MIDDLE EAST
Former UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine: ‘International law is not an a la carte menu’
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![](https://harici.com.tr/en/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Resim2.png)
Boğaziçi University’s Faculty of Law hosted its first International Law Conference (BILC) and brought together a large number of academics and experts including Michael Lynk, the United Nation’s former Special Rapporteur for Palestine from around the world to critically examine the current international legal order, particularly in the aftermath of Israel’s invasion of Gaza and the massacre of dozens of thousand of civilians.
During the conference, Michael Lynk gave a presentation on “Israeli Settlements under the Rome Statute of the ICC” in the session titled “Occupation, Racism and Resistance” moderated by Hilal Elver, University of California. Professor, Former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food along with the speakers Muthucumaraswamy Sornarajah who is the Emeritus Professor at National University of Singapore and Mohsen al-Attar, the Associate Dean and Professor at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. Lnyk, saying that he believes in justice points out that those of us who care for Palestine can become cynical with respect to the aspirations of international law.
Linyk, hoping the absolute permissibility of any and all of us to be skeptical about international law’s pretensions underlined that it’s absolutely wrong to be cynical about international law’s possibilities and completed his presentation with a quotation from Christoph Heusgen, the former German Ambassador to the UN which is “international law is not an a la carte menu” meaning it must apply to all.
We bring the notes from the former UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine…
There is still life for international law to shape the politics
“We must not be starry-eyed about, in any country, in any system, with respect to what law can wind up achieving. I think only error is achieved through hard work, through lobbying of legislatures, through social movements, through the fervent intellectual ideas coming up and challenging what is the dominant area of thought. And that in any domestic system, and particularly including in the international system, it always is an area of great tension between law in the service of power and law in the service of justice.”
“And those of us who believe in justice, who believe in international humanitarian and human rights and criminal law, will know it always will be a struggle to widen that space, to be able to allow justice with as much oxygen as it can get, to be able to breathe and push back against the forces of power. And this has actually been a good couple of weeks, particularly with the release of the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion two weeks ago, and obviously as we look back during the past seven months, with the release of the provisional decision by the International Court of Justice back in January, its provisional measures in March and May, and of course the announcement by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor with respect to the application for arrest warrants as well. This ought to give us hope that there is life for international law to be able to shape the future politics.
The entire Israeli occupation is now determined by the International Court of Justice
“International law by itself would not bring the liberation of Palestine. But international law combined with a separate international resolve is what we wind up needing. And people respond, and this is, I think, what’s got to be optimistic, a brief warning when I wake up, particularly during the years that I serve as Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, is that international law has that possibility of being able to be pushed forward, that people respond to a framing that something is unjust, and respond even more fervently to a framing that something is illegal, as the entire Israeli occupation has now been determined by the International Court of Justice.”
The Israeli settlements tool for demographic growth in East Jerusalem and the West Bank
“I’m going to be looking this at one aspect of that, which is the Israeli settlements, and how international law has interplayed with this over the last 50 years, and what indeed can be done. So obviously, as we know, the Israeli settlements, which were begun in the first weeks after the June War in 1967, usually disguised as an initiative of military army bases, is the primary Israeli tool for demographic growth, territorial control, and a claim for sovereignty in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. It is, as many scholars have said over the years, to be the single most important and visible feature of Israeli apartheid, and that’s been confirmed with, I think, a close reading of the decision by the International Court of Justice two weeks ago.”
“There are now over 300 Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The 2023 population, I want you to compare it to the figures I have from 2000.”
“In 2023, in the West Bank alone, there are 517,000 Israeli settlers, and you can see the growth from under 200,000 in the year 2020. In East Jerusalem, where Israel had focused its settlement activities for the first 15 to 20 years of its occupation, today there are 235,000 Israeli settlers, and there were 172,000 in the year 2000. And you look at the Golan Heights, this is the population that almost doubled, from 16,000 in the year 2000 to 29,000 today.”
“And one of the startling figures, what we call the majority decision of the International Criminal Court, was that between November 2022 and October 2023, there were 24,000 settlements, 2,000 units that are currently in various stages of the planning system within Israel. And one of the big accomplishments by the current Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, who is also Minister of Settlements within the Defense Ministry, is to eliminate three of four stages of planning and approval, such that there will be only one level of approval in order for an application for settlement units to be able to be approved. 24,000 settlement units, the policy would yield at least 200,000 new settlers.”
