Lawyer's incredible speech dismantling Israeli occupation of Palestine at The Hague

Mr President distinguished members of the court it's a great honor and privilege to appear before you and to represent the league of Arab states the Palestinian people have been denied the exercise of their legal right to self-determination through the more than Century long violent Colonial racist effort to establish a nation state exclusively for the Jewish people in the land of mandatory Palestine when this began after the first world war the Jewish population of that land was 11% forcibly implementing Zionism in this demographic context has necessarily involved the extermination or forc displacement of some of the

non-jewish Palestinian population the exercise of domination over and subjugation dispossession and immiseration of remaining non-jewish Palestinians the immigration to that land of Jewish people regardless of any direct personal link and the denial of Palestinian refugees the right to return all operating through a racist distinction privileging Jewish people over non-jewish Palestinian people this has necessitated serious violations of all the fundamental Yos kogan and urga omn Norms of international law the right of self-determination the prohibitions on aggression genocide crimes against humanity racial discrimination aparte and torture and the core protections of IHL today I will address first

violations of international law arising out of the ra regime of racial domination aparte perpetrated against the Palestinian people across the entire land of historic Palestine and then second the existential illegality of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian Gaza Strip and West Bank including East Jerusalem since 1967 as a necessary prerequisite I must begin with this special right GR granted to the Palestinian people in the league Covenant the legal rights of self-determination of the Palestinian people originates in the sacred trust obligations of article 22 of the Lee Covenant part of the Versi treaty Palestine an A-Class mandate

under British colonial rule was after the first world war supposed to have its existence as an independent state provisionally recognized a su generous right of self-determination the UK and other members of the Lee Council attempted to bypass this incorporating the 1917 Bala declaration commitment to establishing a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine into the instrument stipulating how the Mandate would operate however the council had no legal power to bypass the Covenant in this way it acted ultrav virus and the relevant Provisions were legally void there was and is no legal basis in that

mandate instrument for either a specifically Jewish state in Palestine or the UK's failure to discharge the sacred trust obligation to implement Palestinian self-d deter mination after the second world war a self-determination right applicable to Colonial peoples generally crystallized in international law for the Palestinian people this essentially corresponded to and supplemented the pre-existing Covenant right regarding the same single territory the 1947 proposal to partition Palestine was contrary to this the Arab rejection and affirmation of the legal status quo in 1948 then Palestine was legally a single territory with a single population enjoying a right of self-determination

on a unitary basis despite this a state of Israel specifically for Jewish people was proclaimed in 1948 by those controlling 78% more than 34 of Palestine accompanied by the forc displacement of a significant number of the non-jewish Palestinian population the nacba catastrophe this illegal secession was an egregious violation of Palestinian self-determination Israel's statehood was recognized and Israel admitted as a UN member despite this illegality Israel is not the legal continuation or successor of the Mandate this violation of Palestinian self-determination is ongoing and unresolved two key elements are First Palestinian people not displaced from the land

proclaimed to be of Israel in 48 and their descendants have been forced to live as Citizens presently they constitute 17.2% of a state conceived to be of and for another racial group under the domination of that group necessarily treated as second class because of their race second Palestinian people displaced from that land and their descendants cannot return these are serious breaches of the right of self-determination the prohibitions of racial discrimination and aparte and the right of return they must end immediately as if this ongoing nabar was not catastrophic enough in 1967 Israel captured the remaining

22% of historic Palestine the Gaza Strip and West Bank including East Jerusalem the it's maintained that use of force to remain in control for the 57 year period since for more than half a century then a state defined to be of and for Jewish people exclusively has governed the entire land of historic Palestine and the Palestinian people there and the regime of racial domination aparte and denying return has been extended throughout in the case of Palestinians living in the occupied territory this has involved the same serious violations of international law supplemented by serious violations of

