Lazar Berman is the diplomatic reporter for The Times of Israel
To no one’s surprise, the United Nations General Assembly voted late Friday on a solution calling on the International Court of Justice to interfere and have an opinion on the state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In anticipation of the loss, Israeli officials had lashed out at UN procedure for weeks, saying the global framework was hopelessly skewed and that the move undermined the chances of peace. “The Palestinians need to update the negotiations with unilateral measures,” then-Prime Minister Yair said. Lapid warned after an initial vote in November. “It’s the United Nations coming back to attack Israel. “
These warnings were mere bluster. Although the ICJ only issues an advisory opinion, there is a real danger that a strident resolution in favor of the Palestinians will simply replace Israel’s position in the world, while triggering a wave of calls for sanctions against the Jewish state. distancing the Palestinian Authority from a commitment to Israel.
And with a new, uncompromising Israeli government rolling up its sleeves just as the court begins its own trial, Jerusalem’s purpose of mitigating the expected blow becomes an even more complicated challenge.
Despite the adoption of the solution, entitled “Practices and activities of the Israeli agreement affecting the rights of other Palestinian and other Arab peoples in the occupied territories,” Jerusalem felt it had won several victories on Friday.
The officials underscored what they said was a marked shift in Israel’s position since the initial Nov. 11 vote in the UNGA’s Fourth Committee. In this first vote, 98 countries adopted the resolution, 17 opposed and 52 abstained.
On Friday night, at the plenary assembly, only 87 countries were in favor, 26 voted no and 53 almost abstained or did not run.
Importantly, for Israel, which had tried to show that democracies rejected the decision, most European states voted in favor. And in a sign that Israel’s long-term efforts in Africa are bearing fruit, most sub-Saharan African countries also voted in favor of the resolution. .
“It’s a weighty thing before the judicial debate,” a Foreign Ministry official told The Times of Israel on Sunday.
The baton now moves to The Hague, where the ICJ’s registrar, Belgian Philippe Gautier, will soon publish the court’s calendar for the coming months. UN member states and NGOs will be invited to submit amicus court briefs outlining their positions, starting with a broader investigation phase.
The proceedings are progressing slowly and the court is expected to consider your advisory opinion in open consultation for up to a year or more.
Foreign Ministry resources told The Times of Israel that Jerusalem has yet to articulate its strategy in the proceedings before the ICJ, but is unlikely to be officially involved.
However, their positions may triumph in justice through allied countries and sympathetic NGOs.
— Lazar Berman (@Lazar_Berman) January 1, 2023
Regardless of the composition of the vote in the General Assembly, and no matter what Israel does in the scenes, the contours of the ICJ’s final position are well predetermined, argued Pnina Sharvit Baruch, an expert on law and national security at the National Security Institute. Studios. in Tel Aviv.
“Public opinion will not be favorable to Israel,” he predicted. “We can assume that it will be communicated about an illegal profession that has no end date [and] that undermines the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, that there is a de facto annexation, and there will be nothing about Jerusalem. “
Still, there are vital forward-looking elements in the long-term resolution that will determine how damaging the resolution is to Israel.
At best for Israel, some ICJ judges will consider minority reviews more favorable to Israel’s positions than the majority decision.
At the other extreme, the court can simply place the label of “apartheid” on Israel, which appears in the UN resolution. It can also take into account a number of recommendations calling on other foreign bodies, including the International Criminal Court, to continue investigating. Israel.
Jerusalem may at that point face a revitalized Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, limited markets for the deal’s products, investigations into individual Israeli officials, closed doors to diplomats, and renewed Palestinian violence.
Even with the active cooperation of allies like the United States, Israel’s ability to move the procedure in a favorable direction is limited.
But you can move the dial to the other side.
“The more we do things that are annexation, especially de jure annexation,” Sharvit Baruch said, and “the more we erase the Green Line, or take measures that show that there is no goal of ending rule over the Palestinians. . . All this will apply to the decisions themselves and their harshness, and especially to what is done with them afterwards.
Netanyahu’s new radical government would likely continue the kind of policy that pushes the ICJ to issue a more vehement judgment against Israel. It has signed coalition agreements that come with vague commitments to annex West Bank territory to Israel, a commitment to legalize dozens of unauthorized settlements, and the provision of a significant budget for road structure and public transportation in the West Bank.
In its coalition directives, the government insisted that “other Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel,” which includes East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
But if the ICJ lashes out at Israel, it may only put the nail in the coffin of a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian clash the foreign network says it needs, encouraging the PA not to compromise at the negotiating table, but to keep appealing to foreign organizations to damage Israel’s position without having to give up anything in the talks.
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