netanyahu will say “the UNHRC is nothing but a nest of anti-semites with blood dripping from their talons, and the ICC is a kangaroo court of racists, so we shall ignore them both”

Israel must withdraw all settlers or face ICC, says UNHRC
Harriet Sherwood, Guardian, Jan 31 2013

Israel must withdraw all settlers from the West Bank or potentially face a case at the International Criminal Court for serious violations of international law, says a report by the UN Human Rights Council that was immediately dismissed in Jerusalem as “counter-productive and unfortunate.” All settlement activity in occupied territory must cease “without preconditions” and Israel “must immediately initiate a process of withdrawal of all settlers”, said the UNHRC. Israel, it said, was in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids the transfer of civilian populations to occupied territory. The settlements were “leading to a creeping annexation that prevents the establishment of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state and undermines the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination,” it said. The UNHRC report broadly restated international consensus on the illegality of Israeli settlements. But its conclusions are likely to bolster the Palestinians following their admission last November to the UN as a non-member state, which potentially gives them recourse to the ICC. The report said:

The Rome statute establishes the international criminal court’s jurisdiction over the deportation or transfer, directly or indirectly, by the occupying power of parts of its own population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory. Ratification of the statute by Palestine may lead to accountability for gross violations of human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law and justice for victims.

The Israeli foreign ministry responded:

Counter-productive measures such as the report before us will only hamper efforts to find a sustainable solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The Human Rights Council has sadly distinguished itself by its systematically one-sided and biased approach towards Israel. This latest report is yet another unfortunate reminder of that.

Israel refused to co-operate with UNHRC investigators over the report, barring them from access to the West Bank. Investigators conducted more than 50 interviews in Jordan with Palestinians about the impact of settlements, the confiscation of and damage to land, and violent attacks by settlers. Hanan Ashrawi of the Palestinian National Council said:

This report is a clear and unequivocal indictment of the illegal Israeli settlement policies and practices. The report concludes that the goal behind the terror and violence of the Israeli settlers is to expel the Palestinians from their lands in order to expand illegal settlements. This is a clearly a form of forced transfer, and a proof of Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing. Israel is liable to prosecution.

Earlier this week, Israel became the first country to refuse to participate in a “universal periodic review” of the human rights records of the UN’s 193 member states, conducted by the UNHRC. Palestinian and Israeli human rights group said Israel’s boycott of the review set a “dangerous precedent that could be followed by other states refusing to engage with the UN in order to avoid critical appraisals.” The UNHRC rescheduled the review for later in the year in order to give Israel time to reconsider its stance. Israel also refused to co-operate with a UN investigation headed by Richard Goldstone into the three-week war in 2008-09, and it has refused entry to Israel to Richard Falk, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, since his appointment in 2008. According to the UNHRC’s report on settlements, Israel has established around 250 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967, home to more than half a million Israeli citizens. The settlements impede Palestinian access to water resources and agricultural lands, it said. Following the Palestinians’ upgrade to non-member state status, the Israeli government announced a fresh wave of settlement-building, including the development of a highly sensitive swath of land east of Jerusalem known as E1. Palestinians and most international diplomats say construction on E1 will effectively close off East Jerusalem from the West Bank and impede a territorially contiguous Palestinian state.

UNHRC: Settlement issue could end up in the ICC
Noam Sheizaf, +972 Magazine, Jan 31 2013

The United Nations Human Rights Council has published its fact-finding mission’s report on the settlements. The report concludes that Israeli settlements are constructed for the benefits of Jews only through a system of ethnic segregation and military law, and are in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids the transfer of civilian populations into occupied territory by the occupying force. According to the report:

Israel must, in compliance with article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, cease all settlement activities without preconditions. It must immediately initiate a process of withdrawal of all settlers from the OPT.

Israel is a signatory to the Fourth Geneva Convention but has concluded that it does not apply to the territories occupied from Jordan and Egypt in 1967, since both countries abandoned any claims to this land. Israel considers the territories “disputed,” a position taken recently by the Levi Commission, which called upon Israel to legalize all outposts built on Palestinian land. However, even the Israeli narrative doesn’t explain ethnic segregation in the West Bank, military law and the absence of human or political rights for the non-Jewish civilian population in the West Bank. There are two important articles in the HRC report which go beyond the usual condemnations of the settlements that have been issued for decades by the international community. First, the UNHRC calls upon other nations, agencies and companies to break ties with the settlement project, a step which might open the door for sanctions against settlement products or for the enforcement of relevant articles in trade agreements with Israel, for example by the EU.

116. The Mission calls upon all Member States to comply with their obligations under international law and to assume their responsibilities in their relationship to a State breaching peremptory norms of international law, specifically not to recogniזe an unlawful situation resulting from Israel’s violations.
117. Private companies must assess the human rights impact of their activities and take all necessary steps, including by terminating their business interests in the settlements, to ensure they are not adversely impacting the human rights of the Palestinian People in conformity with international law as well as the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The Mission calls upon all Member States to take appropriate measures to ensure that business enterprises domiciled in their territory and/or under their jurisdiction, including those owned or controlled by them, that conduct activities in or related to the settlements respect human rights throughout their operations.

The report also explicitly suggests that the Palestinians could sue Israelis in the ICC could deal with the issue of the settlement. A press release on the UNHRC site states:

The report states that Israel is committing serious breaches of its obligations under the right to self-determination and under humanitarian law. The report also concludes that the Rome Statute establishes the ICC’s jurisdiction over the transfer of populations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Israel has refused to cooperate with the fact-finding mission. The US has warned the Palestinians in the past not to take Israel to the ICC, as part of its tradition of preventing any punitive action in response to human rights violations by Israel in the occupied territories. The US was the only country that voted against the fact finding mission on the settlements. Israel has been rapidly increasing settlement activities since the Oslo Accords, especially in the last decade. According to the Jerusalem-based NGO Ir Amim, 2012 has been a record year in settlement construction in East Jerusalem. On the eve of the Oslo Accords, there were approximately 107,00 thousands settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, and 115,000 in East Jerusalem. by 2001 these numbers grew to 200,000 in the West Bank and Gaza and 167,000 in East Jerusalem. In 2011 there were 189,000 settlers in and around East Jerusalem, and 324,000 settlers in the West Bank, bringing the total numbers of Jewish settlers to over half a million. There are 127 settlements in the West Bank alone, as well as dozens of Jewish “outposts.” The UNHRC report calls Israel’s settlement activities “creeping annexation.”