norms applicable in occupied territory indeed these people are subject to an even more extreme form of racist domination as they aren't even citizens of the state exercising authority over them even in East Jerusalem which Israel has purported to Annex the majority non-jewish Palestinian residents don't have citizenship whereas Jewish residents including illegal settlers are citizens just as in territorial Israel in occupied territory these serious violations concerning how how Israel exercises authority over the Palestinian people must end immediately however here a more fundamental matter must also be addressed the illegality of the exercise of authority itself the

enduring Palestinian right of self-determination means that the Palestinian people and the the state of Palestine not Israel are sovereign over the territory Israel captured in ' 67 for Israel the land is extr Territorial and given what I said about the Mandate territory over which it has no legal Sovereign entitlement despite this Israel has purported to Annex e Jerusalem and taken various actions there and in the rest of the West Bank constituting deure and de facto purported annexation including implanting settlements it is Israeli policy that Israel should be not only the exclusive authority over the entire

land between the river and the sea but also the exclusive Sovereign Authority there this constitutes a complete repudiation of Palestinian self-determination as a legal right since it empties the right entirely of any territorial content actualizing this through de facto and deor purported annexation is first a serious violation of Palestinian self-determination and second because it's a uh enabled through the use of force a violation of the prohibition on the purported acquisition of territory through the use of force in the law on the use of force and so an aggression serious violations of further areas of law

regulating the conduct of the occupation are also being perpetrated notably the prohibitions on implanting settlements and altering unless absolutely prevented the legal political social and religious status quo the occupation is therefore existentially illegal because of its use to actualize purported annexation to end this serious illegality it must be terminated Israel must renounce all sovereignty claims and all settlements must be removed immediately however this is not the only basis on which the occupation's existential legality must be addressed we need to delve deeper into both the law of self-determination and the law on the use of force

beginning with self-determination this right when applied to the Palestinian people in the territory Israel captured in ' 67 is a right to be entirely self-governing free from Israeli domination consequently the Palestinian people have a legal right to the immediate end of the occupation and Israel has a correlative legal duty to immediately terminate the occupation this right exists and operates simply and exclusively because the Palestinian people are entitled to it it does not depend on others agreeing to its realization it is a right it's a repudiation of trusteeship whereby colonial peoples were ostensibly to be granted

freedom only if and when they were deemed ready because of their stage of development determined by the racist standard of civilization the anticolonial self-determination rule replaced this with a right based on the automatic immediate entitlement of all people to freedom without preconditions in the words of general assembly 1514 inadequacy of preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying Independence some suggest that the Palestinian people were offered and rejected deals that could have ended the occupation and there therefore Israel can maintain it pending a settlement even assuming arguendo the veracity of this account the deals

involved a further loss of The Sovereign territory of the Palestinian People Israel cannot lawfully demand concessions on Palestinian rights as the price for ending its impediment to Palestinian Freedom this would mean if Israel using Force to coerce the Palestinian people to give up some of their peremptory legal rights illegal in the law on the use of force and necessarily voiding the relevant terms of any agreement reached the Palestinian people are legally entitled to reject a further loss of land over which they have an exclusive legal peremptory right any such rejection makes no difference to Israel's

immediate legal obligation to end the occupation turning to the law on the use of force Israel's control over the Palestinian territory since 67 as a military occupation is an ongoing use of force as such its existential legality is determined by by the law on the use of force as a general matter beyond the specific issue of annexation Israel captured the Gaza Strip and West Bank from Egypt and Jordan in the war it launched against them and Syria it claimed to be acting in self-defense anticipating a non- immediately imminent attack the war was over after 6

days peace treaties between Israel and Egypt and Jordan was subsequently adopted despite this Israel maintained control of the territory continuing the use of force enabling its capture Israel's 67 war was illegal in the Yad Bellum even assuming arguendo its claim of a feared attack States can't lawfully use force in non immediately imminent and anticipatory self-defense alternatively assuming again arguendo that the war was lawful the justification ended after 6 days however the Yos ad Bellum requirements continued to apply to the occupation as itself A continuing use of force in 1967 with self-determination well established in international