“If you read through the International Court of Justice decision, you will see how heavily, in fact almost exclusively, the court has relied on documentation provided by the United Nations Independent Commission on Inquiry, on the Non-Legitimacy Clause 9, or on the regular reports given. And much of this regional slide given above is from reports coming from the International Court of Justice, certainly from the High Commission on Human Rights. But if you look through the decision I produced two and a half weeks ago, you’ll see the heavy reliance that the United Nations has relied upon with respect to human documentation, talking about a number of issues, heavily influenced, including not only on the settlements, but eventually on the issue of racial discrimination and segregation and apartheid.”
“For example, it talked about the transfer of civilian population, and it noted that there was a status of Israel’s policy of providing incentives for the relocation of Israeli individuals and businesses into the West Bank, as well as looking at the industrial and agricultural development of settlers. With respect to confiscation and repossession of land, it is pointed out the extraordinary, I suspect, experience of more and more confiscation of land in the highlands of the West Bank, and more recently in Jordan Valley. And in fact, there is a very recent report that came out in the last month from Peace Now, which offers some of the most qualitative and reliable sources of information and statistics.”
Illegal settlements exploit natural resources, including water and minerals
“Going on, some of the other elements have to do with the exploitation of natural resources, including water, including minerals, and as we know, which is embedded in international law with respect to the control over one’s resources and the ability of the countries, as part of the right of self-determination, to be able to exploit our natural resources, that all of this is done on the wayside, with respect to control of Israel’s development, that Israel’s water carrier is, selling West Bank water that it has taken from a northern mountain aquifers and selling it back in fleeting prices, going back to the fact of the Palestinians, and that this was one of the important points that was relied upon by the court to be able to show the essence of racial segregation and apartheid, that there are, two different systems of laws operating issues on the West Bank. One, fulsome democratic, liberal for Israeli settlers, and the other, restrictive, minimal, violating international law, based on military law, three-plus percent of Palestinians living there.”
“At the other point, one of the reasons it comes to this issue has to do with the rising violence against Palestinians over the same period of time in the occupied West Bank. The killing of Palestinians saw by far most of it coming from the Israeli defense forces. It’s now only around 550 deaths over the last 10 months. And this is the highest number of deaths of Palestinians in the West Bank and the East Jerusalem since the 7,000 individuals over 25 years ago. So all of this, when the International Court concluded that the settlement policy is illegal.”
Transfer of population to occupied areas is war crime
“We know from the 1949 Convention, this was asserted. The occupying power in the court transferred parts of almost a million occupations in the territory of the Netherlands. This was put in there because of the incentive that arose during wars prior to the end of the Second World War to allow countries to be able to expand their territories and its territorial belonging which was amassed by other countries and then populated under civilian occupation in order to make the return of land possible.”
“And there is a rationale by Jean Pictet, in 1968, that union conventions were designed to prevent a crisis of international and systematical war by certain powers, which transferred portions of their own population to occupied territories for political and racial reasons or, in other words, they came and colonized these territories. Such transfers worsened the economic situation of the native population and endangered their separate existence as a race.”
“It’s a violation, a plagued violation. I’ll say that even in the international border crisis decisions a few weeks ago was the question of the war crimes.”
“The last time that the Security Council passed a resolution critical to the general on any matter was in December of 2016, in the last three weeks of the Obama administration, when they passed a resolution 2334, and it became the form of action that the Israeli government’s attempt to reflect their violation of international law. It reiterates the demand in over 40 years that Israel de-engage with its own settlement activity.”
“It calls upon all states, as it did in 1980, to distinguish the relevant means in between territories of the state of Israel and their particular block types. Just let me give you a couple of statistics with respect to this. When the UN Resolution 465 was passed in March of 1980, and I’m using only West Bank settlement figures, they’re easier to view than any of that.”
The number of Israeli settlers jumped from 12,500 in 1980 to 370,000 in 2023
“Does anybody know, as a rough guess, how many settlers were in the West Bank in 1980?
There were 12,500 settlers in the West Bank. By 1993, when the Oslo Accords were signed, there were 116,000 settlers in the West Bank. By about the year 2000, when the Camp David talks were conducted and then failed, there were 198,000 settlers in the West Bank. By 2014, when the last of the serious peace negotiations were conducted under John Kerry and then failed, there were 370,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank.”
