Statement on the Situation in Israel and Gaza

The situation in Israel and Gaza continues to escalate in the toll of starvation, disease, and misery enacted upon innocent civilians. We urge the following:

• A permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
• A leadership change in Israel. It appears increasingly clear that a ceasefire will not happen with Netanyahu and his supporters in control of Israel’s policy and military.
• The release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas.
• Control of Gaza to be given to the Palestinian Authority.
• Resumption of talks for a two-state solution in Israel. This solution, repeatedly rejected by Netanyahu, must be brought back to the table and supported by new Israeli leadership.
• Significant and immediate aid and protection for Palestinians in Gaza who face imminent danger from hunger, disease, and military bombardment.
• An end to arms exports to Israel that are intended for use in Gaza.

We support the ongoing investigations of the International Criminal Court into the situations in Israel and Palestine. We support an end to impunity for those in command who violate international humanitarian law, adherence to which is required by 1949 Geneva Conventions and customary international law.

David J. Scheffer: “What International Law Has to Say About the Israel-Hamas War“

David J. Scheffer is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His area of expertise is international law and international criminal justice. He served as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Expert on UN Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials from 2012 to 2018, and was the Tom A. Bernstein Genocide Prevention Fellow working with the Ferencz International Justice Initiative at the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum from 2019 to 2021.

The Israel-Palestine Conflict:

History, Causes, and International Law

Anthony Patton
Law Student, Mitchell Hamline School of Law, Fall 2022

Occupied Palestinian Territory (as of December 2011)
Image by Wickey-nl. Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0). License.

The conflict between Israel and Palestine has spanned 75 years, with thousands dead and many more injured and displaced, a disproportionate number of whom are Palestinians. The cycle of violence – of action causing reaction causing retribution – has spiraled over time, the ratchet ever-tightening, rarely giving relief. The human toll of this conflict is vast, and even the involvement of some of the world’s most powerful leaders has not brought an end to the violence and suffering. Each side perceives the actions of the other to have been so indefensible, so often repeated, and so layered that it is difficult to know where to begin when analyzing the situation. This paper describes the violence that has occurred and the international laws that may have been broken. Although the actions of the Palestinians will be addressed, the major focus is the conduct of Israel – the richer, better armed, occupying power.

A Brief History of Israel and Palestine

Early History

In 1917, while Palestine was still under control of the Ottomans, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, giving support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish People” in Palestine. The British Empire, a member of the League of Nations, gained formal control of the region in 1922 under the Mandate for Palestine. The intent of this mandate was to rule over the area until the time when it would be able “to stand alone.”[1]

During this time, both the Jewish and Arab populations experienced a rise of nationalist movements, leading to revolts and insurgencies in both communities. This area would remain under mandate until 1948. In the midst of the unrest, and alongside the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe as a result of Nazi Germany coming to power, Britain conducted an investigation known as the Peel Commission to look for a solution. In 1937, a report was published stating that the mandate was not working and partition would be necessary, creating a Jewish state alongside an Arab one.[2] This plan was condemned by the Arabs in the region, but it had British and Jewish support.

Post-World War II

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations passed Resolution 191 to adopt the plan to partition the region into sovereign Jewish and Arab states. The following day, civil war broke out, engulfing the region in conflict between guerrilla forces. Britain ended the mandate on May 14, 1948 and withdrew, and the State of Israel declared independence the same day, establishing a new state that was immediately recognized by both the United States and the Soviet Union. The fledgling state was then invaded by surrounding Arab armies from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, all acting to protect Arab lives, property, and self-determination in the region. During this conflict, the newly -formed Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) eventually gained the upper hand. After the failure of early peace talks and ceasefires, an armistice was ultimately reached in 1949. The agreement granted Israel control of 78 percent of the region – a land share 22 percent greater than specified in the initial U.N. partition plan. Egypt occupied the Gaza strip in the region’s southwest, while Jordan gained control of the West Bank region in the east.

During the conflict, around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled the area or were forcibly expelled from their homes, an exodus called “Nakba” (catastrophe).[3] This number represents approximately 80 percent of the Palestinian Arab inhabitants of the region.[4] The term “Nakba” would go on to refer to the ongoing displacement and Israeli occupation of the region.