law states could not lawfully use Force to retain control over a self-determination unit captured in war unless the legal test justifying the initial use of force also Justified on the same basis the use of force in retaining control moreover this justification would need to continue not only in the immediate aftermath but for more than half a century manifestly This legal test has not been met Israel's exercise of control over the Gaza Strip and West Bank through the use of force has been illegal in the Yos ad Bellum since the capture of the territory or at

least very soon after afterwards the occupation is therefore again existentially illegal in the law on the use of force and aggression this time as a general matter Beyond illegality specific to annexation to terminate this serious violation the occupation must likewise end immediately what of Israel's current military action in Gaza this is not a war that began in October 2023 it's a drastic scaling up of the force exercised there and in the West Bank on a continual basis since 67 a justification for a new phase in an ongoing illegal use of force cannot be constructed solely

out of the consequences of violent resistance to that illegal use of force otherwise an illegal use of force would be rendered lawful because those subject to it violently resisted circular logic with a perverse outcome more generally Israel cannot lawfully use Force to control the Palestinian territory for security purposes pending an agreement providing security guarantees states can only lawfully use Force outside their borders in extremely narrow circumstances beyond that they must address they must address security concerns non forcibly the USA UK and Zambia suggested here that there is a su generous applicable legal framework an Israeli

Palestinian Lex specialis this somehow supersedes the rules of international law determining whether the occupation is existentially lawful instead we have a new rule justifying the occupation until there is a peace agreement meeting Israeli security needs this is the law as these states would like it to be not the law as it is it has no basis in resolution 242 Oslo or any other resolutions or agreements actually you are being invited to do away with the very operation of some of the fundamental peremptory rules of international law itself as a result the matters these rules conceive

as rights vested in the Palestinian people would be realized only if agreement is reached and only on the basis of such agreement at Best if there is an agreement this means one that need not be compatible with Palestinian peremptory legal rights determined only by the acute power imbalance in Israel's favor at worst if there is no agreement this means that the indefinite continuation of Israeli rule over the Palestinian people in the opt on the basis of racist Supremacy and a claim to sovereignty would be lawful this is an affront to the international rule of law

to the UN Charter imperative to settle disputes in Conformity with international law and to your judicial function as Guardians of the international legal system a final potential basis sometimes inoke to justify continuing the occupation should be addressed occupation and human rights law applicable to illegal and lawful occupations alike oblig Israel to address security threats in occupied territory however they only regulate the conduct of an occupation when it exists they don't also provide a legal basis for that existence itself existential legality is determined by the law of self-determination and the Yos ad Bellum only there is

no backdoor legal basis for Israel to maintain the occupation through the imperatives of occupation and human rights law in some the occupation of the Palestinian Gaza Strip and West Bank including East Jerusalem is existentially illegal on two mutually reinforcing bases first the law on the use of force here the occupation is illegal both as a use of force without valid Justus ification and because it's enabling an illegal purported annexation as such it is an aggression second the law of self-determination here it's illegal again because of the association with illegal purported annexation and also more generally

because it is quite simply an exercise of authority over the Palestinian people that by its very nature violates their right to Freedom this multifaceted existential illegality involving serious violations of peremptory Norms has two key consequences first the occupation must end Israel must renounce its claim to sovereignty over the Palestinian territory all settlers must be removed immediately this is required to end the illegality to discharge the positive obligation to enable immediate Palestinian self-administration and because Israel lacks any legal entitlement to exercise Authority second in the absence of the occupation ending necessarily everything Israel does in the

Palestinian territory lacks a valid International legal basis and is therefore subject to the Namibia exception invalid not only those things violating the law regulating the conduct of the occupation those Norms entitle and require Israel to do certain things but this doesn't alter the more fundamental position from the law on the use of force and self-determination that Israel lacks any valid authority to do anything and what whatever it does is illegal even if compliant with or pursuant to the conduct regulatory rules I will close by quoting Palestinian academic and poet rafat allara from his final poem

posted 36 days before he was killed by Israel in Gaza on the 6th of December 2023 if I must die you must live to tell my story if I must die let it bring hope let it be a story thank you for your attention