Friday’s international court of justice (ICJ) ruling was a wholesale repudiation of Israel’s legal justifications for its 57-year (and counting) occupation of Palestinian territory. But it is not a magic bullet. Political pressure will be needed to back it up. The first opportunity will come when Joe Biden meets the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Washington on Tuesday.
As has been widely noted, the court’s ruling is only “advisory”, not binding, because it was requested by the UN general assembly rather than the product of a lawsuit between two states. Moreover, the Israeli government is already ignoring prior ICJ decisions. Israel has not moved the separation barrier, which the court held in a 2004 advisory opinion to be illegal because, under the guise of security, Israel has incorporated large swathes of Palestinian land on the Israeli side of the barrier. Nor has Israel discernibly mitigated its offensive in Gaza despite court orders in the case brought by South Africa requiring steps to protect Palestinian rights under the genocide convention.