Part and parcel of this exodus was the depopulation and/or destruction of over 500 Palestinian villages (which would subsequently be resettled by Jewish Israeli citizens) and the creation of permanent Palestinian refugees, a mass dispossession whose legacy is still evident today. Additionally, large numbers of the remaining Arab population were internally displaced. In 1950 this number was estimated to be 46,000 of 156,000.[5] As of 2003, one quarter of the remaining Arab citizens of Israel are internally displaced as a direct result of the Nakba – approximately 274,000 people.[6] After the war, some of the Arab population attempted to return for economic or social reasons, but somewhere between 2,700 and 5,000 of them were killed by Israel security forces, many through mines and booby traps. The vast majority of these victims were unarmed.[7]

In the long run, one of the most devastating impacts that the Nakba had on the Arab population of Palestine is their conversion into a stateless people. They became a second-class group of citizens, denied legal nationality and basic human rights – including the right to return to their former homes. Some of the Arabs remaining in Israel have attempted to gain Israeli citizenship, but between 1967 and 2007, only 12,000 of the 250,000 Palestinians living in Jerusalem have been granted Israeli citizenship.[8]

Modern Era

In 1979, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty granting Israel control over the Gaza Strip. In 1988, Jordan gave up its claim to the West Bank region, one of the Palestinian regions occupied by Israel. In 1994, governmental authority of Gaza was given to the Palestinians, and in 1995 the same was done for the West Bank region. Protest, unrest, and terror attacks, including suicide bombings, have led to the establishment of physical barriers around Gaza, with Israel enacting a land, sea, and air blockade. Egypt, which controls the southern border of the Gaza Strip, has also closed the border.

The main political authority in Palestine today is Hamas, a militant organization intent on regaining statehood for Palestine by reclaiming Israeli-occupied land. Hamas has waged many attacks on Israelis, including against civilians. Hamas is designated by the United States and some other countries as a terrorist organization, making it difficult for humanitarian aid to make its way into the Palestinian territories. In 2018 the U.N. General Assembly rejected a U.S. resolution to name Hamas a terrorist organization. Much like they did with Israel, the international NGO Human Rights Watch has condemned Hamas for attacks on civilians, especially as the targets of reprisals.

In 2006, Hamas gained a majority in the legislative elections in the Palestinian Authority, creating an uneasy balance of power with the other major political party, Fatah. This prompted a civil war between the two Palestinian parties, with Hamas eventually taking control of Gaza and Fatah claiming control of the West Bank. In subsequent years, a unity government has been formed between the two.

Causes of the Violence

Legal Status of Palestine

When considering the genesis of violence in this region, it is useful to examine the legal status of the state of Palestine itself. Because Palestine is viewed as a lesser state in the legal sense, it is vulnerable to formalistic arguments about and whether, why, and when the international community and courts should intervene. The Palestine Liberation Organization was granted Observer status at the U.N. in 1974, and in 2011 Palestine applied to become a full member, but the U.N. Security Council refused to approve the application. This spurred the General Assembly to grant Palestine an upgrade in status in 2012 to a “non-member observer state,” thereby enabling the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice to oversee any legal proceedings for Palestine.  Removing arguments that prevent the international community from examining questions of crime and justice in Palestine is an important step towards resolution. Indeed, the U.N.’s shunning of Palestine mimics the conditions within Palestine itself, as discussed below.

Apartheid Conditions

the single greatest cause of the unremitting violence in Palestine is the apartheid conditions imposed on the Palestinian people. This system of segregation and subjugation stokes Palestinian resentment and anger. The Israeli government’s repression keeps the cycle of violence in motion, and the cycle cannot be stopped unless conditions change.

That these conditions violate global human rights law is made clear by the U.N.’s International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Adopted in 1973, the treaty defines apartheid in part as

Denial to a member or members of a racial group or groups of the right to life and liberty of person … Deliberate imposition on a racial group or groups of living conditions calculated to cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part … and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the right to form recognized trade unions, the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.[9]

Similarly, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court refers to apartheid as an “institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.”[10] Under these definitions, it is apparent that Israel is overseeing an apartheid regime, denying the Palestinians rights that should be guaranteed under international law.

