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The ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan KC (centre) announces the seeking of arrest warrants
James Onalaja concludes his two-part opinion series
Part 1 of this series (‘Arrest warrants in the Israel-Palestine situation (1)’, James Onalaja, Counsel, September 2024) set out the Office of the Prosecutor’s (OTP) case against Hamas and Israeli leaders in the Palestine situation and analysed the jurisdictional and moral equivalence criticisms of these applications for International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants. Part 2 analyses the arguments of bias and antisemitism; failure of complementarity; immunities; and potential impact of the OTP’s applications on achieving peace.
Another ‘whataboutery’ red herring from the Israeli Prime Minister and some of his supporters is that these warrant applications are founded on antisemitism. Some have cited the fact that OTP has failed to request warrants for Assad regime members allegedly responsible for a far more protracted carnage across Syria. This criticism is baseless and barely warrants a response. As Syria is not party to the Rome Statute (RS) and the alleged atrocities by Assad’s army were on Syrian territory, the ICC clearly has no jurisdiction in that situation as far as Assad’s regime is concerned, without UN Security Council (UNSC) referral.
Some commentators have argued that seeking to arrest Israeli leaders while the war continues points to an anti-Israel bias as the OTP should conduct thorough investigations before seeking arrests and no such investigation is possible while war rages, with OTP unable to access Gaza. It is of course arguable that while war is ongoing, some facts may be unknown, including the veracity of allegations of Palestinian armed groups mounting attacks from within civilian populations and protected sites, the context of actions may be unclear or misunderstood, and it is impossible to be certain that specific crimes are being committed. Currently, only OTP and its panel of experts are privy to the evidence supporting these allegations. The OTP claims to have collated evidence including eyewitness interviews, authenticated video, photo and audio material, satellite imagery and statements from co-perpetrators which it alleges ‘shows that Israel has intentionally and systematically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival’. Certainty is not the test at this stage. It is simply whether these amount to sufficient evidence to provide reasonable grounds to believe they have committed the RS crimes. This will be assessed by the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) both at the warrant application stage and further at the Article 61RS confirmation of charges proceedings, where the suspects will be robustly represented by competent counsel.
Arguably, OTP’s apparent focus on starvation-linked offences is less likely to be complicated by evaluation difficulties arising regarding other alleged war crimes such as those in relation to the knowledge of attack launchers; whether the hit was in fact the target; the reasonably anticipated military advantage compared to the reasonably expected civilian loss; and the level of expected civilian loss that would be excessive to the said military advantage as evaluated by a reasonable commander.
Not only is the nature, scale, and impact of the alleged starvation crimes of obvious gravity, and well documented by aid agencies and international organisations in Gaza, it furthermore is being widely and consistently reported by the press. Additionally, OTP will aim to link these tragic Gaza situations with the words of intent allegedly voiced by various Israeli leaders, including Gallant’s announcement on 9 October 2023 that ‘I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly’ (reported in The Times of Israel, 9 October 2023), followed by Netanyahu allegedly stating on 18 October 2023 that ‘we will not allow humanitarian assistance, in the form of food and medicines, from our territory to the Gaza Strip’ and only a limited amount of humanitarian aid will be allowed in from Egypt (see The Hill, 19 October 2023). This was despite the fact that Articles 55 and 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (GC) prevents combatants from deliberately impeding delivery of humanitarian relief to civilians and places an active obligation on Israel as the occupying power in Gaza especially during the current war, to ensure that adequate humanitarian aid reaches civilians.
Thus, with the purported existence of direct evidence from alleged co-perpetrators alongside a plethora of potential evidence placed on social media by Israeli soldiers, it is arguable that it would be easier for OTP to collate and evaluate sufficient evidence to provide reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant formed a common plan to use starvation as a method of warfare. While both suspects may argue that these alleged comments do not demonstrate intent, but were simply expressions of shock at the nature and extent of the 7 October 2023 attacks, that is a matter for the PTC and/or trial, to be assessed along with other available evidence. In any event, the investigation is ongoing, and these warrant applications do not preclude further applications with respect to other alleged RS crimes and other individuals, just as in the Ukraine situation and/or a withdrawal of warrants if the test is no longer met.
