all areas of Palestinian life, including access to clean and affordable water, which has impacted the entire Palestinian agricultural sector, limiting opportunities for livelihoods particularly affecting women.

“There is so much ‘silent harm’ and psychological trauma, that may not be immediately apparent, resulting from the erosion of economic, social and cultural rights. These debilitating processes have severe short and long-term consequences and must be urgently addressed”, said Commissioner Miloon Kothari.

The Commission dedicated a significant part of its report to reviewing the impact of Israel’s occupation and de-facto annexation policies on Palestinian human rights, noting the coercive environment intended to force Palestinians to leave their homes and alter the demographic composition of certain areas. To this effect, the Commission reviewed the demolition of homes and destruction of property, the excessive use of force by security forces, mass incarceration, settler violence, restrictions of movement, and limitations on access to livelihoods, basic necessities, services and humanitarian assistance.

The Commission emphasised that this ongoing coercive environment has fragmented Palestinian society and ensured that Palestinians are unable of fulfil their right to self-determination among other rights. The Commission also noted the extremely harmful impact of the air, land and sea blockade of Gaza on Palestinian human rights.

The report outlines a specifically damaging impact on children, who experience constant military presence, arrest and detention, frequent attacks and acts of violence, restrictions on movement, home demolition and destruction of infrastructure and property...

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/10/commission-inquiry-finds-israeli...

wombatwoody wrote on Oct 28^th, 2022 at 4:56pm:


The West Bank and Gaza were not the territory of another State in 1967 when Israel occupied them.  They were the occupied territories - not  States - by other States, Jordan and Egypt respectively, which together with Syria, attacked Israel in the 1967 war and lost. These Occupied Territories were then occupied by Israel.

The last time they were part of a State was when they were part of the Ottoman Empire which, obviously, no longer exists.


Muslim lands are 29.13 million sq km, about 20% of the total land area of Earth.  The WB and Gaza are about 6,100 sq kms. Or about 0.03% of the total Muslim lands.

wombatwoody wrote on Oct 28^th, 2022 at 4:56pm:



No, it isn't.

I found 'a 2nd opinion'........         



THIS, is international law.....

Quote:
https://aijac.org.au/resource/international-law-and-the-arab-israel-conflict/



In 1948, and 1967, Arab states surrounding the Jewish state, attacked the Jewish state, seeking to annihilate [totally remove] the Jewish state.

The Jewish state, in order to secure its own defence [once it defeated those Arab attackers] has seized some of the territory [from which Arab states previously attacked the Jewish state].




wombatwoody,

.....THESE THINGS HAPPENED BECAUSE it was Allah's will,
.....that the Arabs forces who attacked the Jewish state [1948, 1967],
would be defeated,

AND,

it was Allah's will, that through their defeat, the Jewish state would then seize MORE of its own ancient homeland, specifically, the ancient territory of JUDEA,
which the moslems had seized from others, many centuries before.



.



QUESTION;
When moslems steal another peoples land, it becomes moslem land, forever ?

Well, sorry,      NO!

e.g.
Because the Ottomans entered WWI on the side of the Germans,     moslems [Ottomans] lost sovereignty over their territories in the M.E. after WWI.

Those who gained sovereignty over the Ottomans territories in the M.E. after WWI,      eventually set aside, a small portion of those Ottomans territories in the M.E. to form a Jewish homeland, on their [the Jewish] ancient homeland, land.

And then, the local moslems, WENT BERSERKO.    < ---- that is a technical term.

And the poor dears are still crying in their tea, to this day!



IMAGE.....

http://www.protestwarrior.com/nimages/signs/large/pw_sign_22.gif     IF NO IMAGE....view the image in your browser, in an open browser page

/sarc off

Yadda wrote on Oct 28^th, 2022 at 10:48pm:


The AIJAC is a Jewish lobby group.

Great source!   

wombatwoody wrote on Oct 29^th, 2022 at 5:12am:


Population transfers would be illegal if the Occupied Territories had been the territories of a State or States at the time of their occupation by Israel.
If they has occupied, say, Lebanon.

But the Occupied territories were not part of any state since the end of the Ottoman Empire, the last State they formed part o since then they have been occupied by various States but formed no part of any.

Jasin wrote on Oct 29^th, 2022 at 5:43am:


Jewish authors, Israel Shahak, whose father lost his life in a Nazi death camp, and Norton Mazvinsky, a professor of history, have pointed out that while Islamic fundamentalism gets all the attention, i.e. the 'war on terror', it would be unwise to ignore the Jewish/Zionist variety.

In their book, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, they explain that Jewish religious extremism is a very real threat to the world. To make their point, they provide examples of Jewish law, and how it impacts Jewish life in Israel, and more importantly, Jewish military and other public policies, which also impacts the United States and the world, especially the Muslim world.

From the Preface:


Although possessing nearly all the important social scientific properties of Islamic and Christian fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism is practically unknown outside of Israel and certain sections of a few other places...

