International Court ruling requires Israel to end its occupation of Palestine
By Daoud Kuttab and Ubai Al-Aboudi
Ramallah- The decision by the International Court of Justice declaring the Palestinian territory to be occupied and supporting Palestinians' right to an independent state is welcomed by all who respect international law. The court alluded to the post-World War II world principle included in the preamble of UN Security Council Resolution 242 namely the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.”
The ICJ opinion also found that the U.N. Security Council, the General Assembly, and all states have an obligation not to recognize the occupation as legal nor “render aid or assistance” toward maintaining Israel’s presence in the occupied territories.
It is no longer possible for western states to reject Russian occupation of parts of Ukraine while turning a blind eye to the rights of Palestinians the same as the right of Ukrainians to get rid of a foreign military occupation.
While the ICJ decision is not binding it adds a huge pressure on countries that believe in the global rule of law and the need to respect international law. The international community has ignored the tragic results of Israel’s continued illegal occupation and part of the results of this abandonment is the humanitarian tragedy that the courts in the Hague are also looking into as a possible war of genocide.
This decades-long occupation has made the West Bank including East Jerusalem and Gaza subservient and dependent on the Israeli occupiers. Therefore, the first order of business is to begin decoupling the occupation, to allow Palestinians to live in a truly independent and contiguous state. Consecutive US officials have supported the two-state solution but there has been no serious effort to ensure the end of this illegal Israeli occupation.
The international community needs to press Israel, as the ICJ has recommended, to freeze new illegal settlements. Continuing the war crime of illegal settlement would be an affront to global efforts for the rule of law and the respect of international humanitarian law. A look at the proliferation of the settlement dots on the map, the West Bank would look like a hallowed Swiss cheese.
Decades of Israeli occupation and the lack of a political horizon are in part what brought about the explosion that happened on October 7th. The Israeli delegitimization of every part of Palestinian non-violent resistance, from targeting BDS to criminalizing Palestinian civil society also played an equal part. As President John F. Kennedy famously said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” And of course, with violence human rights abuses will be committed.
The occupied Palestinian territory must be given a real chance to begin the process of independence. Movement of people and goods within the Palestinian territories including between the West Bank and Gaza and between within the occupied territories including East Jerusalem are the foundations of the effort to begin the decoupling from Israeli control.
The Israeli control over the economic activity of Palestinians is not a side product of the Israeli occupation. It is an entrenched policy that has accompanied the Israeli government from its early beginnings.
The Israeli system of control over Palestinian economic activity started right after the establishment of the state of Israel. In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied in 1967. Israel imposed a military rule that has continued unabated.
The Israeli occupation stranglehold over the Palestinian economy is manifested in military orders, economic accords with the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and actual practices on the ground that have resulted in a deformed Palestinian Economy. In this context the Palestinian Authority does not control most of the Government revenues and Palestinians face so many barriers to their economic activity that it becomes sometimes unfeasible to continue. According to a study by Palestinian Economist Adel Samara Israel used its military orders to entrench its hold of the Palestinian Economy.
This control over the Palestinian Economy was entrenched over the years and further maintained with the creation of the Palestinian Authority. The Economic agreements between the PLO and the Israeli Government known as the Paris Accords created a customs union between the P.A and Israel. This customs union although it supplied the newly established Palestinian Authority with much-needed funds, it also formalized the Israeli government’s control over an important part of the fiscal income of the Palestinian Government.
Other forms of control over Palestinian economic activity continued in the forms of denying access to water, and land and imposing barriers to internal and external trade. Land Grabbing and the utilization of Palestinian resources like oil and water for the benefit of Israeli settlers are also main parts of the Israeli policy.
This control has enabled the successive Israeli governments to choke the Palestinian Economy at will. For example, the Palestinian Economy shrunk by 35% in the first Quarter of 2024. In Gaza, due to the ongoing Israeli genocidal attack, the GDP in Gaza dropped 86% in the first Quarter of 2024 as compared to the same Quarter in 2023. In the West Bank, the GDP dropped by about 25%. This drop in the West Bank was due to the Israeli policies of preventing permits for Palestinian workers in the Israeli Economy, the increased restrictions to access for Area C including denying over 100 thousand Palestinian farmers from accessing their lands in Area C, and increased restrictions on imports and exports of goods. And recently Israel decided to confiscate agricultural fertilizers from across the West Bank which will also influence Palestinian agriculture.