Some have argued that OTP’s case against Israel’s leaders is premature because as a functioning democracy, Israel should be allowed to conduct its own investigation, and OTP ought only to proceed when Israel demonstrates an unwillingness or inability to. The complementarity principle upon which the RS is based does not require OTP to wait around to see if Israel opens genuine investigations into allegations before it instigates a case. In the event that the PTC issues these warrants and cases against these suspects are opened, both Israel and Palestine, or indeed any of the said suspects, may challenge the admissibility of the case under Article 19RS by arguing that their specific case is being genuinely investigated or prosecuted by a State with jurisdiction; or a genuine investigation into the case has been conducted by the said State which has decide not to prosecute; or the suspect has already been tried for the specific conduct and an ICC trial is prohibited by Article 20(3)RS; or that the case is of insufficient gravity to justify ICC action.
Due to limited authority over its territory, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is unable to investigate or prosecute these Hamas or Israeli suspects. While Israel could and probably has opened its own investigations into the Hamas leaders (some of whom reports suggests it has since killed), it is unlikely to challenge these ICC cases’ admissibility having spent the past nine months criticising the ICC for not instigating these cases earlier.
While Israel may open investigations into allegations against Netanyahu and Gallant and seek to challenge these particular ICC cases’ admissibility, failure to open investigations earlier and Israel’s historic and ongoing failure to properly investigate or prosecute most Israeli’s alleged to have committed crimes against Palestinians, including grave crimes by security forces and settlers in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), (see ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of Israel’s Practices in the OPT, 19 July 2024, paras 148 to 156), combined with widely reported allegations of interference by Israel’s intelligence services in the OTP’s investigation, allegedly including years of State-orchestrated espionage (involving intercepting OTP’s communications with potential witnesses, and attempts to threaten or bribe the Prosecutor), in addition to persistent and vocal Israeli government requests to Western allies to put maximum pressure on the ICC to derail its case against Israeli citizens, resulting in US sanctions being imposed on ICC officials previously, and the recent steps by the US House of Representatives to resurrect these sanctions, could all be argued to strongly suggest that any Israeli investigation at this stage is unlikely to be genuine, but instead amount to attempts to shield Netanyahu and Gallant from a genuine investigation and ICC prosecution. Israel may, of course, argue that any attempts by Israeli officials to prevent an ICC investigation and case demonstrates its long-held stance that ICC lacks jurisdiction in this matter, not that it was unwilling or unable to investigate the matter. However, it is for the suspects and/or the relevant states to raise the admissibility issue and arguments once the investigation is opened (Article 17RS) or a case is brought (Article 19RS). It is not for the OTP to wait around for Israel to take its investigation obligations seriously.
Prime Minister Netanyahu enjoys personal immunity from ICC prosecution. As previously argued (‘Bringing Putin to justice (1)’, James Onalaja, Counsel October 202), Netanyahu’s personal immunity does not prevent an OTP investigation into his alleged actions nor the application for a summons or warrant for his arrest. If the ICC issues the warrant, sending it to Netanyahu and Israel, providing Israel the opportunity to waive Netanyahu’s personal immunity and Netanyahu an opportunity to surrender, that would be consistent with customary international law, as was seen in the case of Uhuru Kenyata in the Kenya situation.
According to Biden and his Secretary of State Blinken, these warrant applications could jeopardise attempts to secure a ceasefire and the release of hostages. Arguably, irrespective of when OTP applies for arrest warrants, a ceasefire deal will inevitably be agreed once it becomes clear to Netanyahu what has been clear to most from the outset and is reportedly now becoming clear to Gallant, that Israel’s military objectives of destroying Hamas and securing safe release of the hostages will not be achieved by flattening Gaza along with its civilian population, an exercise guaranteed to bolster Hamas’ recruitment, while further risking the hostages’ lives.
Far from prolonging the war, issuing these warrants is arguably more likely to hasten the war’s ending for several reasons. Firstly, all actors in the conflict are put on notice that their actions are being monitored and previously enjoyed impunity for alleged grave crimes will no longer be tolerated. All will be called to answer for alleged international humanitarian law (IHL) violations.
