"You Vote It; You Got It!" The #Smotrich -#BenGvir#Israeli government took out an ad this weekend, enumerating its accomplishments in the first 100 days. The judicial overhaul receives minor attention, while they highlight the following:
* Annulling the disengagement law (2005 withdrawal of settlements in the northern West Bank) and formalization of 9 settlement outposts (the most territorially disruptive and known hubs of violent extremism - IE)
* Promoting plans to formalize all (147) settlement outposts.
* Approving the construction of 10,000 settlement housing units in the Judea and Samaria (according to the #Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, transferring circa 47,000 additional settlers to occupied #Palestinian territory - IE).
* Dramatic increase of settlements budget.
Acquiring, under the Settlement Administration (formed for Minster Smotrich - IE), the following powers:
* Appointing the Deputy Head of the Israeli Civil Administration (ICA, the military government of occupied territory - IE).
* Responsibility for the ICA Enforcement Unit (tasked with the destruction of Palestinian property and humanitarian relief provided by donor states, mostly European - IE).
* Responsibly for the Judea and Samaria High Planning Council, including land registration and claims.
* Regulating State Land declarations, telecommunications, transportation, quarrying, energy production and renewable energy (throughout the entirety of the occupied West Bank, including those areas nominally controlled by the #Palestinian Authority - IE).
And last, but not least:
* Sanctions against the #Palestinian Authority @Palestine_UN for addressing the International Court of Justice @CIJ_ICJ including withholding 239 Million ILS (66 Million USD) owed by Israel to the Palestinian Authority.
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Would #Israel, claiming to offer refuge to survivors of WW II atrocities - among them my grandparents - oppose the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity?
This is what took place at the @UN Sixth Committee (Legal) this week:
Delegates considered concluding a new convention on crimes against humanity, debating whether it would close gaps in the current international legal framework, based on the draft articles of the International Law Commission, and the @IntlCrimCourt Statute. #Israel pushed back.
Reiterating an earlier statement (2019), the #Israeli delegate insisted on the (contentious) primacy of internal jurisdiction over international justice, and on introducing stringent limitations on universal jurisdiction to prosecute the gravest international crimes. Shameful.
This is member of #Israeli parliament Ariel Kallner (Likud). According to his web page, he "works to promote reforms in the Israeli legal system to remove barriers and regulations," setting as hit top priority "the issue of sovereignty throughout the entire Land of Israel."
In February, Kallner tabled a draft bill to amend the income tax ordinance to impose a tax of 65 percent on financial support from third-states and intergovernmental organizations (@EUCouncil@EU_Commission) to #Israeli and #Palestinian humanitarians and human rights defenders.
In March, he tabled a draft bill to amend the courts' law, so that Israeli, Palestinian, and international human rights defenders - supported by third states - could not effectively, independently, and impartially approach Israel's top court:
Grateful that @UN_HRC expert on occupied #Palestinian territory, Dr. @FranceskAlbs raised the question of self defense claimed by an occupying power, #Israel. My own thoughts follow:
Self defense is understood as the inherent right of a State to use of force in response to an armed attack on it. It is one of the exceptions to the prohibition against use of force under article 2(4) of the @UN Charter and customary international law.
#Israeli claims of measures in self- defense, are disconcerting. There is no controversy about the prohibition breached by deliberate or indiscriminate attacks against civilians in Israel, but that does not absolve it from observing distinction, proportionality, and precaution.
#Israel's coalition government sequenced its constitutional overhaul back in December 2022, and has since followed diligently on the legislative, policy, and political measures outlined to extinguish #Palestinian self-determination. A reminder thread:
The preamble to the policy platform of #Israel's 37th Government reads: the Jewish people has an exclusive and irrefutable sovereign right to all of the land of Israel (historic Palestine). The government will promote and develop settlements in Judea and Samaria (West Bank).
1. To execute said policy, the government will promote legislative amendments, particularly to the balance between the legislator, executive, and judiciary, and the appointment of justices. The legislative overhaul will take absolute and complete precedence over all legislation.2
Purported annexation of occupied #Palestinian territory would was decreed yesterday by #Israel, subsuming functions of its military government into the metropolitan government and applying its internal law and institutions to occupied territory.
Following are the details:
Recent changes to #Israel’s Basic Law: The Government created a ministry within the Ministry of Defense responsible for the military government of occupied Palestinian territory. Handed to Religious Zionism leader, Bezalel Smotrich, it gives effect to the coalition agreement...
1. All “civilian affairs” in the West Bank will come under the authority of the Minister (Smotrich), and be delegated to the Deputy Heads of the Israeli Civil Administration (Deputy ICA), a non-uniformed political appointee of the Minister, from within his political base.
#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.