There can never be a free Palestine without a sustainable and independent Palestinian economy. This has to start by enabling the Palestinian government to take control of its finances and resources. A main part of this is the ending of the Paris Accords and replacing the Israeli customs collections with an agreement with Jordan and Egypt to collect tariffs and customs on goods going to the West Bank and Gaza for the benefit of the Palestinian Government. This would release at least 60% of the Palestinian Government revenues, and help stabilize the Palestinian economy.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian government should be allowed to control and use all its basic resources on the ground of Palestine, under its ground, and in its airspace. This means that Israel’s illegal control of Palestinian water sources must end, Israeli demolitions and restrictions of Palestinian growth especially in the Jordan Valley need to stop and illegal Israeli cell companies unfairly competing with the legitimate cellphone companies in the West Bank and Gaza must be dismantled and Palestinians should be free to import and operate the latest telecommunications equipment in accordance to the regulations of the International Tele Communications Union (ITU).
Energy imports are a major source of Palestinian budgetary deficits. Estimates from the Palestinian Economic Policy Research Institute estimate that Palestinians spend 900 million dollars annually on electricity payments to the Israeli electricity company. Palestinians in 2021 imported around 90% of their electricity from Israel, with limited local electricity production and limited imports of electricity from cheaper regional sources (Jordan and Egypt).
In the Occupied Palestinian territories the total annual import of electricity is around 6,678,171 MWh. While the total consumption of electricity is about 6,683,330 MWh. According to the Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Authority (PENRA) electricity demand is expected to double by 2030. This will result in electricity cuts as electricity imports are not expected to increase to meet demand. Thus it becomes important to diversify the Palestinian imports of electricity and start large-scale projects of renewable energy production to meet the future Energy demands.
This needs to be further enabled by allowing Palestinians access to lands in Area C. Through the building of Solar Power Plants in different areas in the West Bank and Gaza a considerable growth in the supply of electricity is possible. Especially that the PV electricity yield for fixed-mounted modules at an optimum angle is efficient according to PENRA.
Other energy imports like fuel from cheaper resources from Jordan and Egypt are important to lower the prices of fuel for Palestinians and enable economic development of the industrial and transport sectors. This will also increase Palestinian revenues as this fuel is much cheaper than the fuel imported from Israel.
Although the Paris Accords allow for Palestinians to import fuel from third states. But the Israeli government has put non-tariff barriers to this import including lengthy approval processes and quality standards that are ambiguous and hard to ascertain. The international community can help overcome these barriers by exerting pressure on Israel and providing quality assurance testing for the quality of the imported fuel.
If Palestinians take control over their resources and barriers to internal and external trade are removed, the Palestinian economy will grow by at least 35% (not considering the income from oil and gas) and government revenues would be enough to sustain the Palestinian economy without foreign aid.
At present the occupied Palestinian territory is controlled by Israel, this has to stop, and a multinational force must guard the borders of the occupied Palestinian territory. Palestinians should be able to travel to and back from Jordan using their own vehicles and imports as well as exports from and to Palestine must be ensured without the control of Israel, except for security issues.
For its part, the state of Palestine must rise to the occasion provided by the important advisory ruling of the ICJ. Presidential and General elections in all the occupied territories supervised by neutral bodies must take place as soon as possible. Rule of law and a national Palestinian strategy must be implemented immediately. Palestinians’ right to self-expression, a free press, and an independent judiciary are all needed to ensure the rule of law and proper governance.
Even before the ICJ ruling Israel’s Knesset passed a law in opposition to an independent Palestinian state and after the announcement of the ruling Prime Minister Netanyahu said on X that “The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land, including in our eternal capital Jerusalem nor Judea and Samaria (West Bank), our historical homeland.” Failing to adhere to international law, and the powerful ICJ advisory decision will turn Israel into a pariah state. The international community cannot continue enabling Israel to flaunt international law without consequences.
The ball is now in the international community’s court. The ICJ has called on the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council to ensure Israeli compliance. Recognizing and supporting an independent state at the UN Security Council can go a long way in helping Palestine decouple from its occupiers and begin the process of implementing its inalienable right of self-determination leading to an independent and democratic state alongside a safe and secure state of Israel in fulfillment of the second half of the preamble of UNSC 242 that calls for “the need to work for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”
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Daoud Kuttab is an award-winning Palestinian journalist and columnist for Al-Monitor and Arab News. Ubai Al-Aboudi is the executive director of the Ramallah-based Bisan Center for Research and Development.