Secondly, while they may not expect to appear before the ICC anytime soon, the issuance of such warrants will significantly narrow the world in which these suspects operate, ostracising them from the international community, including from previously sympathetic states and organisations. Suspects who believe that they have refuge from such warrants within territories of friendly states will realise that such refuge never last in perpetuity. Ask Charles Taylor, who was eventually handed to the Special Court in Sierra Leone by Nigeria who had initially provided him with refuge.
Thirdly, instigating cases against these suspects is more likely to stem the flow of arms from various arming parties. As held by the ICJ in its 2004 Advisory Opinion on Legal Consequences of Wall Construction in the OPT, Common Article 1 GC obliges every party to the convention ‘whether or not it is a party to a specific conflict’, to ensure that convention requirements are complied with (para 158). As per the Council of Europe’s position defining Common Rules Governing the Control of Export of Military Technology and Equipment, this confers a responsibility on third parties to not encourage parties to armed conflicts to violate IHL, nor to take action that would assist in such violations, and to take appropriate steps to cause their cessation. Arms producing and exporting states ‘should therefore exercise particular caution to ensure that their export is not used to commit serious violations of [IHL]’. As argued by Professor Marko Milanovic, (‘Common Article 1 Does Prohibit Complicity in IHL Violations, Through Arms Transfers or Otherwise’, EJIL: Talk!, April 2024) complicity for arms exporting states under Common Article 1 does not require an intention to facilitate a wrong. Conscious risk taking akin to recklessness will suffice. Such arming states risk liability for complicity if the recipient State commits violations of IHL, facilitated by the arms provided. Such clear obligations under IHL (as incorporated into the domestic laws of most democratic states) was at the centre of the new UK Labour government’s September decision to suspend the licensing of arms export to Israel which may be used in the Gaza conflict, on receiving the legal assessment (began under the previous Conservative government) which concluded that there is a clear risk that military exports to Israel, if used in Gaza might be used in serious violation of IHL. It was also at the heart of the Dutch Court of Appeal’s decision in February (in a case brought by Oxfam and other NGOS), ordering the Dutch government to cease exporting F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel.
Therefore, where leaders of parties to this Israel/Hamas war face ICC prosecution for IHL violations, states continuing to arm them will arguably be more than consciously disregarding risks that their supplied arms would be used to commit serious IHL violations. While arguably, states with questionable respect for the rule of law may not feel constrained by these IHL principles, even such states are more likely to be constrained by international pressure because of the existence of these ICC cases. It is more likely that reducing arms to the warring parties, will assist rather than hamper the steps to bring the war to an end.
These suspects are, of course, innocent until proven guilty and if the warrants are issued, will be able to advance robust defences with the assistance of defence counsel both at the confirmation of charges proceedings, and if confirmed, at the subsequent trials, and there is scope for interested groups to make amicus submissions to assist the court at different stages in the proceedings. However, misleading attacks on the OTP and ICC for doing their job in accordance with their mandate, because some of the subjects of the ICC investigation are Western allies, not only demeans the court along with the credibility of its attackers but further risks causing irreparable damage to the rules-based international order on which the international community relies and which these very states advocate an intention to protect. The new UK Labour government is therefore right to abandon the UK’s initial objections to these warrant applications, and to review its arms exports to the region. It is time that all other nations professing respect for the international rules-based order to follow suit.
However, as this war slides into a wider regional escalation, it is clear that no lasting peace will ever be achieved without Israel fully complying with the ICJ ruling in its 19 July 2024 Advisory Opinion to: end its unlawful presence and control in the OPT occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem; cease all new settlement activities; evacuate all settlers from the OPT; and fully respect the inalienable right of the Palestinian people under international law to self-determination, full independence and sovereignty within their own territory and State (paras 252 to 272). Arguably, this can only be achieved by the international community enforcing international law (as set out by the ICJ at paras 237 to 283) to encourage Israel to work in good faith with the obvious partner for peace and the representative of most of the Palestinian people, the PA which has rejected violence for decades and consistently recognised the right of Israel to exist in peace and security alongside a sovereign and viable Palestinian State.
The views expressed here are the author's alone and not on behalf of any organisation.
