US opposes call at World Court for Israel to immediately withdraw from West Bank, East Jerusalem
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
The United States calls on the International Court of Justice not to issue an advisory opinion that Israel is legally required to immediately withdraw from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, insisting, like Israel, that the conflict must be resolved within “the established framework” for doing so.
The US is one of the only countries to have expressed opposition to the request of the Palestinian Authority and numerous other countries in the current hearings that the court rule Israel’s “military occupation” of the West Bank illegal and order Israel to take immediate steps to end it, such as the dismantlement of settlements.
“The established framework for achieving a comprehensive and enduring peace is anchored in UNSC resolutions 242 and 338. At their core these and subsequent resolutions call for the application of two inter-dependent and inseparable requirements for a just and lasting peace,” says US representative Richard Visek in the ICJ, a legal adviser in the US State Department.
“One is the withdrawal of all forces from occupied territory, the other is peace and security for states in the Middle East, through the acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence of every state in the area.
“In identifying these inter-dependent requirements, the Security Council decided that the withdrawal from Israeli forces relies on and is bound together with the termination of belligerency.”
Visek argues that the court “should not find that Israel is legally obligated to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from occupied territory,” and says the court can instead deal with the questions before it “within the established framework based on the land for peace principle.”
