ECAJ state­ment on ICJ advi­so­ry opin­ion on Israel’s pres­ence in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

The Exec­u­tive Coun­cil of Aus­tralian Jew­ry, the peak nation­al body of the Aus­tralian Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, is appalled by the advi­so­ry opin­ion issued by the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice (ICJ) on 19 July 2024 con­cern­ing Israel’s pres­ence in the ter­ri­to­ries of the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

“Nowhere in its 83 pages is there a sin­gle ref­er­ence to the repeat­ed attempts by neigh­bour­ing states to erad­i­cate Israel and wipe out its Jew­ish pop­u­la­tion, an ambi­tion still open­ly pro­claimed by the present crim­i­nal regime in Iran” said ECAJ Pres­i­dent Daniel Aghion.

“The ICJ gloss­es over the fact that when Israel came into pos­ses­sion of the ter­ri­to­ries of the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the course of the Six Day War in 1967, it was as a result of Israel’s neigh­bours mass­ing troops on its bor­der with those ter­ri­to­ries and open­ly threat­en­ing its anni­hi­la­tion.”

“In con­clud­ing that Israel has an oblig­a­tion to bring an end to its pres­ence in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, the ICJ ignores the les­son of his­to­ry, which is that uni­lat­er­al with­draw­al from ter­ri­to­ry is sui­ci­dal in the face of ene­mies who are deter­mined to erad­i­cate you and your coun­try”, Mr Aghion said.

“Far from cre­at­ing a path­way to peace, it is an incen­tive to fur­ther war and blood­shed. This is pre­cise­ly what hap­pened after Israel with­drew uni­lat­er­al­ly from Gaza in 2005. For this rea­son, Pales­tin­ian state­hood can only be sus­tained in the con­text of a nego­ti­at­ed peace agree­ment between Israel and the Pales­tini­ans, not through a dik­tat of the ICJ or any oth­er exter­nal body.”

Mr Aghion also exco­ri­at­ed the ICJ for blam­ing Israel for the fail­ure of the Pales­tini­ans to achieve State­hood. “The ICJ is silent not only about the ongo­ing rejec­tion­ist atti­tude of the Pales­tin­ian lead­ers towards Israel but also about their peren­ni­al vio­lence, cor­rup­tion and incom­pe­tence. One can­not sim­ply air­brush from the record their rejec­tion of repeat­ed offers made by Israel for a com­pre­hen­sive peace agree­ment that would have includ­ed the estab­lish­ment of a Pales­tin­ian State cov­er­ing the whole of the Gaza Strip and an area equal in size to the West Bank, togeth­er with a cap­i­tal in east Jerusalem.”

“The ICJ has been men­da­cious and reck­less In its attempt to rewrite his­to­ry and min­imise the ongo­ing threats to Israel’s exis­tence”. Mr Aghion con­clud­ed. “Thank­ful­ly the Advi­so­ry Opin­ion is not legal­ly bind­ing. It deserves to fol­low the ICJ’s 2004 advi­so­ry opin­ion in the so-called “Wall” case into obscu­ri­ty and irrel­e­vance.”