James Onalaja practises in domestic and international criminal law, human rights and regulatory law from 187 Chambers, Temple. He is appointed to the Lists of Counsel at the International Criminal Court and Kosovo Specialist Chambers to represent defendants and victims. He is a member of the International Criminal Court Bar Association’s Legal Advisory Committee and has recently completed a posting in The Hague assisting the ICC’s Office of Public Counsel for the Defence.
Part 1 of this series (‘Arrest warrants in the Israel-Palestine situation (1)’, James Onalaja, Counsel, September 2024) set out the Office of the Prosecutor’s (OTP) case against Hamas and Israeli leaders in the Palestine situation and analysed the jurisdictional and moral equivalence criticisms of these applications for International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants. Part 2 analyses the arguments of bias and antisemitism; failure of complementarity; immunities; and potential impact of the OTP’s applications on achieving peace.
Another ‘whataboutery’ red herring from the Israeli Prime Minister and some of his supporters is that these warrant applications are founded on antisemitism. Some have cited the fact that OTP has failed to request warrants for Assad regime members allegedly responsible for a far more protracted carnage across Syria. This criticism is baseless and barely warrants a response. As Syria is not party to the Rome Statute (RS) and the alleged atrocities by Assad’s army were on Syrian territory, the ICC clearly has no jurisdiction in that situation as far as Assad’s regime is concerned, without UN Security Council (UNSC) referral.
Some commentators have argued that seeking to arrest Israeli leaders while the war continues points to an anti-Israel bias as the OTP should conduct thorough investigations before seeking arrests and no such investigation is possible while war rages, with OTP unable to access Gaza. It is of course arguable that while war is ongoing, some facts may be unknown, including the veracity of allegations of Palestinian armed groups mounting attacks from within civilian populations and protected sites, the context of actions may be unclear or misunderstood, and it is impossible to be certain that specific crimes are being committed. Currently, only OTP and its panel of experts are privy to the evidence supporting these allegations. The OTP claims to have collated evidence including eyewitness interviews, authenticated video, photo and audio material, satellite imagery and statements from co-perpetrators which it alleges ‘shows that Israel has intentionally and systematically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival’. Certainty is not the test at this stage. It is simply whether these amount to sufficient evidence to provide reasonable grounds to believe they have committed the RS crimes. This will be assessed by the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) both at the warrant application stage and further at the Article 61RS confirmation of charges proceedings, where the suspects will be robustly represented by competent counsel.
Arguably, OTP’s apparent focus on starvation-linked offences is less likely to be complicated by evaluation difficulties arising regarding other alleged war crimes such as those in relation to the knowledge of attack launchers; whether the hit was in fact the target; the reasonably anticipated military advantage compared to the reasonably expected civilian loss; and the level of expected civilian loss that would be excessive to the said military advantage as evaluated by a reasonable commander.
Not only is the nature, scale, and impact of the alleged starvation crimes of obvious gravity, and well documented by aid agencies and international organisations in Gaza, it furthermore is being widely and consistently reported by the press. Additionally, OTP will aim to link these tragic Gaza situations with the words of intent allegedly voiced by various Israeli leaders, including Gallant’s announcement on 9 October 2023 that ‘I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly’ (reported in The Times of Israel, 9 October 2023), followed by Netanyahu allegedly stating on 18 October 2023 that ‘we will not allow humanitarian assistance, in the form of food and medicines, from our territory to the Gaza Strip’ and only a limited amount of humanitarian aid will be allowed in from Egypt (see The Hill, 19 October 2023). This was despite the fact that Articles 55 and 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (GC) prevents combatants from deliberately impeding delivery of humanitarian relief to civilians and places an active obligation on Israel as the occupying power in Gaza especially during the current war, to ensure that adequate humanitarian aid reaches civilians.
Thus, with the purported existence of direct evidence from alleged co-perpetrators alongside a plethora of potential evidence placed on social media by Israeli soldiers, it is arguable that it would be easier for OTP to collate and evaluate sufficient evidence to provide reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant formed a common plan to use starvation as a method of warfare. While both suspects may argue that these alleged comments do not demonstrate intent, but were simply expressions of shock at the nature and extent of the 7 October 2023 attacks, that is a matter for the PTC and/or trial, to be assessed along with other available evidence. In any event, the investigation is ongoing, and these warrant applications do not preclude further applications with respect to other alleged RS crimes and other individuals, just as in the Ukraine situation and/or a withdrawal of warrants if the test is no longer met.
