At the ICJ, Dissenting Judge Julia Sebutinde is a Daniel Come to Judgment

The International Court of Justice has issued its Advisory Opinion castigating Israel, and accusing it, in the words of the Court’s Chief Judge, Nawaf Salam, of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity.”

Judge Julia Sebutinde of Uganda, who has consistently upheld the rights of the Jewish state, and explained why Israel is entitled to hold onto all the territory that was assigned to the Jewish state by the Mandate for Palestine — that is, all of the territory “from the river to the sea” and from just beyond the Golan Heights in the north to the Red Sea in the south — has written a brilliant dissent to the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion. I hope it will be widely disseminated. Her report is long, and includes a great deal of important historical material buttressing Israel’s claims and undermining those she is careful to call “the Palestinian Arabs,” but never the “Palestinian people.” Her dissent is well worth the effort to read and digest. Judge Sebutinde’s dissent can be found here. Do read it all, and keep it on hand to answer critics of Israel. Here is the summary:

The Court has jurisdiction to entertain the request for an advisory opinion — However, in exercising its discretion judiciously and maintaining the integrity of its judicial role, the Courtshould have refrained from rendering the advisory opinion requested — The Advisory Opinion omits the historical backdrop crucial to understanding the multifaceted Israeli-Palestinian dispute and is tantamount to a one-sided “forensic audit” of Israel’s compliance with international law — The Advisory Opinion does not reflect a balanced and impartial examination of the pertinent legal and factual questions — It is imperative to grasp the historical nuances of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the competing territorial claims of the parties in former British Mandatory Palestine, as well as the previous and ongoing efforts to resolve the conflict through the negotiation framework identified by the Security Council — The Court lacks adequate, accurate, balanced and reliable information before it to enable it to judiciously arrive at a fair assessment and conclusions on the disputed questions of fact — The Advisory Opinion not only circumvents Israel’s consent to the Court’s resolution of the issues involved, but also circumvents and potentially jeopardizes the existing internationally sanctioned and legally binding negotiation framework for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — The Advisory Opinion also contains several shortcomings, in particular with respect to its answer to Question 2 — The timeline proposed by the Court for Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories is impracticable and disregards the matters agreed upon in the existing negotiating framework, the security threats posed to Israel and the need to balance competing sovereignty claims — The Court’s application of the principle of full reparation is not appropriate in the circumstances of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — The Court has misapplied the law of belligerent occupation and has adopted presumptions implicit in the question of the General Assembly without a prior critical analysis of relevant issues, including the application of the principle of uti possidetis juris to the territory of the former British Mandate, the question of Israel’s borders and its competing sovereignty claims, the nature of the Palestinian right of selfdetermination and its relationship to Israel’s own rights and security concerns — The only avenue for a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains the negotiation framework set out in the United Nations and bilateral agreements

Julia Sebutinde lays out, relentlessly and in great detail, the case against the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion that declares Israel to be guilty of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity.” She explains why Israel’s legitimate borders are those set out in the Mandate for Palestine in 1922, and not the pre-1967 lines — that is, the Armistice Lines that followed upon the 1948 war. She explains the origins of Jordan (consisting of 70% of the territory originally intended to be included in the territory of the Mandate for Palestine). She adduces the evidence, going back more than three millennia of the Jewish connection to the land. She offers withering criticism of the Court’s Advisory Opinion, which relied only on the claims of the Palestinians, and never examined the much more convincing claims of the Israelis. It is a most comprehensive dossier, and deserves to be made widely known, by all those who want only fairness for the Jewish people, and the Jewish state.