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Source: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-811290
The ICJ Generates the Fiction of Palestinian Statehood
(Jerusalem Post) Amb. Alan Baker - The institution that describes itself as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) represents a motley bunch of predominantly non-democratic states that have taken the institution hostage. Its judges are merely political appointees acting upon instructions from their respective governments, presided over by a Lebanese judge with a record of hostile, anti-Israel political statements. The ICJ is nothing more than another biased and politically motivated UN body. It functions under the influence of a politically driven automatic majority of partisan states dictating their political will to the court and to the international community. The new non-binding advisory opinion issued by the court, according to which Israel is "obliged to bring an end to its presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible," ignores the fact that both the Palestinian leadership and Israel are committed in the Oslo Accords to negotiate between them the permanent status of the territories. This is an internationally recognized commitment to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by negotiation, rather than by an imposed political diktat by a UN kangaroo court. Moreover, the court is deliberately ignoring Israel's long-recognized and legitimate historical and legal claims to the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. In fact, by attempting to prejudge and prejudice the outcome of any final-status negotiation, the international court is itself violating the international law requirement to resolve disputes by negotiation, as it absurdly gives credence to the fiction of a non-existing "state of Palestine." The writer, former legal adviser to Israel's foreign ministry, led the team preparing Israel's response to the previous Palestinian attempt to engage the ICJ, regarding Israel's security fence. He is Director of the Institute for Diplomatic Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.