If you’re still in any doubt over Israel’s territorial ambitions, or are finding it hard to understand how our closest ally in the Middle East can justify its total annihilation of Gaza and the deaths of more than 12,000 children, these statements by leading figures in the regime may help. The words and actions of Netanyahu and his cohorts seem to run contrary to the “right-to-defend/avoiding civilian casualties” justifications trotted out daily by the likes of Mark Regev and Elon Levy. In fact – shock horror – the official rhetoric over decades seems to suggest that what to many looks like ethnic cleansing… may actually be ethnic cleansing.
The following excerpts were assembled and presented by Paul S Reichler at today’s hearing of the ICJ (original references are cited in each case).

What is an occupation?

General Assembly resolution 77/126, 12 December 2022
“[T]he occupation of a territory is to be a temporary, de facto situation, whereby the occupying Power can neither claim possession nor exert its sovereignty over the territory it occupies.”
Source: General Assembly, Resolution 77/126, 12 December 2022, para. 7.

Written Statement of Switzerland, 17 July 2023
“The laws of occupation are built on the idea that occupation is only a temporary situation. They are based on four fundamental principles, the first two of which underscore the temporary nature of occupation: 1) the occupying power does not acquire sovereignty over the territory it occupies….2) the occupying power must maintain the status quo ante and must not take any measures which might bring about permanent changes …”
Source: Written Statement of the Swiss Federation (17 July 2023), para. 44

The Permanent Character of Israel’s Occupation of Palestinian Territory
(i) Israel’s de jure and de facto annexation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank;
(ii) Israel’s claims of sovereignty over these areas, which it refers to by their biblical names, Judea and Samaria, and considers integral parts of the State of Israel;
(ili) Israel’s establishment of hundreds of settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, with over 700,000 Israeli settlers, who have been promised by successive Israeli governments that they will never be uprooted;
(iv) The multitude of official statements and documents that openly declare Israel’s intention to incorporate all the occupied territory east of the Green Line into the State of Israel as a permanent part of a single Jewish State extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Statement by Israel’s Cabinet Secretary, Yossi Fuchs, 19 June 2023

Israel’s take…

“Judea and Samaria were not seized from a sovereign state recognised by international law, and the State of Israel has a right to impose its sovereignty over these areas as they comprise the cradle of history of the Jewish people and are an inseparable part of the Land of Israel.”
“It is not a foreign land we have taken nor have we seized the property of foreigners, but only our ancestral heritage, which for a time had been unjustly occupied by our enemies.”
Source: Letter from Yossi Fuchs, Cabinet Secretary, to Abdalah – The Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, 19 June 2023, paras. 2 and 11. (https://www.adalah.org/uploads/uploads/Response_Cabinet_Secretary_19_June_2023.pdf)

Statement by Israel’s Heritage Minister, Amichai Eliyahu, 3 August 2023
“Sovereignty must be extended within the borders of the West Bank…and in the most prudent way, to create international recognition that this place is ours… There is no Green Line, it is a fictitious line that creates a distorted reality and must be erased.“
Source: “This place is ours?: Israeli minister calls for annexation of West Bank”, The New Arab, 3 August 2023. (https://www.newarab.com/news/israeli-minister-calls-annexation-occupied-west-bank)

Official Israeli Government Statements on Jerusalem (1967-2022)
Defence Minister Moshe Dayan (1967)
“The Israel Defence Forces have liberated Jerusalem. …We have returned to this most sacred shrine, never to part from it again.” (https://tinyurl.com/24nbfype)

Communication from the Israeli Foreign Minister to the UN Secretary General (1990)
Jerusalem is not, in any part, “occupied territory’; it is the sovereign capital of Israel.” (https://tinyurl.com/2fzdebbz)

Guidelines of the Incoming Israeli Government (1996)
“Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, is one city, whole and undivided, and will remain forever under Israel’s sovereignty” (https://tinyurl.com/k6pfx9cr)

Statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (2022)
“The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land nor occupiers in our eternal capital Jerusalem..” (https://tinyurl.com/3w3ec5a4)

Official Israeli Government Statements on the West Bank (2010-2022)
Statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (2010)
“Our message is clear. We are planting here, we will stay here, we will build here.
This place will be an inseparable part of the State of Israel for eternity…”
Source: (https://tinyurl.com/2meyxrn3)

Statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (2019)
“The time has come to apply Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and to also arrange the status of all Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria… They will be part of the State of Israel.”
Source: (https://tinyurl.com/2p8tc8z8)

Statement by Defence Minister Naftali Bennett (2020)
“Our objective is that within a short amount of time … we will apply sovereignty to all of Area C, not just the settlements, not just this bloc or another.”
Source: (https://tinyurl.com/2p88djvm)