Israel has implemented a number of policies that have resulted in these separate and unequal conditions. Some of them are more implicit, such as the building of roads across the West Bank or drastic restrictions on travel within or beyond the territories for security or other reasons. But there are explicit policies of repression as well. In 2018, for instance, discrimination against Palestinians was codified into an Israeli constitutional law that declared Israel to be exclusively a “nation state of the Jewish people” while also promoting Jewish settlements and downgrading the former status of Arabic as an official language.[11]

Because of the tightly controlled border, the Gaza Strip has frequently been called the “largest open-air prison in the world.” The Gaza Strip has a population of around 1.8 million people, with the median age of just 18.[12] The population density is similar to that of London. Israel controls the power, food, water, and aid going into Gaza, and blackouts are frequent. Israel controls the air, land, and sea border, and has imposed tighter and tighter restrictions on where fishing can occur, employing a full naval blockade. The Israeli government has used the threats of terrorism and, more recently, of COVID-19 as reasons to further tighten restrictions on who can come and go from Gaza.[13] Permits to travel in and out can be difficult to obtain and are frequently denied for opaque reasons such as “security concerns” or “nonconformity,” with no further explanation, if  there is a response at all.[14] These restrictions have made it nearly impossible for Palestinians to travel abroad, but also almost impossible to travel even to the West Bank. They are segregated both from part of their country and from the rest of the world. Protests against the conditions are often swiftly and brutally put down, a clear illustration of Israel using such proscribed acts to keep the status quo in place. In 2018, Palestinians in Gaza started to hold weekly protests along the border to Israel. They called for refugees’ right to return home and for an end to the blockade. Israeli officials warned protesters that anyone approaching the wall would be shot, but protesters approached all the same. By the end of 2019, Israeli forces had killed 214 civilians – 46 of whom were children.[15]

While Gaza by its very nature may be the starkest example of Israel’s apartheid system, the people in the West Bank endure it as well. Palestinians who live in the annexed East Jerusalem are granted status only as permanent residents, not as citizens. Yet this status is frequently far from permanent: More than 14,000 Palestinians have had their residency permits revoked since 1967, resulting in their forced transfer outside of the city.[16] Israel has constructed a network of roads through the West Bank, frequently on land that was expropriated from Palestinians. These roads tie Israeli settlements together and connect them to metropolitan areas within Israel, while bypassing major Palestinian population centers and forming physical barriers restricting Palestinian movement. Palestinians are forbidden to travel on more than 40 kilometers of these roads; travel is limited on another 19 kilometers. Such controls of Palestinian movement are common in the territories: Israeli forces in Hebron, for instance, now prohibit Palestinians from walking on what once was a central thoroughfare of the city – for the explicit purpose of making the area “sterile” of Palestinians.[17]

In addition to the roads and restrictions, Israel has constructed a 30-foot-high wall that runs through the West Bank. Initially constructed as a temporary security measure, the wall has become an essentially permanent fixture, expanding further and further, effectively annexing more and more territory for Israel. In 2003 the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution that the building of the wall was a violation of international law and demanded its removal, but that has yet to take place.[18]

The effects of this imposed segregation can be seen in a number of basic statistics. Israel has a GDP per capita of $52,152 compared to $3,451 for Palestine. The unemployment rate is 4.1% in Israel compared to 23.4% in Palestine. Despite having just over half as many people as Israel, Palestine has nearly twice as many unemployed. The life expectancy in Israel is over 8 years higher in Israel (82.70 years versus 74.21 years).[19] These discrepancies do not happen by accident. While they are only a small part of the picture, they are illustrative of the effects of Israel’s system of apartheid.

