Context: Israel’s aim to annex parts of the occupied West Bank was clearly illegal, the UN’s human rights chief said, warning that the consequences could be “disastrous”
Background

• The UN Secretary General’s alarm has been sounded in the context of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reported plan to annex on July 1 around 30% of the Occupied West Bank.
• It will include annexation of all the existing (post-1967) settlements in addition to areas surrounding them and access roads.
• The UN Secretary General called upon Israel to abandon its annexation plans and asked the Middle East Quartet (the US, Russia, the European Union and the UN) to resume its mandated mediatory role.

Whether the annexation is a violation of International law?

• Annexation: It is forcible acquisition of territory by one state at the expense of another state as per international law.
• Violation of inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force: It will be illegal if such an act is sanctified by Israel and according to some experts is the accepted position of all international legal bodies including the International Court of Justice.

Position by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN Human Rights)

• It described the annexation of occupied territory as a serious violation of the Charter of the UN and the Geneva Conventions and contrary to the fundamental rule affirmed many times by the UNSC and the General Assembly that acquisition of territory war or by force is inadmissible.
• Human rights violation: It pointed out that the 53-year-old Israeli occupation is a source of profound human rights violations of the Palestinian people and these would only intensify after annexation.
• It would lead to a separate territory for Palestinian with islands of disconnected land completely surrounded by Israel and no territorial connection with the outside world.
• 21st century Apartheid: The annexation would solidify an already unjust reality: two peoples living in the same space ruled by the same state but with profoundly unequal rights.

The effect of the plan

• Consequences: There are no fixed understandings about the effect of plan on the status of private property owned by Palestinians (owns 23% of its land), rights to Palestinians with respect to Israeli Arabs of Palestinian origin (Muslim, Christian and Druze) who together constitute about 20% of Israel’s population etc.
• Effect on self-determination: There are question marks whether it will take away from the Palestinians right to have their own state under the right of national self-determination recognised at times without number by the international community.
• Demographic consequences: By its foundation, Israel is not a Jewish state only because most of its inhabitants are Jews but It is a state for the Jews wherever they may be and for any Jew who wishes to be there. The plan will have effect on non-Jews peoples.
• Changing ground realities: Since the 1967 war, the Israeli effort has been to procrastinate a settlement. Now, Israel is a member of the international community and succeeded in normalising its relations with a wide range of countries. It also includes observance of globally accepted norms of state conduct. Israel did not fulfill it with the support of powerful friends and imperatives of geopolitics.

India and Road Ahead

• India’s amity with the Palestinian people and its principled support to their cause predates India’s own independence.
• India needs to ask itself whether it supports the Israeli annexation plan that is in contravention of international legality.