Twenty-one MEPs, including Italians Brando Benifei, Marco Tarquinio, Alessandra Moretti, Cecilia Strada and Leoluca Orlando, have asked to the European Commission to impose an EU-wide ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and to monitor Israel’s compliance with the Association Agreement with the Union following the advisory opinion issued on July 19, by the United Nations Court in The Hague, according to which the settlements in Palestine violate international law.
The letter from the 21 MEPs
“The International Court of Justice has affirmed that all States have the obligation not to recognise, aid or assist the illegal situation resulting from the Israeli occupation and to ensure that Israel respects international law,” reads the letter sent to the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell.In this regard, the Court stresses that States must refrain from commercial or investment relations that maintain the illegal situation created by Israel in the Occupied Territories.”
The The advisory opinion issued by the Court in The Hague, according to the signatories, “has significant implications for the EU, whose external policies and actions must be guided by international law”, as enshrined in the Community treaties.This comes at a time when the catastrophic war in Gaza triggered by the Hamas attack on 7 October has renewed attention on the need for a two-state solution and there is a pressing EU responsibility to uphold the international legal order in the face of multiple threats.”
Therefore, the MEPs involved call on the Commission “to act and implement rapidly the findings and implications of the Advisory Opinion” of the UN Court. The signatories ask, first of all, to “update the EU’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” and “to align it with the conclusions of the International Court of Justice”.
Secondly, they propose to “impose a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories” and to “review the Association Agreement between the European Union and Israel, on the basis of paragraph 278 of the Advisory Opinion which calls on States to ‘take measures to prevent trade or investment relations that contribute to the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the Occupied Territories’”.
They then ask to “verify Israel’s compliance with Article 2 of the Association Agreement (with the EU, ed.), as already requested by Ireland and Spain in February”. This provision, the signatories recall, states that relations between the EU and Israel “are based on respect for human rights and democratic principles”. “The Court’s findings of serious violations of international humanitarian law in the Occupied Territories underline the need for such a verification to be carried out rapidly”, the 21 MEPs underline.
Finally they ask “a broader and more in-depth assessment of the implications of the advisory opinion” of the Hague Tribunal “for the external policies and actions of the EU and its Member States, in order to bring them fully into line with international law in the light of the Court’s findings”. “This report should be made public and submitted to the competent bodies of the European Parliament”, the signatories add.
“The historic opinion of the International Court of Justice must be seen as a turning point for the EU to recalibrate its policy towards Israel in order to end its illegal occupation, enable a two-state solution to the conflict, guaranteeing freedom and security for both peoples and resolutely defend the international legal order,” the 21 MEPs concluded.
The opinion of the International Court of Justice
On 19 July, in a non-binding opinion from a legal point of view, the Court in The Hague has established for the first time that Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories violate international law. In a resolution passed last year, the United Nations General Assembly had asked the Court in The Hague for “an advisory and non-binding opinion” on the legal implications of Israel’s actions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
By February, 52 countries had submitted their arguments to the International Court. Already at the time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the UN General Assembly of “distorting historical facts” by declaring that the Jewish people cannot be “an occupier” in their own land.
“The Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land, neither in our eternal capital Jerusalem, nor in the land of our ancestors in Judea and Samaria,” the head of the Jewish state’s government declared after the Court’s opinion on July 19. “No false decision from The Hague will distort this historical truth, just as the legality of Israeli settlement in all the territories of our homeland cannot be challenged.”
In the past, Israel has always ignored similar pronouncements in the international forum, even though for the first time a UN court is examining the issue, albeit with a non-binding opinion. The last such pronouncement dates back to over twenty years ago, when in 2003 the Court in The Hague declared that the separation wall (the so-called “security fence”) between Israel and the West Bank violated international law.
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