As students of contemporary society and as Jews, one Israeli, one American, with personal commitments and attachments to the Middle East, we cannot help seeing Jewish fundamentalism in Israel as a major obstacle to peace in the region. Nor can we help being dismayed by the dismissal of the perniciousness of Jewish fundamentalism to peace and to its victims by those who are otherwise knowledgeable and astute and so quick to point out the violence inherent in other fundamentalist approaches to existence...

In the 1990s, Israeli sociologists and scholars in other academic fields have focused more attention than ever before upon the social effects in Israeli society of Jewish fundamentalists. The overwhelming opinion of these scholars is that the adherents of Jewish fundamentalism in Israel are hostile to democracy .The fundamentalists oppose equality for all citizens, especially non-Jews and Jewish "deviants" such as homosexuals. The great majority of religious Jews in Israel, influenced by fundamentalists, share these views to some extent. In a book review published on October 14, 1998, Baruch Kirnrnerling, a distinguished Israeli sociologist, citing evidence from a study conducted by other scholars, commented:

The values of the [Jewish] religion, at least in its Orthodox and nationalistic form that prevails in Israel, cannot be squared with democratic values. No other variable—neither nationality, nor attitudes about security, nor social or economic values, nor ethnic descent and education—so influences the attitudes of [Israeli] Jews against democratic values as does religiosity.

Seffi Rachlevsky in his book states that Rabbi Kook, the Elder, the revered father of the messianic tendency of Jewish fundamentalism (who is featured in our book), said "The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews—all of them in all different levels—is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle." ... Rachlevsky pointed out that Rabbi Kook's entire teaching was based upon the Lurianic Cabbala, the school of Jewish mysticism that dominated Judaism from the late sixteenth to the early nineteenth century. One of the basic tenants of the Lurianic Cabbala is the absolute superiority of the Jewish soul and body over the non-Jewish soul and body. According to the Lurianic Cabbala, the world was created solely for the sake of Jews; the existence of non-Jews was subsidiary. If an influential Christian bishop or Islamic scholar argued that the difference between the superior souls of non-Jews and the inferior souls of Jews was greater than the difference between the human soul and the souls of cattle, he would incur the wrath of and be viewed as an anti-Semite by most Jewish scholars regardless of whatever less meaningful, positive statements he included...

The fact is that certain Jews, some of whom wield political influence, consider Jews to be superior to non-Jews and view the world as having been created only or primarily for Jews...

The fundamentalists also justify their own belief in Jewish superiority and their feeling of contempt for non-Jews; they seek to reproduce the mythical golden age in which their views would dominate. We have written this book in order to reveal the essential character of Jewish fundamentalism and its adherents. This character threatens democratic features of Israeli society. We believe that awareness is the necessary first step in opposition...

We believe that a critique of Jewish fundamentalism, which entails a critique of the Jewish past, can help Jews acquire more understanding and improve their behavior towards Palestinians, especially in the territories conquered in and occupied since 1967. We hope that our critique will also motivate other people in the Middle East to engage in criticism of their entire past in order to increase their knowledge of themselves and improve their behavior towards others in the present. All of this could constitute a major factor in bringing peace to the Middle East.

PRESS RELEASES
SPECIAL PROCEDURES
27 October 2022

Report (A/77/356)

NEW YORK (27 October 2022) – Israel’s occupation is illegal and indistinguishable from settler-colonialism, which must end as a pre-condition for the Palestinians to exercise their right to self-determination, the UN’s independent expert on the occupied Palestinian territory said today.

“For over 55 years, the Israeli military occupation has prevented the realisation of the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people, violating each component of that right and wilfully pursuing the “de-Palestinianisation” of the occupied territory,” said Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, in a report to the General Assembly.

Albanese’s report found that the Israeli occupation violates Palestinian territorial sovereignty by seizing, annexing, fragmenting, and transferring its civilian population to the occupied territory. The occupation endangers the cultural existence of the Palestinian people by erasing or appropriating symbols expressing Palestinian identity and violates Palestinians’ ability to organise themselves as a people, free from alien domination and control, by repressing Palestinian political activity, advocacy and activism.

“This is, in essence, proof of the intent to colonise the occupied territory, and manifests Israel’s policies of domination through the “strategic fragmentation” of the occupied territory,” the expert said.

According to the report, the international community’s political, humanitarian, and economic approaches to resolving the Israel/Palestine “conflict” have failed without exception.

“These approaches conflate root causes with symptoms and serve to normalise Israel’s illegal occupation instead of challenging it. This is immoral and renders the regulatory and remedial function of international law futile,” Albanese said.

The report calls for “a paradigm shift”, which entails moving away from the narrative of “conflict” between Israel and the Palestine and recognising Israel’s “intentionally acquisitive, segregationist and repressive settler-colonial occupation.”

Albanese urged the international community to formally acknowledge and condemn the settler-colonial nature of the Israeli occupation, demand an immediate end to the illegal occupation, and call on Israel to withdraw its military presence and support to Israeli civilians in the colonies. She cautioned all States against making withdrawal subject to negotiations between Israel and Palestine.

“Meaningful discussions on a political solution for Palestine can only begin when the illegal occupation is dismantled once and for all,” the expert said.

https://www.un.org/unispal/document/dismantling-israels-illegal-occupation-is-a-...