“In 2003, as I said, there were no settlers in the West Bank. Back in 1936, David Ben-Gurion said, and remember, 1936 was at the height of the integration of European Jews fleeing the specter of European fascism with most of the doors to the West, Russia’s door, and then North American foes. And David Ben-Gurion said, what error could not do this in the past? And we realize that 60,000 European Jewish immigrants a year who leave in 2009 means no error saved.”
“Can we not see today, almost 90 years later, that having 3 quarters of a million Israeli settlers in each Jerusalem in the West Bank, with a growth of somewhere between 25,000 and 35,000 settlers in a year, net population, means no domestic and self-determination with this group. So let’s look at this last piece here. I’m going to read this just a few pages before we send everything else to the team.”
“There are three questions at the end of it. They want the Security Council one at the beginning of the evening. And I request that the Secretary General of the United Nations report to the Security Council every three months on the implementation of the provisions of this resolution, most importantly of which is a demand that the doors immediately cease and completely cease all settlement activity. And that has been done every three months from the proper beginning.”
“There have been Security Council Generals, General Secretary, Secretary General, has delivered to the Security Council regarding Israel’s compliance with the 2354 regarding settlement activities. The March 2024 report, which is the 29th report, is the most recent one that I’ve applied to each of them online. It says the resolution calls on Israel to immediately and completely cease all settlement activity in the occupied lands, including Israel. And it would respect the new obligations. Nevertheless, settlement activities are continued and intensified. The other long warning I thought I wanted to give for each of these security reports, no such threats are created during the reported period as settlement activities continue.”
“So we have, if you like, this passive, and this specific, almost disembodied voice coming from the UN Secretary General, or which, of course, is in a digital pattern, tailored to the security council, this remains to obey resolution 2354.”
“And I won’t take you through it, but in the 1921 report, especially going forward to the UN Security Council, I applied this variant test that the periphery committee for the ICC had developed and found that Israel had violated all three aspects. And now, the definition of the authority willingness of those in official positions of power is now being enwired, who will say that the trade settlements are a form of war crime.”
“I think is a very roosting argument, such transfer is not a form of war crime that may engage individual criminal responsibility of those involved. And then, again, we’re being introduced several times to the International Court of Justice, where it’s said, and after going through an extensive review of the ICC, which is a settlement inquiry, with respect to digital settlement policy, it affirms, and in the light of the law, the ICC reaffirms that the trade settlements in the West Bank, in Jerusalem, and in the region associated with them have an established pattern of maintaining violation of international law.”
Accountability is a missing component with respect to international law
“On the question of accountability, accountability is a missing component with respect to international law. International law, without international resolve, generally emerges from below to be able to enforce the application of existing international law. And I’m very happy with respect to these.”
“These are three of the main components with respect to international law and accountability. First of all, with respect to international and international law, common argument, common law, all four of them says that the highest common comparison is with respect to security.”
“The International Committee of the Red Cross, the guardian of the Geneva Convention, has said, to ensure respect is not simply words on paper, this is a solemn, legal, binding, commitment and obligation. The states have to require the approval of international law means any serious breach of international law, and those states require international law to assist in the breach of international law.
And finally, I want you to keep Article 25 of the Charter of the United Nations in mind that the members of the United Nations agree to accept and to carry out the decisions of the United Nations.”
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MIDDLE EAST
US military prepares plans if Gaza ceasefire talks collapse
Published
6 days agoon
06/09/2024![](https://harici.com.tr/en/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Ekran-Resmi-2024-09-06-15.49.07.jpg)
The US military is preparing for the collapse of ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas, amid fears it could spark a wider regional conflict.
I’m thinking about how that would affect tensions in the region if the talks were to stall or break down altogether, and what we need to do to be prepared in that situation,’ US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General CQ Brown told the Financial Times (FT) on Thursday.
Speaking en route to a meeting of the Ukraine Contact Group in Germany, Brown said he was assessing how regional actors would react if the talks failed and whether they would ‘step up their activities of any kind, potentially going down the path of miscalculation and widening the conflict’.
“My focus is on how not to expand the conflict, but also how to protect our forces,” the American general said.
Hostage deal still ‘not close’
Brown’s comments come as negotiations have reached an impasse. Israel and Hamas are at odds over details of the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, as well as Israel’s insistence on keeping troops in a strip of territory along Gaza’s border with Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday that the United States would share with Israel and Hamas “in the coming days” its “thoughts on exactly how to resolve the remaining issues”. He added that ‘it’s up to the parties to decide yes or no’.