Settlements

If the apartheid system is a primary cause of persistent violence, Israeli settlements in the West Bank certainly are among the largest barriers to getting it to stop. Yousef Munayyer of the Arab Center Washington explains that today, “The idea that land cannot be taken by force is a fundamental norm.”[20] Yet that is exactly what Israel has done and keeps doing. While the international community, and particularly the United States, could step in to demand a stop to this incursion, as of yet they have largely been unwilling to do so. The settlements have been decried as illegal, but no real action has been taken to enforce that position. Since 1948, Israel has demolished hundreds of thousands of Palestinian homes and other properties in all areas within its control, often to make way for settlements.[21] The construction of settlements has been an Israeli governmental policy since 1967, and today, they cover 10 percent of the land in the West Bank. Palestinians in East Jerusalem have suffered as well: between 1967 and 2017, 38 percent of Palestinian land in the territory has been expropriated.[22]

To make matters worse, it appears that the rate of expansion is accelerating. In 2021, for example, construction of new settlement units in occupied East Jerusalem numbered 14,984, more than twice as many as in 2020 (6,288).[23] In the West Bank, Israel has confiscated more than 2 million dunams of land from Palestinians, making up more than one -third of the West Bank. This area includes the tens of thousands of dunams that are acknowledged by Israel to be privately owned. Israel accomplishes this by simply declaring the land “state land.” Around one quarter of the West Bank has been labeled in this way, and more than 30 percent of the land used for settlements has been acknowledged by the Israeli government to have been privately owned by Palestinians.[24] The seizure of land and forced removal of occupants is only part of the problem. The indirect effects of the settlements are also important, as they function to continually cut off and isolate populations of Palestinians from one another. Three settlements advancing in 2021 – E1, Atarot, and the Lower Aqueduct – would cut off residents of East Jerusalem from other major West Bank population centers, such as Ramallah and Hebron.[25] The continued expansion of the settlements into occupied territory is profoundly damaging to any realistic possibility of a two-state solution because of the way that it complicates the situation and exacerbates the violence at hand.

U.S. policy has largely made things worse with respect to the settlements. The United States has frequently advocated a two-state solution, but rarely acts to facilitate this. In fact, the United States has repeatedly used its position on the U.N. Security Council to shield Israel from international criticism. Things were made worse under President Trump, who contradicted long-standing U.S. policy in stating that Israel’s settlements were not illegal under international law. He deepened the damage by moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which under international law is deemed occupied territory. The Trump administration also stopped encouraging peace talks and instead worked to normalize Israel’s relations with other nearby Arab states. These policies have largely been continued under Biden.[26] The US has conceded that increased settlement activity is damaging to any hope of a long-term peace but has yet to act against the trend. In 2016, after the U.N. passed a resolution condemning the settlements, then-Secretary of State John Kerry stated that the settlements were detrimental to the security of Israel and “it is the permanent policy of settlement construction that risks making peace impossible.” Since that resolution was passed, there have been 71,390 more Israeli settlers, bringing their number to over 685,000.[27]

Specific Crimes

Genocide

Coined in 1944 by legal scholar Raphael Lemkin, ‘genocide’ is a term with both sociological and legal meaning. As Lemkin explained,

the term [genocide] does not necessarily signify mass killings. More often…the end may be accomplished by the forced disintegration of political and social institutions, of the culture of the people, of their language, their national feelings and their religion. It may be accomplished by wiping out all basis of personal security, liberty, health and dignity. When these means fail, the machine gun can always be utilized as a last resort.

For Lemkin, the violence inflicted against the individual is secondary to the aim of the destruction of the larger group to which individuals belong.[28]

Our current understanding of genocide shares a great deal with Lemkin’s interpretation: It is a special, collective type of violence enacted against a specific people. The term was defined with greater legal specificity in the Genocide Convention as acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” These acts could include components such as “(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”[29] This definition is mirrored in Article 6 of the Statute of the ICC, which gained jurisdiction over crimes occurring in Palestine since June 13, 2014,[30] and in the Rome Statute, to which Palestine acceded on January 2, 2015.

During the 2014 Gaza War, the U.N. Special Advisers on the Prevention of Genocide issued a statement that they were “disturbed by the flagrant use of hate speech in the social media, particularly against the Palestinian population,” and that “individuals have disseminated messages that could be dehumanising to the Palestinians and have called for the killing of members of this group,” while “remind[ing] all that incitement to commit atrocity crimes is prohibited under international law.”[31] This sort of language is not isolated, either. Israeli lawmakers have publicly called for action against Palestinians that would clearly meet the definition under the 1948 Convention. In 2008, Matan Vilnai, the Deputy Defense Minister for Israel, declared that the increasing tensions in the Gaza Strip would bring on a “shoah” (or holocaust). He stated, “The more Qassam [rocket] fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.”[32] Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked posted a statement in June 2014 on Facebook stating that “the entire Palestinian people is the enemy” and he advocated for Palestine’s destruction “including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.” The post also called for the killing of Palestinian mothers who give birth to “little snakes.”[33] The language is shocking, and when combined with the policies enacted by the people saying things like this, it becomes clear that the actions of Israel could constitute genocide.

