A quite com­pre­hen­sive and de­fin­i­tive judg­ment against Is­rael’s 57-year-old oc­cu­pa­tion of Pales­tine, in­clud­ing the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, has been giv­en by the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice.

“The State of Is­rael is un­der the oblig­a­tion to bring an end to its un­law­ful pres­ence in the Oc­cu­pied Pales­tin­ian Ter­ri­to­ry as rapid­ly as pos­si­ble,” states ICJ pres­i­dent Nawaf Salam in read­ing the find­ings of an as­sign­ment which it was com­mis­sioned to un­der­take by the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly two years ago.

The 15 judges of the ICJ, in a very clin­i­cal fash­ion, went through the is­sues and re­spond­ed to every­one’s con­cerns about Is­rael’s oc­cu­pa­tion since 1967. In one of the speci­fici­ties of the judg­ment, the ICJ found Is­rael’s claim to Jerusalem as its “in­di­vis­i­ble cap­i­tal—some­thing which is not ac­cept­ed by the vast ma­jor­i­ty of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.”

But the in­ter­na­tion­al court does not stop at the phys­i­cal oc­cu­pa­tion of Pales­tin­ian lands by Is­rael: “There is sys­temic dis­crim­i­na­tion based on, in­ter alia, race, re­li­gion or eth­nic ori­gin,” states the ICJ’s find­ings. The ICJ says Is­rael has “il­le­gal­ly ex­ploit­ed the Pales­tini­ans’ nat­ur­al re­sources and vi­o­lat­ed their right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion.” There­fore, the find­ings state, “The State of Is­rael is un­der the oblig­a­tion to bring an end to its un­law­ful pres­ence in the Oc­cu­pied Pales­tin­ian Ter­ri­to­ry as rapid­ly as pos­si­ble,” said ICJ pres­i­dent Nawaf Salam.

As a con­se­quence of the il­le­gal oc­cu­pa­tion, very sig­nif­i­cant­ly, the ICJ has ad­vised na­tions not to en­gage in any ac­tion, “in­clud­ing pro­vid­ing aid or as­sis­tance, that would main­tain the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion.” Such a find­ing will in­dict sev­er­al na­tions, in­clud­ing the USA, Ger­many, and France, for par­tic­i­pat­ing in the sheer bru­tal­i­ty, dis­crim­i­na­tion, and in­deed apartheid prac­tised by Is­rael against Pales­tini­ans over the decades.

It is not the first oc­ca­sion on which a Unit­ed Na­tions agency has made a sweep­ing find­ing against Is­rael for the break­ing of in­ter­na­tion­al laws. This judg­ment is not bind­ing on Is­rael, and it seems as­sured that it will con­tin­ue to have the sup­port of its pro­tec­tive shield of al­lies if it choos­es to ig­nore the find­ings of the ICJ. “The Jew­ish peo­ple are not oc­cu­piers in their own land,” states a de­fi­ant Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu, claim­ing the whole of Pales­tine as its “an­ces­tral her­itage of Judea and Samaria.”

A num­ber of coun­tries have in their dif­fer­ent ways called on Is­rael to recog­nise the de­ci­sion of the court and to be­gin to re­move its set­tlers, po­lice and sol­diers from Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ry. The re­ac­tion from the USA is in­ter­est­ing. Wash­ing­ton’s po­si­tion is to the ef­fect that “the breadth of the court’s opin­ion will com­pli­cate ef­forts to re­solve the con­flict.”

This hoped-for res­o­lu­tion of the con­flict is in con­tra­dic­tion to Prime Min­is­ter Ne­tanyahu’s stub­born in­sis­tence and ac­tion of clear­ing Pales­tini­ans from Gaza, in­tent as he is to claim all of Pales­tine and un­in­ter­est­ed in the fa­bled “two-state set­tle­ment.”

It is tempt­ing to say that there is a sem­blance of a shift in the in­ter­na­tion­al or­der to one that has a greater con­cern for jus­tice and eq­ui­ty among na­tions. This can be the test of what seems like an emerg­ing change, or that af­ter a few glimpses of hope, the pow­er­ful na­tions will cast aside any sense of change.