UPJ Co-President David D Knoll AM wrote an article following the Australian Government’s announcement of its policy shift to describe East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza as “occupied Palestinian territories”:
In announcing the Australia Government policy shift to describe East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza as “occupied Palestinian territories”, the Albanese Government has sought to rely on support from international law. Occupation is a word picture. It is effective emotional communication. Does it have a sound legal basis?
Foreign Minister Penny Wong in Senate question time on 8 August 2023 referred to “UN Security Council resolutions which determine that the settlements ‘have no legal validity and constitute a violation of international law.” Presumably she was referring to UN Resolution 2334 passed in 2016 which called for Israel to cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.[1] It described Jewish settlement in the West Bank / Judea and Samaria as having no legal validity and as a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace. (It also called generically for an end to acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror, as well as all acts of provocation and destruction.)
Resolution 2334 was built explicitly on the back of a 2004 International Court of Justice advisory opinion, in which the ICJ decided that the Palestinians are accorded rights without a responsibility to stop the terror that emanates from within their midst, and Israel is accorded responsibility for Palestinian self-determination, without the right to defend her civilians against suicide/homicide bombings. Twenty democratic nations including Australia had asked the ICJ to decline to hear the case. A vice (not the only one) lay in the question being asked.
Read the article by David Knoll (UPJ) on the Union for Progressive Judaism website.