Barry Werner: Revised:The profound consequences of different interpretations of international law
The UN is a political battleground where nations fight for self-interest and prejudices, using interpretations and applications of international law as weapons. Even Israel’s right to defend itself is a subject for debate.
Consider how the international community addresses the following questions. Is it more accurate to view Israel’s long-standing conflict with its Arab neighbors as a series of separate wars or as one long, ongoing war? Is Israel the sovereign authority in the West Bank and Gaza or an occupying power? What role should the international community play in the Middle East conflict?
Israel faced a never-ending series of large and small wars with its neighbors, waves of terrorism, and rocket and missile attacks from Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran. During the periods between the major wars, when Israel was not facing an immediate existential threat, there were smaller-scale military operations, reprisal raids, and “campaigns between the wars” to prevent larger-scale wars from breaking out, along with the associated casualties. Israel remains in a formal state of war with Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, and is exchanging fire with Iran and its proxies. From Israel’s perspective, although the periods of large-scale military action are described as if they were separate wars, it has actually been engaged in a long, ongoing war for survival.
The first war Israel fought began just hours after it was established in 1948. It is known as Israel’s War of Independence. The five Arab countries bordering Israel invaded. They did not invade because of colonialism or to defend Palestinian rights; they invaded because Israel was governed by non-Muslim, non-Arabs. The Arabs invaded to destroy Israel, tear it apart, and divide the land among themselves. The Arab-Israeli conflict was never about colonialism.
The 1949 ceasefire did not end the war. The Arab countries made it clear that they would not sign peace treaties recognizing the state of Israel. They only agreed to sign temporary ceasefire agreements and promised to resume full-scale military operations when they were ready. At the time of the ceasefire, the Transjordanian army occupied Judea and Samaria, and the Egyptian army occupied Gaza.
The land that Transjordan occupied had been called Judea (the southern part) and Samaria (the northern part) since biblical times. Judea and Samaria are on the west side of the Jordan River, while Transjordan is on the east side. Transjordan wanted to annex Judea and Samaria, so it renamed itself Jordan, and it renamed Judea and Samaria the West Bank. Later, Jordan gave the West Bank to the PLO. For simplicity, we will use the commonly used name, “West Bank.”
Egypt, Jordan, and Syria were ready to restart full-scale military action in 1967. Israel preemptively destroyed Egypt’s air force and then defeated the three Arab armies in just six days. That war is called the Six-Day War. Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza, as well as the Golan Heights and Sinai.
From Israel’s perspective, battle lines shift in a war, and Israel took the West Bank and Gaza back in 1967. Jordan and Egypt had been illegally occupying them since 1949, so Israel liberated those lands. Israel is the sovereign power there.
From the international community’s perspective, Israel had been in a series of separate wars, and Jordan and Egypt successfully prevented Israel from taking possession of the West Bank and Gaza during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948-49. Therefore, they say Israel seized foreign Arab territory by force when it captured the West Bank and Gaza in the Six-Day War of 1967, and Israel is an occupying power, not the sovereign power, there even today.
The international community is deeply involved in the Middle East conflict. Israel is the only country permanently on the agendas of the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the General Assembly (UNGA). There are more UNHRC resolutions, reports, and special sessions about Israel than about any other country. In recent years, the UNGA has passed more resolutions against Israel than the rest of the world combined. There are special bodies focused only or primarily on Israel, such as the “Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories,” which issues annual reports and recommendations to the General Assembly.
Shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967, the Arab states appealed to the UN, protesting that Israel was occupying Arab land by force and demanding that the Israeli army withdraw. They expected to win on the UN battlefield. After long deliberation, the Security Council adopted Resolution 242 (UNSCR 242). At first, the Arab states accepted the resolution because it stated, as they expected, that Israel should withdraw from “territories occupied in the recent conflict,” but then they realized the resolution didn’t require Israel to withdraw from all the territories and that any withdrawal of Israeli forces depended on negotiations. They also found the requirement that the Arabs show “respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence” of Israel, which, for them, was utterly unacceptable. The Arab states would accept nothing less than the complete erasure of the outcome of the Six-Day War.
The Israelis agreed to the resolution because it called on the Arab states to accept Israel’s right “to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force,” which was what Israel wanted most.
The Arab League met in Khartoum, Sudan, immediately afterward and declared their famous Three No’s: No peace with Israel, No recognition of Israel, and No negotiations with Israel.
So, Israel retained control of the West Bank and Gaza. But Israel refrained from taking unilateral action to officially change its borders because it still hoped to trade land for peace. The question of whether or not it is legal for Israel to annex the West Bank and Gaza remains a politically contentious issue today.