Guiding Principles of the Incoming Israeli Government (December 2022)
“The Jewish people have an exclusive and indisputable right to all parts of the Land of Israel. The Government will promote and develop in the settlement of all parts of the Land of Israel – the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan and Judea and Samaria.”
Source: “Judicial reform, boosting Jewish identity: the new coalition’s policy guidelines”, The Times of Israel, 28 December 2022. (https://www.timesofisrael.com/judicial-reform-boosting-jewish-identity-the-new-coalitions-policy-guidelines/)

Coalition Agreement Between the Governing Israeli Political Parties
“The Prime Minister will lead the formulation and promotion of policy in which sovereignty will be applied in Judea and Samaria, while choosing the timing and weighing all the national and international interests of the State of Israel.”
Source: Coalition Agreement between the Likud Party and the Religious Zionist Party for the Establishment of a national government, 28 December 2022, point 118 (Vol. II, Written Statement of the State of Palestine, Annex 12).

The world’s take…

Report of the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry, 14 September 2022
“Israel treats the occupation as a permanent fixture and has – for all intents and purposes – annexed parts of the West Bank … The International Court of Justice anticipated such a scenario in its 2004 advisory opinion…This has now become the reality.”
Source: Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, 14 September 2022, A/77/328, para. 76. (https://undocs.org/A/77/328)

Report of the U.N. Special Rapporteur, 12 August 2022
“The occupation by Israel has been conducted in profound defiance of international law… Its 55-year-old occupation burst through the restraints of temporariness long ago. Israel has progressively engaged in the de jure and de facto annexation of occupied territory.”
Source: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, 12 August 2022, A/HRC/49/87, para. 11. (https://undocs.org/A/HRC/49/87)

Report of the U.N. Secretary-General, 25 October 2023
“Successive Israeli Governments have consistently advanced and implemented policies of settlement expansion and takeover of Palestinian land. The policies of the current Government in this regard are aligned, to an unprecedented extent, with the goals of the Israeli settler movement to expand long-term control over the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and, in practice, to further integrate those areas within the territory of the State of Israel.”
Source: “Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the Occupied Syrian Golan”, Report of the Secretary-General, 25 October 2023, A/78/554, paras. 4-5. (https://undocs.org/A/78/554)

Written Statement of Switzerland, 17 July 2023
“The law of occupation and the legality of occupation are two different questions. The law of occupation applies independently of the question of the legality of the occupation.
Occupation is a situation subject to international humanitarian law, whereas its legality is covered by the United Nations Charter.”
Source: Written Statement of the Swiss Federation (17 July 2023), para. 51.

Written Statement of Switzerland, 17 July 2023
“The United Nations has consistently reaffirmed the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force, and condemned Israeli measures aimed at modifying the demographic composition, the character and the status of Jerusalem and the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole, notably the construction and extension of settlements, the transfer of Israeli settlers, the confiscation of land, the demolition of homes and the displacement of Palestinian civilians.”
“The measures taken by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory lead to fundamental changes, particularly demographic changes, that can have a permanent character.”
Source: Written Statement of the Swiss Federation (17 July 2023), paras. 46 and 48.

Written Statement of France, 25 July 2023
“If the restrictions authorised by a regime of occupation were justifiable in the period following the military operations, they are not any more today. These points have been reiterated by the Security Council and the General Assembly on numerous occasions concerning Israel’s obligation to withdraw from the ‘occupied’ territories.”
“The status of occupying power does not confer any legal title justifying annexation… The passage of time is not sufficient, as regards the acquisition of territory by force, to render lawful a situation that is gravely unlawful.”
“These permanent establishments are obviously incompatible with the necessarily temporary character of the occupation.”
Source: Written Statement of France (25 July 2023), paras. 49, 50 & 58.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama, 2020
“At the same time, just about every country in the world considered Israel’s continued occupation of the Palestinian territories to be a violation of international law. As a result, our diplomats found themselves in the awkward position of having to defend Israel for actions that we ourselves opposed.”
Source: Obama, A Promised Land, (Crown, 2020), p. 627.

Last word to Netanyahu…

Tweet from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 20 January 2024
“I will not compromise on full Israeli security control over all the territory west of Jordan – and this is contrary to a Palestinian state.”
Source: X, @netanyahu, 20 January 2024.

With thanks to the International Court of Justice and to Paul S Reichler for assembling these quotes and presenting them to the world. (ICJ hearing 19 February 2024: https://www.youtube.com/live/QgcS6X6sFS8?si=IGiisfgw5imUSlaI)