Some have argued that OTP’s case against Israel’s leaders is premature because as a functioning democracy, Israel should be allowed to conduct its own investigation, and OTP ought only to proceed when Israel demonstrates an unwillingness or inability to. The complementarity principle upon which the RS is based does not require OTP to wait around to see if Israel opens genuine investigations into allegations before it instigates a case. In the event that the PTC issues these warrants and cases against these suspects are opened, both Israel and Palestine, or indeed any of the said suspects, may challenge the admissibility of the case under Article 19RS by arguing that their specific case is being genuinely investigated or prosecuted by a State with jurisdiction; or a genuine investigation into the case has been conducted by the said State which has decide not to prosecute; or the suspect has already been tried for the specific conduct and an ICC trial is prohibited by Article 20(3)RS; or that the case is of insufficient gravity to justify ICC action.
Due to limited authority over its territory, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is unable to investigate or prosecute these Hamas or Israeli suspects. While Israel could and probably has opened its own investigations into the Hamas leaders (some of whom reports suggests it has since killed), it is unlikely to challenge these ICC cases’ admissibility having spent the past nine months criticising the ICC for not instigating these cases earlier.
While Israel may open investigations into allegations against Netanyahu and Gallant and seek to challenge these particular ICC cases’ admissibility, failure to open investigations earlier and Israel’s historic and ongoing failure to properly investigate or prosecute most Israeli’s alleged to have committed crimes against Palestinians, including grave crimes by security forces and settlers in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), (see ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of Israel’s Practices in the OPT, 19 July 2024, paras 148 to 156), combined with widely reported allegations of interference by Israel’s intelligence services in the OTP’s investigation, allegedly including years of State-orchestrated espionage (involving intercepting OTP’s communications with potential witnesses, and attempts to threaten or bribe the Prosecutor), in addition to persistent and vocal Israeli government requests to Western allies to put maximum pressure on the ICC to derail its case against Israeli citizens, resulting in US sanctions being imposed on ICC officials previously, and the recent steps by the US House of Representatives to resurrect these sanctions, could all be argued to strongly suggest that any Israeli investigation at this stage is unlikely to be genuine, but instead amount to attempts to shield Netanyahu and Gallant from a genuine investigation and ICC prosecution. Israel may, of course, argue that any attempts by Israeli officials to prevent an ICC investigation and case demonstrates its long-held stance that ICC lacks jurisdiction in this matter, not that it was unwilling or unable to investigate the matter. However, it is for the suspects and/or the relevant states to raise the admissibility issue and arguments once the investigation is opened (Article 17RS) or a case is brought (Article 19RS). It is not for the OTP to wait around for Israel to take its investigation obligations seriously.
Prime Minister Netanyahu enjoys personal immunity from ICC prosecution. As previously argued (‘Bringing Putin to justice (1)’, James Onalaja, Counsel October 202), Netanyahu’s personal immunity does not prevent an OTP investigation into his alleged actions nor the application for a summons or warrant for his arrest. If the ICC issues the warrant, sending it to Netanyahu and Israel, providing Israel the opportunity to waive Netanyahu’s personal immunity and Netanyahu an opportunity to surrender, that would be consistent with customary international law, as was seen in the case of Uhuru Kenyata in the Kenya situation.
According to Biden and his Secretary of State Blinken, these warrant applications could jeopardise attempts to secure a ceasefire and the release of hostages. Arguably, irrespective of when OTP applies for arrest warrants, a ceasefire deal will inevitably be agreed once it becomes clear to Netanyahu what has been clear to most from the outset and is reportedly now becoming clear to Gallant, that Israel’s military objectives of destroying Hamas and securing safe release of the hostages will not be achieved by flattening Gaza along with its civilian population, an exercise guaranteed to bolster Hamas’ recruitment, while further risking the hostages’ lives.
Far from prolonging the war, issuing these warrants is arguably more likely to hasten the war’s ending for several reasons. Firstly, all actors in the conflict are put on notice that their actions are being monitored and previously enjoyed impunity for alleged grave crimes will no longer be tolerated. All will be called to answer for alleged international humanitarian law (IHL) violations.