While the US has sought to remain optimistic about the talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly rejected claims of progress in the talks, telling Fox News on Thursday that a deal was ‘not imminent’.
Senior US officials say the talks are 90 per cent complete but acknowledge that difficult issues remain unresolved.
We’ve had setbacks, setbacks and more setbacks, and there’s no question that the administration is disappointed that we still haven’t completed this agreement,’ US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday.
A senior US official suggested that the deaths of six Israeli hostages held by Hamas last week ‘brought a sense of urgency to the [negotiating] process’ but also ‘raised questions about Hamas’ willingness to make a deal’.
MIDDLE EAST
Gallant called Philadelphi insistence a disgrace: Ministers react
Published
1 week agoon
03/09/2024![](https://harici.com.tr/en/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/F231216NRF60.jpg)
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has described Israel’s insistence on the Philadelphi Corridor as ‘an unnecessary self-imposed constraint’. Gallant’s statement drew a response from the Prime Minister and ministers. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would insist on continuing to occupy the Philadelphi Corridor.
It was reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ministers targeted Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in the security cabinet, which met hours after Israel received the bodies of 6 Israeli prisoners in Gaza.
According to the Times of Israel, Gallant told the Security Cabinet, which met hours after the country’s largest trade union called for a general strike to demand a ceasefire and citizens held protests demanding the same, that Israel’s demand to retain control of the Philadelphi Corridor between Egypt and Gaza was ‘an unnecessary restriction we are imposing on ourselves’. Gallant warned that by insisting on this, the government ‘will not achieve its war aims’.
On Thursday last week, the Israeli security cabinet decided to continue the Israeli occupation of the Philadelphi Corridor. Following this decision, the bodies of 6 Israeli prisoners were found in Gaza. Thursday’s decision was made on the assumption that there is time, but there is no time if we want the hostages alive. It is a moral disgrace that we are giving priority to the Philadelphi Corridor at the expense of the lives of the hostages,’ Gallant told the ministers at the meeting.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was quoted as saying: ‘If we give in to Hamas’ demands, as Gallant wants, we will lose the war.
These comments reportedly drew the ire of Netanyahu and other ministers. The Prime Minister reportedly told Gallant that he would stand by his demands despite the killing of six hostages, apparently executed by soldiers approaching their location in a tunnel under Rafah, Gaza.
Netanyahu reportedly claimed that if Israel abandoned the Philadelphi Corridor, ‘the hostages would be taken to Sinai and from there to Iran’, and recalled that the United States had agreed to Israel’s Philadelphi demand, asking ‘why do you object?
Both Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Foreign Minister Israel Katz reportedly accused Gallant of trying to create a dynamic in which Hamas would extract concessions from Israel as a result of the hostage-taking.
Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer reportedly said that a reversal of the Philadelphi decision would ‘encourage murder’, adding that Israel ‘must extract a very high price from Hamas for killing the hostages’.
Netanyahu also reportedly ordered the government to prepare proposals within 48 hours for a strong response to Hamas over the execution of the six hostages.
The Walla news website reported that after the meeting, Netanyahu discussed with people close to him ‘taking advantage of the turmoil’ to fire the defence minister.
Others close to the prime minister’s office told public broadcaster Kan on Sunday that Netanyahu would not fire Gallant any time soon, but that the prime minister and his inner circle were furious, saying Gallant had ‘lost his mind’.
‘The decision is binding on Gallant’
On the other hand, Netanyahu held a press conference with Egypt on Israel’s occupation of the 14-kilometre Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza border and criticism that he had blocked the prisoner swap deal.
Netanyahu claimed that the attacks on Gaza reach their target through the Philadelphi Corridor and said, ‘We will not withdraw from here. We must all insist on staying here,’ he said.
Netanyahu claimed that when Israel withdrew from Gaza nearly 20 years ago, it talked about the importance of the Philadelphi Corridor, arguing that the failure to control the corridor was due to the fact that there was no international or national legitimacy to occupy Gaza and seize Rafah.
Referring to Defence Minister Gallant, Netanyahu said he was ‘shocked’ to hear some Israeli officials call for an end to the occupation of the Philadelphi Corridor following the discovery of the bodies of 6 Israeli prisoners in Gaza last week, adding that the decision had been taken by the cabinet and was ‘binding on everyone’.
Netanyahu also addressed the protests and criticism against him and his government, saying that ‘no one is as committed to the issue of rescuing (Israeli) prisoners as I am, and no one can tell me anything about it’.
