States helping Israel’s occupation may be ‘complicit’: UN experts

Navi Pillay, head of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry.

Countries enabling Israel’s “unlawful occupation” of the Palestinian territories and assisting it despite warnings of war crimes and possible “genocide” in Gaza should be deemed “complicit”, UN experts said Friday.

“Israel’s internationally wrongful acts give rise to state responsibility, not only for Israel, but for all states,” said Navi Pillay, head of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry.

The commission has published a new legal position paper spelling out specific actions required following a recent advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declaring Israel’s occupation since 1967 “unlawful”.

It also examines the implications of last month’s UN General Assembly vote demanding the occupation end within a year.

The three-person commission, established by the UN Human Rights Council in May 2021 to investigate alleged international law violations in Israel and the Palestinian territories, pointed first to Israel’s obligations.

The UN General Assembly vote meant “Israel was under an international legal obligation to cease all new settlement activity and dismantle existing settlements as rapidly as possible”.

“Israel must immediately put into place a comprehensive plan of action that will physically evacuate all settlers from occupied territory,” it said.

It also demanded that Israel “return land, title and natural resources to the Palestinians who have been displaced since 1967”.

Other countries also had a list of obligations to fulfil, according to the commission.

Israel has long accused the UN independent commission of “systematic anti-Israel discrimination”.

Pillay, a former UN rights chief, said all countries are “obligated not to recognise territorial or sovereignty claims made by Israel over the occupied territories”.

States are required to “distinguish in their dealings between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory”, and no country should “recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel or place its diplomatic representatives to Israel in Jerusalem”, she said.

States must also refrain from rendering “aid or assistance in maintaining the unlawful occupation”, she said, adding that this included all “financial, military and political aid or support”.

The commission likewise insisted that all states must comply with their “obligations under the Genocide Convention” and follow the provisional measures ordered by the ICJ in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

“States may be complicit in failing to prevent genocide if they do not act in compliance with the court orders, and directly aid or assist in the commission of genocide,” it warned.

The commission stressed that the UN also needed to do more to ensure Israel complies with its obligations under international law.

It decried that the Security Council in particular had repeatedly failed to act due to the veto power wielded by one of its five permanent members, implicitly referring to the United States, Israel’s main ally.

“The commission is of the view that, when peremptory norms of international law are violated, the permanent members of the Security Council should not be allowed to exercise their veto as this is contrary to the obligation to uphold peremptory norms of international law,” it said.