Israel’s violations of international law are universally agreed upon, regardless of expertise. In fact, contrary to the widespread opinion in Turkey, Israel’s violations are actually not approved by almost any state, including even the United States, one close ally of Israel. So, the notion of a Western world that has given Israel a blank check is not very accurate. Then why should an issue that everyone agrees on be important? As far as I have observed, the nature and content of Israel’s violations of international law are not properly addressed. Here I will outline, albeit in a condensed form, what these violations of international law are.
Although I personally think that Israel’s very existence is a legitimacy problem, when we look at international politics as a whole, we have to recognize that there is a basis for Israel’s statehood. Unfortunately, it is defined in terms of the losses of the Palestinian people, but there is still a reality. Israel is a state established by a UN General Assembly resolution, more precisely, there is a resolution to that effect, and this resolution is the basis and reference point for the declaration of statehood by groups that adopted terrorist methods at the time. It can also be argued that this reality was accepted in world politics, as the statehood that was framed by the resolution was largely endorsed by the sovereign states of the time. However, even if this reality is accepted, that is, even if the existence of the State of Israel is recognized, there are serious violations of international law, especially starting from the 1960s and continuing almost uninterruptedly until today. These violations can be categorized into four categories.
The first of these categories is the annexation of East Jerusalem. Without going into the meaning of Jerusalem for the Abrahamic religions, let me state that East Jerusalem is not recognized by the world states as an area where Israel can claim sovereignty. In other words, even though there is full Israeli control in East Jerusalem, this blatant illegality based on the annexation decision is not recognized by the world. This is precisely why, despite Israel’s declaration of the city as its capital, no state had opened an embassy in Jerusalem until the scandalous decision of former US President Trump. Another annexation move by Israel concerns parts of the West Bank. Like East Jerusalem, West Jerusalem is not part of Israel, yet Israel commits a violation similar to that of East Jerusalem, first by building illegal settlements and then by annexing areas it deems sufficiently “Judaized.”
The second category is occupation. Unlike annexation, Israel does not recognize the territories it occupies as part of its territory, nor does it declare them as such. However, the occupied territories, like annexed East Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank, are outside Israeli sovereignty, so Israeli control over the occupied territories is also a violation of international law. It should also be noted that these occupations are not recognized. In the case of Palestine, the Palestinian territory currently occupied by Israel is the unannexed parts of the West Bank. In these areas, Israel has delegated some partial powers to the Palestinian Authority, but Israel is still largely in control. In Gaza, Israel declared the end of the occupation in 2005 and withdrew completely from Gaza. Therefore, there is currently no Israeli occupation in this area. But Israel still controls all entrances and exits and imposes a naval blockade on Gaza, even though this is against international law.
The third category is Israel’s commission of international crimes in the Palestinian territories (East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza). It is not easy to hold states accountable for international crimes in the first instance because individuals are prosecuted for international crimes, which are mainly genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. In the Palestinian territories occupied and annexed by Israel, there are many documented crimes committed by individuals associated with the Israeli state and government. Chief among these crimes is changing the demographic structure of the occupied territories. In addition, virtually all acts of armed violence, including the attacks on Gaza, have markedly exceeded the principles of proportionality, a primary benchmark identified by the relevant sections of international law to measure illegal conduct by a state, and can therefore be considered to constitute massive and systematic war crimes. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is currently investigating the possibility of prosecuting all of these crimes committed in the Palestinian territories.
The fourth category is actually more comprehensive and involves direct violations of the main principles of international law in one aspect and violations of human rights law in another. Let me give two basic facts. First of all, there are about 3 million Palestinians living in Israel outside the Palestinian territories I mentioned above (which are officially called the Occupied Territories). That is, Palestinians of Israeli citizenship living in Israeli cities outside Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank (as far as I know, Palestinians in East Jerusalem have special residence permits). Secondly, a state is expected to abide by certain basic rules (a kind of constitution of international law) that form the basis of international law (prohibition of genocide, prohibition of torture, etc.). The violation of international law that I will draw attention to within the framework of these two pieces of information is Israel’s entrenchment of an apartheid regime, as evidenced by now-accredited reports. (Definition of apartheid: “A regime that reinforces the superiority of one group over another through the use of law, practice and organized violence is an apartheid regime.” See: https://www.btselem.org/sites/default/files/publications/202101_this_is_apartheid_eng.pdf. The organization I linked to is an Israeli non-governmental organization that does important work on human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories, I add this note to explain that the issue should not be turned into anti-Semitism and hatred).
What does it mean that Israel is ruled by an apartheid regime? It means that not only the rights of Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian territories, but also the rights of Palestinians who are direct citizens of Israel are systematically violated, and these violations are carried out in accordance with Israeli law. In other words, there is a continuous legal and political situation that normalizes, legalizes and legitimizes the violations. Apartheid is a clear violation of international law. As is well known, the South African regime, based on the registration and consolidation of white supremacy and domination, collapsed under international pressure and sanctions. Therefore, the apartheid allegation is extremely important for the legitimacy of the Israeli regime. Even though Israel vehemently denies the apartheid allegations and the allegations have not yet been sufficiently discussed in the world public opinion, the arrow has already left the bow. Detailed reports by highly credible and reputable human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch make the situation clear that these allegations should now be taken seriously.
