Netanyahu ignores ‘absurd’ ICJ opinion, declares ‘Jewish people are not occupiers of their own land’

Jul 19. (EUROPA PRESS) –

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has disavowed the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) ruling on Friday declaring Israel’s settlement policy illegal.

The ICJ has found that this policy is contrary to the Fourth Geneva Convention on the forced displacement of persons and, in particular with regard to the exploitation of the natural resources of these territories and the imposition of Israeli national laws on them, constitutes an annexation effort and is contrary to international law.

In his first reaction to the ruling, Netanyahu described the ruling as “absurd” and said that “the Jewish people cannot be an occupier of its own land, including our eternal capital, Jerusalem, nor of Judea and Samaria, our historic homeland,” referring to the historic Israeli designation of the West Bank.

“No absurd opinion in The Hague can deny this historical truth or the legal right of Israelis to live in their own communities in our ancestral home,” he added.

In February, the ICJ opened a series of hearings on the request submitted in December 2022 by the United Nations General Assembly for a formal opinion on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli government did not participate in these proceedings, as it “does not recognise the legitimacy” of these procedures and claims that they serve the “political discourse that the Palestinian Authority is trying to impose”, in the words of the Israeli Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, who has responded to Friday’s decision as a “partisan opinion and completely divorced from reality”.

The former number two in the Israeli war cabinet and former chief of staff, Benny Gantz, has also rejected the ruling, in this case because it is, in his opinion, “external interference and is counterproductive for regional security and stability.”

“Gantz also regrets that the ICJ’s decision ignores the massacre committed by Palestinian militias on October 7, which triggered the Gaza war, and serves as “another example of the ‘judicialization’ of a political conflict.”