Professor of international law Francis Boyle agrees, and he testified in 2013 that “The Palestinians have been the victims of genocide as defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.” He went on to say that for the past 65 years, the Israeli government, and the legal systems before them, “the Zionist agencies, forces, and terrorist gangs – have ruthlessly implemented a systematic and comprehensive military, political, religious, economic, and cultural campaign with the intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnical, racial, and different religious group (Jews versus Muslims and Christians) constituting the Palestinian people.”[34]

The repeated campaigns of violence into the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), causing a civilian population to constantly live under the very real threat of airstrikes or other military action, and not allowing them to leave, seem to satisfy some of the elements of the crime as laid out. The same is true about the policies of tightly controlling food, water, electricity, and fishing – all of which warrant at least investigation by the ICC.

Crime of Persecution

Persecution is a crime against humanity that is also set out in the Rome Statute. It is defined as “the intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law by reason of the identity of the group or collectivity,” including on racial, ethnic, or national grounds. International law defines two key elements: (1) severe abuses of fundamental rights committed on a widespread or systematic basis, and (2) with discriminatory intent.[35] Persecution is one of the most serious international crimes, similar to that of apartheid. In February 2021, the ICC ruled that it would be opening a formal investigation into the situation in Palestine.[36]

The ICC will be examining a wide variety of inhumane acts in the OPT, including tight restrictions on the movement of more than 4.7 million people, confiscation of land, and the harsh conditions that have been imposed. Additionally, the investigation will examine denial of building permits in the West Bank (an act that is essentially expulsion), the denial of residency rights, and the suspension of basic civil rights such as freedom of association and assembly. Many of these acts, like denial of building permits and land expropriation, have no real security justification, and others, such as restrictions on movement and civil rights, fail any reasonable balancing test between security concerns and the severity of the underlying rights abuse.”[37] These acts, as a whole, and combined with the statements of policy makers, or an objective eye, could establish that the acts were severe abuses, committed with discriminatory intent, amounting to the crime of persecution. As of this writing (spring 2023), the ICC investigation is ongoing.

War Crimes

War crimes are also defined in the Rome Statute and could be a source of litigation in the future for actions taken in the OPT.. The most relevant include: “Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities”; “Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives”; and “Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, as long as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflict.”[38] Many of the actions of both Israel and Palestine could amount to war crimes under the Rome Statute.

The organization Human Rights Watch, has accused the Israeli Military of conducting actions amounting to war crimes during an 11-day campaign in May 2021 against Hamas. HRW concluded after an investigation that airstrikes had killed 62 Palestinian civilians with “no evident military targets in the vicinity” of the bombing.[39] This is not the only example of Israel being accused of such action. During that same attack, Israel bombed a media building housing both Al Jazeera and the Associated Press, with only a 10-minute warning given to evacuate. Israel claimed that Hamas was using the building as a base and using the civilians as cover. While it is possible that this is true, some sort of balancing test needs to be employed, weighing the likelihood of civilian death against the value of the operation.

Israel has also been accused of targeting members of the press and civilians with small arms fire as well. One recent incident involved the slaying of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Palestine accuses the IDF of deliberately killing her, and CNN, conducting its own investigation, concluded that she was deliberately targeted.[40] If true, this would be a clear violation of international law. Israel contends that she was likely killed by Hamas, or by accident, and that there is not enough evidence. This is not the first time that members of the press have been killed by the IDF, however, as 15 have been killed by Israel since 1992, 12 of whom were killed in a span of slightly more than a month in 2014.[41]

Most recently, there is the tragic story of the December 12, 2022 killing of Jana Zakarneh, a 16-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed during a raid in the West Bank. Zakarneh was reported to have been out looking for her cat when she was shot four times by the IDF. The army admits to the killing and claims that it was done by accident. Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing that happens with painful regularity: Zakarneh was the 166^th Palestinian killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank in 2022.[42]

In terms of the sheer number of killings that occur, Israel kills more Palestinians than vice versa, but they are not the only ones committing potential war crimes. The Human Rights Watch report also accused Palestinian militants of committing war crimes by launching over 4,000 unguided rockets as well as mortars at Israeli population centers. This would violate “the prohibition against deliberate or indiscriminate attacks against civilians.”[43] There are numerous other examples in which Palestinian militant forces have targeted civilian centers, and these events must be addressed as well.

