Our Comment on the International Court of Justice “Advisory Opinion in respect of the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”

While we are disappointed that the crime of Genocide wasn’t taken into account by the International Court of Justice, we recognize the importance of this court advisory opinion. Above all, ‘Israel Genocide’ maintains our stance, since our founding, that Israel’s colonialism (ie. “alterations to demographic composition”) not only “have no legal validity”, but rather constitutes a consolidated long-term policy and process of genocide by Israel against the indigenous Palestinian people, which today, more than ever- considering the court recognizes the occupied Palestinian territories “single territorial unit”- transparently targets Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank as part of a single genocidal plan.

The only hint we found in the advisory opinion that the crime of genocide may be applicable is in article #239:

“by virtue of the right to self-determination, a people is protected against acts aimed at dispersing the population and undermining its integrity as a people.”

Furthermore, understanding that the court has deliberately been limited by the UN in its scope, for its own political agenda, we also reject the framing which doesn’t encompass the whole of historical Palestine and point to the dangerous limitations the court has set on the Right of Return which is an inalienable right, recognized by the UN General Assembly in Resolution 194, in 1948.

We can only hope that this advisory opinion will not be exploited in the future to further violate the right of self determination of the indigenous Palestinian people on their land.