![](https://harici.com.tr/en/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Israel-general-strike.jpg)
Hundreds of thousands of people in Israel continued to protest overnight against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his government for refusing to sign the Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal. The largest trade union, Hisdatrut, went on strike today. Flights at Ben Gurion Airport were suspended for a limited time and tram services were halted at some points. Shops in shopping centres were closed.
Following the announcement that the bodies of 6 Israeli prisoners had been found in Gaza, protests began against Netanyahu and his government, which has been criticised for sabotaging the ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal.
The centre of the demonstrations was Menachem Begin and Kaplan Streets, where the Ministry of Defence is located in the capital Tel Aviv. According to the groups organising the demonstration, around 300,000 people took part in the protests in Tel Aviv, while more than 500,000 took part in demonstrations across the country. Protesters carrying Israeli flags also carried banners, posters and placards against Prime Minister Netanyahu and politicians in his government.
Demanding the immediate return of Israeli prisoners to their homes, the demonstrators played drums and whistles and carried banners reading ‘All home now’ and ‘Help’. The demonstrators chanted slogans such as “(Netanyahu) Bibi release the prisoners” and “You are in charge, you are guilty”.
After the demonstration organised here, the groups headed towards the main roads of the city. Israeli police, stationed behind iron barriers, tried to prevent the marchers from passing. Scuffles broke out at many points.
The demonstrators, who overcame the police barriers by using different routes, closed the Ayalon motorway, the main artery of the city, to two-way traffic. The demonstrators set fires at many points on the motorway and threw fireworks on more than one occasion. Israeli police used mounted troops and sound bombs against the demonstrators. The Israeli police, who clashed with the demonstrators, announced that they had arrested 15 people in Tel Aviv.
The marches and protests in Tel Aviv, Haifa and West Jerusalem, as well as in various parts of the country, demanded the resignation of the government and the return of the prisoners. Thousands of people gathered in Haifa, blocked the city centre junction and set fire to it. There were also scuffles when Israeli police tried to disperse the demonstrators. There were reports that demonstrators across the country blocked traffic on some roads and intersections during the protests.
General strike begins
As part of the general strike declared this morning by the country’s largest trade union, Hisdatrut, it was reported that departing flights at Ben Gurion Airport, Israel’s gateway to the world, were disrupted between 08:00 and 10:00, while arriving flights operated.
Israel Airports Authority spokeswoman Lisa Drir said that Ben Gurion Airport was open today, with 60,000 people expected to travel, and that all airlines had rescheduled their flights between 08:00 and 10:00 local time.
Queues formed at the airport’s departure counters early this morning. Departure screens at the airport showed that some flights had been delayed, but then flights were scheduled to depart on time.
Shops and businesses in the Mamilla shopping centre in West Jerusalem joined the strike and lowered their shutters. More than half of the shops and businesses in the Azrieli shopping centre in central Tel Aviv joined the strike and closed, but the rest of the shops and businesses were open today.
It was reported that some public transport bus companies and rail services will not operate until 12:00 noon, and trains and trams will operate at low capacity in some cities.
It was noted that public companies such as Israel Airports Authority, Israel Ports Authority, Haifa, Usdud (Ashdod), Hadera Ports, Israel Electricity Company and Israel Postal Services participated in today’s strike.
It was reported that some universities and municipalities and some national banks were on strike today, and organisations such as the Immigration Authority, the Tax Authority and the Parks and Gardens Authority will not go to work today.
It was reported that hospitals will work on a weekend basis, kindergartens and nurseries will be closed and schools will offer half-day classes.
It was reported that private companies from many sectors such as insurance, shopping mall operators, textiles and telecommunications in Israel also joined the strike today, criticising the government for the ‘political and economic situation’. It was seen that some shopping centres across Israel were closed today.
On the other hand, parallel to the strike, it was reported that thousands of people demonstrated in dozens of places across Israel, demanding that the government sign the Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement.
Government application to the court
Meanwhile, in Israel, the government petitioned the National Labour Court to stop the strike on the grounds that it was ‘politically motivated’ and not based on an industrial dispute.
The application, made at the request of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right extremist, argued that ‘the strike is disrupting the functioning of the state, causing disruptions in health, education, transport and security in the extraordinary situation the country is going through’.
It was announced that the court would meet at noon today to discuss the state’s request to ‘suspend the strike’.
In response to the government’s request, Hisdatrut president Arnon Bar-David told the National Labour Court that the strike would end at 6 p.m. local time today.
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