Negative Peace

Who can bring it about?

Negative peace is a cessation of violence. It is an obvious, important, and early step on the way to achieving long-standing peace and hopefully justice. It is not something that can be arrived at strictly by the actions of one side but would likely need to start with one side reaching out. Power would need to be ceded by Israel, and the Palestinians would have to move past what has been inflicted on them. ICC and ICJ involvement would be beneficial – if trials and judgments are decisive, an international body has undeniable sway – though not without political complications. In theory, the neutrality of the international courts could facilitate resolution of this enduring conflict.

What conditions are necessary?

For negative peace to be achieved, certain conditions would need to be met. First, some sort of ceasefire would need to be brokered. Israelis would need to stop the airstrikes and incursions, and Hamas would need to stop the terror attacks and get the smaller rogue groups in line, as they have undermined efforts in the past. Israel also needs to remove the separation wall, rebuild the dwellings and infrastructure that has been destroyed, and return the land on which settlements have been built. Israel must give Palestinians the right to return, give them citizenship, and give them a full restoration of their rights. The settlements present a unique challenge. If Israel were to give the land back, they would have to displace their own populace, which is certain to be unpopular. At the very least, the settlements would need to stop expanding, and then move from there.

What is the likely outcome?

The occupation has been going on for 75 years, and it does not seem to be slowing down. Peace talks are started, ceasefires get declared, but then they are eventually broken, and the cycle of retaliation resumes. Israel tightens its grip, and Hamas feels as though it has no other option but violence to effect change. The Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP) stated that

Over 60% of both young Palestinians and Israelis believe the ultimate intent of the other is the removal of their rights or the destruction of their society. Polling consistently demonstrates that both trends are most pronounced among Israelis and Palestinians under the age of 30, the cohort least likely to have had any meaningful engagement with the other.[44]

This is a troubling figure. Change is often driven by the young people, and if such a large percentage of them feel this way, it is going to be exceedingly difficult to stop the fighting, much less work toward a lasting peace and justice. It also shows how effective the indoctrination and tactics by both sides have been in sowing this divide. Each group reinforces to its members what the other group is attempting to do, and through its outward actions toward each other, often proves the other right. This dynamic will be incredibly difficult to overcome, but hopefully it is not impossible.

Recommendations for Justice

justice must involve a two-state solution, with the two states being equal in stature in the international community. Actors must be held accountable for past transgressions and a clear plan for cooperation must be devised.

To help facilitate this, both the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have gotten involved in the situation in Israel and Palestine. However, they have so far been unsuccessful in alleviating suffering or effecting meaningful change. There are numerous difficulties when it comes to involving the international justice system.

The main drawback is that there is no effective mechanism to enforce the rulings of the international court. A state can decide whether to acquiesce to court rulings. Frequently, rulings are ignored. For example, in 2004, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion that the wall built by Israel violated international law and called for it to be taken down and reparations paid. Eighteen years later, the wall still stands and in fact, it has been expanded.[45]

Other problems stand in the way of enforcing international justice. Cases take a very long time to conclude. Cases often focus on individual issues rather than the systemic causes of those issues. The greatest obstacle, of course, is the absence of global consensus on the obligations of states toward the individuals living within their boundaries – and the reluctance of the community of nations to insist on justice for all the world’s citizens.

Hopefully some good can come out of the ICC investigation that was opened in 2021, as well as the ongoing case of Palestine v. United States in the ICJ over the relocation of the embassy. It is unlikely that these two countries will arrive at lasting peace or justice without the involvement of the international community, so focusing on these pending disputes is a good place to start.