The war with Hamas in Gaza began on October 7, 2023.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), a respected source of legal opinion, said that because Israel is not the sovereign authority but a foreign, occupying power in Gaza, the ICJ has the right to tell Israel what to do.
In July 2024, the ICJ viewed the situation very differently from the way the UN Security Council did in 1967. Less than a year after Hamas brutally murdered about 1,200 Israelis and guests, and took 251 hostages in a single day, holding them in inhumane conditions, some for over two years; while the Israelis desperately defended their nation, their loved ones, and themselves against Hamas and the rest of Iran’s pack of murderous proxies; while 7–8% of Israel’s workforce was fighting in Gaza with little time at home; while roughly a quarter of a million Israelis living near Israel’s southern and northern borders had to be evacuated and internally displaced across Israel; and when not a day went by without the Israelis being reminded of the hostages at a public event or news program, the ICJ issued an advisory ruling.
They ruled that, contrary to the core principles of UNSCR 242, which emphasize negotiation and mutual recognition, the Palestinians do not need to commit to peace talks or recognize Israel as a condition for ending the occupation in what the ICJ referred to as the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). According to the ICJ, the most important issue in the conflict is not Israel’s self-defense against the terrorists who believe it’s their religious obligation to brutally kill as many Jews as possible and chase the rest out of the Middle East.
Instead, the ICJ claimed that the most important issue is the well-being of the Gazans from whom Hamas emerged, more than half of whom support Hamas and joyfully celebrate Hamas’s glorious achievements. The ICJ accused Israel of war crimes against the Gazans without acknowledging the challenges of urban warfare that Hamas drew Israel into, and that Hamas had integrated its network of battle tunnels into Gaza’s civilian infrastructure and booby-trapped the surface. And the ICJ accused Israel of preventing the Palestinians from exercising their right to self-determination by not allowing them to establish a sovereign terror state on Israel’s borders. The ICJ said Israel should withdraw its army from all areas of the OPT, including Gaza, as quickly as possible, despite being at war with Hamas.
The ICJ didn’t object to Hamas starting the war and drawing the Israeli army into Gaza, or to using non-combatants as human shields, or to its murderous and brutal rule over Gaza, or to radicalizing a generation of Gazans.
The July 2024 ICJ advisory ruling and its other opinions clearly show that it considers Israel’s right to defend itself to be unimportant and that it considers the Palestinians to be the innocent victims of Israel’s existence.
The ICJ took international law a giant step backward.
The fact that Israel and the ICJ disagree the way they do is equivalent to either
- Israel is violently trying to colonize land that belongs to the Palestinians.
- The ICJ is trying to destroy Israel and give its biblical homeland to the Palestinians.
That’s an explosive set of competing interpretations.
How do these competing interpretations affect the Arabs?
The idea that Israel is violently trying to colonize land that belongs to the Palestinians angers the Arabs. The Arabs remember the 1948-49 war as the Nakba, the Catastrophe, a collective trauma when Jews conquered Arab land. The international community thought they would help the Arabs deal with the Nakba by declaring that the Jews permanently lost possession of the West Bank and Gaza in 1949. But for the Arabs, that meant that Israel once again conquered Arab land in 1967, causing a repetition of the trauma. The condescending attitude toward Arabs had the opposite effect of what was intended; it worsened tensions in the Middle East and made peace harder to achieve. For example, Saudi Arabia demands that Israel accept its “Arab Peace Initiative,” which calls for Israel to return all the land it occupied in 1967, before it can join the Abraham Accords. Anything less than a complete reversal of Israel’s 1967 gains is unacceptable.
How do these competing interpretations affect international politics?
The idea that Israel is violently trying to colonize land that belongs to the Palestinians inflames the left wing of the political spectrum. The accusation by an international authority that Israel is engaged in violent colonialization triggered an explosive reaction and ignited antisemitism around the world. The ICJ’s frenzied followers are indifferent to the human rights of Israelis. Some attack Israelis if they set foot in their countries. Some attack Jews who are not Israelis because they might support Israel. Universities make it uncomfortable for Jewish or especially Israeli students and scholars. A lynch mob of human rights NGOs is trying to enforce the ICJ’s opinions.
The ICJ severely damaged Israel’s relationships with countries it was friendly with and hindered Israel’s ability to conduct its war of self-defense against Hamas. Most countries moved their embassies from Jerusalem, Israel’s capital, to Tel Aviv to avoid getting involved in the controversy over who owns Jerusalem.
