The inevitable arrived on Friday. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories to be illegal and ordered it to leave it "as rapidly as possible".
The world court went further: Israel must pay full reparations for the 57 years of occupation. The ICJ's ruling follows the request by the United Nations General Assembly in 2022 for an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories. Of the 193 members of the UN, 52 states presented their arguments to the court.
Israel stayed away from the Hague, but chose to submit a written argument, which was referenced in the ruling. Every breach of international law by Israel was enumerated by the 15-member court in a lengthy judgment.
The ICJ ruling, though not binding, is the clearest refutation of Israel's claims to the contrary, including the one made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN General Assembly last year. There, on Sept 22, he brandished a map that placed the West Bank and Gaza within the boundaries of 1948 Israel.
For the longest time, the Zionist regime has been spinning the narrative that an independent Palestinian state will be an existential threat to Tel Aviv when in truth, it is Israel which is an existential threat to Palestine.
The world court's ruling tears this lumpy myth of the Zionists to smithereens. The ruling also has implications on how Israel conducts itself with other nations. The establishment of foreign embassies in Jerusalem is one. Laying out every relevant aspect of international law, the ICJ put the last nail in the coffin of Tel Aviv's claim to every inch of Palestine.
Now what? The answer was provided by Malaysia in a statement issued by its Foreign Ministry in response to the ruling: all states must compel Israel to abide by the ruling of the ICJ and immediately end their support to the country in continuing its illegal occupation of Palestine.
Malaysia is right. After all, the ruling is based on international treaties and conventions that the UN members have signed up to. To do otherwise will be to make nonsense of international law. If indeed the world order is based on the rule of law, then Israel must be compelled.
Rules-based world order means no nation is above the law. Several countries — all of them iron-clad allies of Israel — bear the legal and moral responsibility to see that Israel abides by the ICJ's ruling.
Of these, the United Kingdom and the United States bear the greatest of responsibility for helping Israel become the monster it is in the Middle East.
What else would you name a regime that indiscriminately kills 38,000 civilians, mostly women and children in just 10 months? It is not enough for the UK and the US to call on Israel to "minimise" civilian deaths while supplying it with lethal weapons.
Surely, London and Washington know that their weapons are being used to slaughter innocent Palestinians, especially when lawyers and lawmakers there have gone public on how such military aid is inducing impunity in Tel Aviv. We echo the words of Malaysia: compel Israel to abide by the ICJ ruling.