Thread by @EpshtainItay

#Palestinian territory, occupied or not according to #Israel? There are not one but two arguments, presented in the alternative by the Government of Israel. This is key for @CIJ_ICJ deliberations:

When the Government of #Israel comes before the Israeli High Court, it consistently argues that #Palestinian territory is under belligerent occupation, where Israeli metropolitan law does not apply, and where the Israeli Military Government is the supreme legislator and executive

That, in turn, allowed the #Israeli military commander to undertake excessive and inadmissible legislative changes and actions in disregard of #Palestinian rights and interests under int'l law #IHL - with the Court's approval - purportedly shielding it from criticism.

Outside the halls of the Court, the Israeli government argues in the alternative - out of political convenience - that the territory is not occupied at all, basing itself on the argument developed by its legal counsel, Prof. Yehuda Blum in 1968.

While Blum's assertion was rejected by his contemporary Prof. Theodor Meron (MFA Counsel, later to serve as ICTY President) in a classified memo to the Foreign Minister on the applicability of the law of occupation, the Israeli government continues to uphold it.

More recently, the 2012 Government-commissioned report by former High Court Justice Edmund Levi asserted that the law of occupation, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, does not apply to the Israeli presence in 'Judea and Samaria', and it is within its right to settle it.

Since 2016, and recirculated by @IsraelMFA in November 2021 (under @yairlapid), the formal position of the Government of Israel (its opinio juris) is that the territory is not occupied.

Basing itself on arguments put forward by Blum and Levi (and rejected by the international community as a whole) Israel argues that the territory is not occupied, and is available for Israeli acquisition and colonization, despite competing Palestinian claims.

So what, in sum, what is the @CIJ_ICJ to make of it? Notably, the Government of Israel is aware of the fact that the territory is factually occupied, and it argues that it is when it serves its administration of the territory and subjugation of its Palestinian people (...)

While arguing in the alternative that it is not occupied, when it serves its interest in the irreversible and perpetual acquisition of the West Bank, in the form of annexation or colonization.

Ultimately, the Court will likely restate its 2004 conclusion that the territory is Palestinian and occupied by Israel, going on to establish that Israel has abused the law of occupation to mask its prohibited annexation of the territory, rendering its occupation unlawful.

The @CIJ_ICJ in addressing the legality of a prolonged #Israeli occupation, will likely apply a test such as the one developed by @MichaelLynk5 that would expose the acquisitive and abusive purpose of prolonging the occupation, in violation of peremptory norms of int'l law.

If the @CIJ_ICJ concludes that the #Israeli occupation is acquisitive, unjustifiably prolonged and unlawful, it could not but conclude that it is an act of aggression committed against the #Palestinian people and polity.

From that flows a violation of three peremptory norms of international law - codified by the @UN International Law Commission - the basic rules of #IHL pertaining to proscribed annexation, the prohibition on aggression, and the right of #Palestinians to self-determination.

The legal consequences of the "Israeli trinomial violation" is the duty of third parties not to recognize, aid, or assist its continuation and the ancillary duty to cooperate in invoking Israeli responsibility for its wrongful behavior.

The 1971 @CIJ_ICJ Namibia Advisory Opinion (alongside the 2004 Wall AO and the 2019 Chagos AO) would serve as precedence in establishing an obligation - not subject to any form of negotiations between the parties - to end the occupation, and respective duties of int'l community.