Many countries worldwide support a “two-state solution,” and several have already recognized a Palestinian state. Creating a sovereign Palestinian state now would be like trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it. It would destabilize the entire Middle East and align itself with China. Palestinian society has become radicalized after decades of indoctrination. It supports jihad against Israel and, ultimately, against the West. A sovereign Palestinian state would most probably be taken over by Hamas, or by Hamas under a different name, leading to a terrorist state along Israel’s eastern and southern borders. Israel is pushing back against this naïve and dangerous idea.
How do these competing interpretations affect civilization?
The idea that the ICJ is trying to destroy Israel and give its biblical homeland to the Palestinians should anger defenders of civilization. The demand to destroy Israel comes from medieval Islamist fanaticism and Arab racism against non-Arabs. It doesn’t represent modern Arab Muslims. Those participating in this form of racism and religious fanaticism or passively accepting it are enemies of civilization.
Many Christians believe the Bible when it says, “Whoever blesses Israel will be blessed, and whoever curses Israel will be cursed.” They believe it is part of God’s plan for the Jews to live in Israel
The West Bank, which is properly known as Judea and Samaria, is the biblical heartland for both Christians and Jews. It’s where most of the events recorded in the Bible took place. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, rich in memories of Christ’s death and resurrection, is in East Jerusalem, which is where biblical Jerusalem was. The Church of the Nativity, which commemorates Christ’s birth, is in Bethlehem. And more.
There are good reasons to be concerned that radical Islamists are likely to threaten Western Civilization’s holy sites. Some examples:
- Israel transferred administrative control of the Temple Mount to the Muslim waqf of Jordan in 1967. The waqf then drastically restricted Jewish access and illegally excavated and discarded archaeological remains of the ancient Jewish presence. Israel didn’t stop them for fear of antagonizing the Arab world.
- During the Mamluk and Ottoman periods, Jews were prohibited from entering the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, which had been turned into a mosque. Jews were only allowed to approach up to a line at the seventh step, just outside the door.
- The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem originally had three large entrance doors. During the Mamluk and Ottoman periods, two entrances were sealed, and the central door was sealed at the top. It is known as the “Door of Humility” because Christian clergy had to bow low when entering and leaving.
- The Taliban in Afghanistan demolished the Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001.
Western Civilization’s cultural treasures should not be entrusted to religious Islamist fanatics.
How do these competing interpretations affect the Jews?
The idea that the ICJ is trying to destroy Israel and give its biblical homeland to the Palestinians angers the Jews. The ICJ’s double standards and obsessive demonization of Israel are attacks on the Jewish people. The ICJ has disqualified itself as a respectable court and joined Israel’s terrorist enemies.
Judea and Samaria are not just any piece of land; it is the homeland of the Jewish people and the biblical heartland of Judaism. It’s the land God promised the Jews, and for which Jews have been praying for more than 2,500 years. There are extremely sacred sites in Judea and Samaria. Biblical Jerusalem, the holiest city for Jews, is in East Jerusalem. Mount Moriah, where the sacred Temple stood, is in biblical Jerusalem.
Even so, Israel offered to cede territory on the West Bank for the creation of a friendly Palestinian state many times. The Palestinians rejected all the offers, no matter how generous they were, because the offers didn’t include every square centimeter of the land occupied by Israel in 1967, especially East Jerusalem, the site of Israel’s ancient capital, Jerusalem. The Oslo Peace Process and Israel’s voluntary transfer of Gaza’s administration to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 2005 brought horror to the region instead of peace. Both the state of Israel and Israelis living near the Gaza border made overtures to reduce tensions with Gaza before October 7, 2023. Then, there was the worst pogrom against Jews since the Nazi era. Hamas enraged the Israeli public with videos of Hamas brutalizing hostages and Gazans joyfully participating.
Israelis have images of Arab brutality burned into their hearts and minds and they are now more cautious than ever about the potential threat Palestinians pose, especially about a two-state solution.
There are Jews who take the vow, “Never again!” seriously. They refuse to accept unfair demands and, to protect Israel, they want Israel to annex the West Bank and Gaza. For them, it’s about refusing to go quietly like sheep to the slaughter, like the six million Jews who were defiled and murdered in the Holocaust. They believe there’s nowhere else for Jews to go and that self-defense in Israel is their only option.
There is a movement among religious Zionists to save Israel’s land from being stolen by establishing small, peaceful settlements in the West Bank (not the confrontational “hilltop youth” settlements), even though settlement activity is precisely what the international community is sensitive to and strongly opposes. Israel’s connection to the West Bank is likely to grow as the population of religious Jews in Israel grows.
Where will this clash of narratives lead? It can’t turn out well.