Conclusion

Many decades in the making, the conflict between Israel and Palestine is not likely to find resolution soon. But this very expression of resignation – this conviction that nothing can be done – may well be a chief factor in the conflict’s intractability. The despair that attends every conversation about it diverts attention from the indisputable reality at the conflict’s center: the violence in Israel and Palestine is the violence of genocide. If the nations of the world will at last come to grips with this heart-rending truth, the first step toward peace will be before us.

[1] Article 22, The Covenant of the League of Nations and “Mandate for Palestine,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. 11, p. 862, Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1972

[2] Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry – Appendix IV. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/angap04.asp

[3] Benny Morris, 2004. The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, pp. 602–604. Cambridge University Press; ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6.

[4] Masalha, Nur (1992). Expulsion of the Palestinians. Institute for Palestine Studies, this edition 2001, p. 175.

[5] “Number of Palestinians (In the Palestinian Territories Occupied in 1948) for Selected Years, End Year”. Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

[6] Nihad Bokae’e (February 2003). “Palestinian Internally Displaced Persons inside Israel: Challenging the Solid Structures” (PDF). Badil Resource Centre for Palestinian Refugee and Residency Rights.

[7] Benny Morris (1997). Israel’s Border Wars, 1949–1956: Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation, and the Countdown to the Suez War. Clarendon Press. p. 432. ISBN 978-0-19-829262-3

[8] Shaked, Ronny (November 7, 2007). “Thousands of Palestinians apply for Israeli citizenship”. Ynetnews.com.

[9] International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid G.A. res. 3068 (XXVIII)), 28 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 30) at 75, U.N. Doc. A/9030 (1974), 1015 U.N.T.S. 243, entered into force July 18, 1976.

[10]  United Nations (2002). “Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Part 2, Article 7”

[11] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/

[12] https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/gaza-strip/

[13] https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/14/gaza-israels-open-air-prison-15#:~:text=Israel%20has%20an%20obligation%20to,to%20enter%20their%20own%20country.

[14] Id.

[15] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/

[16] Id.

[17] Id.

[18] Semple, Kirk (22 October 2003). “U.N. Resolution Condemns Israeli Barrier”

[19] https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/israel/palestine?sc=XE34

[20] https://www.vox.com/23207299/israel-palestine-settlements-chart-two-state-biden-visit

[21] Id.

[22] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/

[23] Office of the European Union Representative – 2021 Report on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem Reporting period -January – December 2021

[24] https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution

[25] Office of the European Union Representative – 2021 Report on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem Reporting period -January – December 2021

[26] https://www.vox.com/23207299/israel-palestine-settlements-chart-two-state-biden-visit

[27] Id.

[28] Raphael Lemkin, Genocide – A Modern Crime, 4 Free World 39 (1945)

[29] Genocide Convention, Article II

[30] Declaration Accepting the Jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine, Dec. 31, 2014

[31] UN, Department of Public Information, Statement by the Special Advisers of the SecretaryGeneral on the Prevention of Genocide, Mr. Adama Dieng, and on the Responsibility to Protect, Ms. Jennifer Welsh, on the Situation in Israel and in the Palestinian Occupied Territory of Gaza Strip, July 24, 2014

[32] Israeli minister warns of Palestinian ‘holocaust’, The Guardian, February 29, 2008

[33] Text of Shaked’s Facebook post (in Hebrew), since deleted, is available here: https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2014- 07/ayelet-shaked-facebook-post-30-june-2014- genocide.jpg?itok=k5yvVqQp&timestamp=1448949295

[34] Professor Francis A. Boyle, The Palestinian Genocide by Israel Before The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, August 21-24, 2013

[35] https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution

[36] Id.

[37] Id.

[38] https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/war-crimes.shtml

[39] https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-israel-crime-war-crimes-human-rights-watch-4dbb4e7b915346ce6aca778f12a4359b

[40] https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/24/middleeast/shireen-abu-akleh-jenin-killing-investigation-cmd-intl/index.html

[41] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israel-s-long-history-of-targeting-journalists/1115247

[42] https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/middleeast/palestinian-girl-killed-idf-raid-intl/index.html

[43] https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-israel-crime-war-crimes-human-rights-watch-4dbb4e7b915346ce6aca778f12a4359b

[44] https://www.allmep.org/about-us-allmep/

[45] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/7/9/israels-separation-wall-endures-15-years-after-icj-ruling