Secondly, while they may not expect to appear before the ICC anytime soon, the issuance of such warrants will significantly narrow the world in which these suspects operate, ostracising them from the international community, including from previously sympathetic states and organisations. Suspects who believe that they have refuge from such warrants within territories of friendly states will realise that such refuge never last in perpetuity. Ask Charles Taylor, who was eventually handed to the Special Court in Sierra Leone by Nigeria who had initially provided him with refuge.
Thirdly, instigating cases against these suspects is more likely to stem the flow of arms from various arming parties. As held by the ICJ in its 2004 Advisory Opinion on Legal Consequences of Wall Construction in the OPT, Common Article 1 GC obliges every party to the convention ‘whether or not it is a party to a specific conflict’, to ensure that convention requirements are complied with (para 158). As per the Council of Europe’s position defining Common Rules Governing the Control of Export of Military Technology and Equipment, this confers a responsibility on third parties to not encourage parties to armed conflicts to violate IHL, nor to take action that would assist in such violations, and to take appropriate steps to cause their cessation. Arms producing and exporting states ‘should therefore exercise particular caution to ensure that their export is not used to commit serious violations of [IHL]’. As argued by Professor Marko Milanovic, (‘Common Article 1 Does Prohibit Complicity in IHL Violations, Through Arms Transfers or Otherwise’, EJIL: Talk!, April 2024) complicity for arms exporting states under Common Article 1 does not require an intention to facilitate a wrong. Conscious risk taking akin to recklessness will suffice. Such arming states risk liability for complicity if the recipient State commits violations of IHL, facilitated by the arms provided. Such clear obligations under IHL (as incorporated into the domestic laws of most democratic states) was at the centre of the new UK Labour government’s September decision to suspend the licensing of arms export to Israel which may be used in the Gaza conflict, on receiving the legal assessment (began under the previous Conservative government) which concluded that there is a clear risk that military exports to Israel, if used in Gaza might be used in serious violation of IHL. It was also at the heart of the Dutch Court of Appeal’s decision in February (in a case brought by Oxfam and other NGOS), ordering the Dutch government to cease exporting F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel.
Therefore, where leaders of parties to this Israel/Hamas war face ICC prosecution for IHL violations, states continuing to arm them will arguably be more than consciously disregarding risks that their supplied arms would be used to commit serious IHL violations. While arguably, states with questionable respect for the rule of law may not feel constrained by these IHL principles, even such states are more likely to be constrained by international pressure because of the existence of these ICC cases. It is more likely that reducing arms to the warring parties, will assist rather than hamper the steps to bring the war to an end.
These suspects are, of course, innocent until proven guilty and if the warrants are issued, will be able to advance robust defences with the assistance of defence counsel both at the confirmation of charges proceedings, and if confirmed, at the subsequent trials, and there is scope for interested groups to make amicus submissions to assist the court at different stages in the proceedings. However, misleading attacks on the OTP and ICC for doing their job in accordance with their mandate, because some of the subjects of the ICC investigation are Western allies, not only demeans the court along with the credibility of its attackers but further risks causing irreparable damage to the rules-based international order on which the international community relies and which these very states advocate an intention to protect. The new UK Labour government is therefore right to abandon the UK’s initial objections to these warrant applications, and to review its arms exports to the region. It is time that all other nations professing respect for the international rules-based order to follow suit.
However, as this war slides into a wider regional escalation, it is clear that no lasting peace will ever be achieved without Israel fully complying with the ICJ ruling in its 19 July 2024 Advisory Opinion to: end its unlawful presence and control in the OPT occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem; cease all new settlement activities; evacuate all settlers from the OPT; and fully respect the inalienable right of the Palestinian people under international law to self-determination, full independence and sovereignty within their own territory and State (paras 252 to 272). Arguably, this can only be achieved by the international community enforcing international law (as set out by the ICJ at paras 237 to 283) to encourage Israel to work in good faith with the obvious partner for peace and the representative of most of the Palestinian people, the PA which has rejected violence for decades and consistently recognised the right of Israel to exist in peace and security alongside a sovereign and viable Palestinian State.
The views expressed here are the author's alone and not on behalf of any organisation.
James Onalaja concludes his two-part opinion series
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James Onalaja concludes his two-part opinion series
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