Guilty as Charged?

September 9, 2024

by: Ilse Strauss, News Bureau Chief

Israel is in the unique position that its wars always rage on multiple fronts. While the army fights the physical battle on the ground, the anti-Israel lobby takes to the trenches to launch anti-Israel assaults in the battle for public opinion.

But there’s a third front that’s growing increasingly perilous. In the hallowed halls of international justice where the world’s legal luminaries converge as custodians of justice and peace, Israel faces a calculated onslaught on her legitimacy. In fact, experts warn that Israel might be in for the fight of her life.

But Where’s the Peace?

In May 1899, international delegates gathered in The Hague to deliberate a future filled with peace and justice for all. The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) and the vision for a “Temple of Peace” was born from the “First Hague Peace Conference.”

The “Second Hague Peace Conference” followed in 1907, featuring the foundation stone laying for the “Temple of Peace,” named the Peace Palace. Six years later, the keys to the Peace Palace were handed over to beckon as a bastion to peace and justice in the heart of The Hague, the international city of peace and justice.

Yet in a stark reminder that peace and justice are unattainable without truth, the First World War, one of the deadliest conflicts in history, erupted months later.

Today—two world wars, the Holocaust, a number of genocides, various refugee crises and several civil wars later—the Peace Palace still stands as a global “icon to ‘Peace through Law.’” It is home to the PCA and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the main judicial arm of the UN, and continues to beckon as a bastion to peace and justice—minus truth—in the heart of The Hague, the international city of peace and justice—minus truth.

It is here, among the immaculate lawns and spires reaching heavenward, that the enemies of Israel have drawn the battle lines. In what was supposed to stand as a haven for peace and justice, Jerusalem’s adversaries use international law as a weapon of choice, with its misuse fast becoming an existential threat to the Jewish state.

Lawfare

The Hague Initiative for International Cooperation (thinc.) works to provide a counter narrative. This global network of international law academics, practitioners and experts challenges the misuse of international law to delegitimize Israel, while advocating international law for peace and security between Israel and her neighbors.

Andrew Tucker, who heads up thinc., describes the assault against Israel as the essence of lawfare, where the law is employed as a weapon of warfare to achieve military objectives against an opponent. And 2024 has been a year filled with what seem like spectacular conquests for Israel’s enemies.

First came South Africa’s highly publicized genocide case against Israel at the ICJ, with the court issuing a highly ambiguous interim order determining South Africa has legal standing and ordering Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent a genocide. While the verdict left many scratching their heads as to exactly what such an order meant, both the media and South Africa interpreted it as a resounding victory.

Perhaps the pinnacle of abuse came in July, when an ICJ advisory opinion declared Israel’s presence in eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria—also known as the biblical heartland, where the lion’s share of the Bible was either written or occurred—to be illegal. The court then called on Israel to dismantle all Jewish communities in what it termed “occupied Palestinian territories” and withdraw its people “as rapidly as possible.”

The verdict constitutes a non-binding advisory opinion, Tucker concedes. Regardless, the impact is devastating. It could trigger a wave of sanctions and prompt governments to cut ties with the Jewish state. It will also fuel the fires of anti-Semitism, lend a sense of legitimacy to the widespread anti-Israel sentiment sweeping the globe, serve as the proverbial rubber stamp for crowds chanting “From the River to the Sea” and incentivize violence against Jewish people. Moreover, the ruling can prompt the International Criminal Court to initiate criminal proceedings against individual Israeli officials administering Judea and Samaria. And then there’s the possibility of the Security Council passing a resolution declaring the occupation illegal.

All this based on a hearing Tucker dismisses as an Israel-bashing crusade, with “no word about Hamas. No word about the Palestinians breaching the Oslo Accords and only one mention of October 7. It was like the proceedings took place in a parallel, Orwellian universe where they’d created this myth of a Palestinian state that has nothing to do with the reality on the ground.”

Worse—and Better—to Come

Lawfare against Israel is nothing new, Tucker grants. The accusations of occupation and genocide have resounded for years. “But now they’ve gotten the highest court to put a rubber stamp on it. This is a new level and we can expect to see the war being ramped up.”

This might take the form of more countries following in South Africa’s footsteps to accuse Israel of genocide, occupation or some other evil. All this to tie up a small state in various multi-billion dollar law suits that drain its manpower and talent, while at the same time turning it into a pariah across the globe.

Yet in the end, Tucker concedes, this is a spiritual battle. From a human perspective, in the court’s eyes, it seems cut and dried. Divide the Land, give each party a share and be done with it. Yet this is a land unlike any other. Ultimately, it is the God of Israel who commands the unity of the Land of Israel.

No. There is simply no way to understand this Land and her people—and the forces that come against them—unless you look at it from a biblical point of view. Then it all makes sense.

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