Pretoria hails World Court’s Israel findings

International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola has hailed the World Court opinion that Israel’s occupation of Palestine territories is illegal, saying it vindicated SA’s stance that Palestinians were being subjected to apartheid and meant Israel now has ‘nowhere to hide’. The Sunday Times reports that Friday’s opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is not binding but carries considerable weight, found that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem violated international law. The ICJ declared that Israel was obliged to pay restitution for harm done and must remove Israeli settlers from the territories. Speaking from Ghana, where he attended an AU meeting, Lamola said the ICJ’s finding was groundbreaking. ‘There is nowhere to hide for the state of Israel because they have always been arguing that they are acting in self-defence. This ruling clearly shows that an occupier can’t act in self-defence, and can’t enter and occupy another person’s state in violation of international law.’ TimesLIVE reports that Israel’s Foreign Ministry rejected the opinion as ‘fundamentally wrong’ and one-sided, and repeated its stance that a political settlement in the region can only be reached by negotiations. ‘The Jewish nation cannot be an occupier in its own land,’ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement recorded by TimesLIVE. The opinion also angered West Bank settlers as well as politicians such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, whose nationalist religious party is close to the settler movement, and who himself lives in a West Bank settlement. ‘The answer to The Hague – Sovereignty now’, he wrote in a post on X, in an apparent appeal to formally annex the West Bank. The ICJ opinion also found that the UN Security Council, the General Assembly and all states have an obligation not to recognise the occupation as legal nor ‘render aid or assistance’ towards maintaining Israel’s presence in the occupied territories. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called the opinion ‘historic’ and urged states to adhere to it. ‘No aid. No assistance. No complicity. No money, no arms, no trade... no actions of any kind to support Israel’s illegal occupation,’ Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said outside the court in The Hague.

Lamola said the finding is ‘the most instructive with regards to occupation’. ‘You will remember that we made a submission in court and we characterised the situation almost the same as our situation in SA and apartheid, segregation and related intolerance.’ He was referring to a separate case brought by SA in the ICJ in December, in which the country accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. ‘The court has agreed with our submission that indeed what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank is apartheid. This confirmation is a vindication of SA’s stance,’ Lamola said. The Sunday Times notes that advisory opinion issued by the ICJ last week was sought by members of the UN General Assembly two years ago. The president of the ICJ, Nawaf Salam, read out the findings of the 15-judge panel: ‘Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law.’

The top UN court's finding is ‘largely consistent with EU positions’, the bloc's foreign policy chief said on Saturday. News24 reports that the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs said that the bloc had taken ‘good note’ of the court's finding and urged further backing for the court's opinion. ‘In a world of constant and increasing violations of international law, it is our moral duty to reaffirm our unwavering commitment to all ICJ decisions in a consistent manner, irrespective of the subject in question,’ Josep Borrell said. He added that the opinion ‘will need to be analysed more thoroughly, including in view of its implications for EU policy’. The ICJ's opinion is not binding, but it comes amid mounting concern over the death toll and destruction in Israel's war against Hamas sparked by the group's brutal attack on 7 October 2023, as well as increased tensions in the West Bank.

Eight months after SA started its legal battle against Israel, the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) has repeated its warning to President Cyril Ramaphosa that he could suffer from ‘God’s punishment’ for the decision. TimesLIVE reports that ACDP deputy president Wayne Thring, citing crime statistics, warned Ramaphosa and the ANC of God’s punishment for taking Israel to court. He was speaking during the opening of Parliament debate, ‘Mr President, our president Dr (Kenneth) Meshoe warned you about inviting the judgment of God upon yourself and your party regarding the hypocritical international position taken on the Israeli/Palestine conflict. Let this be your second warning,’ Thring said.