Palestine. In New York, international law subverted

A little over a year ago, in a historic opinion issued on 19 July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), summed up the essential aspects of international law relevant to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, including Gaza. In the wake of that opinion, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) passed a resolution urging the member States to adopt sanctions against Israel in order to force it to withdraw from occupied Palestinian territory within one year, i.e. by September 2025.

Furthermore, in its decisions concerning Gaza, the Court reminded all the States party to the Convention on Genocide of their obligation to prevent genocide and avoid any complicity with one. Thus, at the end of September 2024, the legal framework was clearly set forth at the UN on the basis of an objective analysis of international law. However, several inflexions rapidly appeared.

First off, a majority of States refrained from taking the required steps. Then the General Assembly decided to sponsor an international conference (Resolution 79/81, 3 December 2024) to be presided over jointly by France and Saudi Arabia. Finally, instead of pressing for sanctions in the face of a genocide implemented, in particular, through the deprivation of goods essential for survival, the General Assembly confined itself to asking the ICJ for a new finding on the blocking of humanitarian assistance without so much as mentioning the genocide (Resolution 79/232, 19 December 2024). In view of these disappointing resolutions, the results of the UN High Level Conference in New York, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, attended neither by Israel or the United States, were as expected. These results are nonetheless striking in that they are potentially in violation of international law as outlined by the ICJ in 2024.

A diminished State

The document proposed by the New York conference under French and Saudi chairmanship sets forth principles for settling the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict”. Its declaration, which aims “to achieve a just, peaceful and lasting settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the effective implementation of the two-state solution”, was also endorsed by the States or regional organisations which participated in the conference’s “workshops”. Fifteen States¹ plus the Arab League and the European Union have already given their support to this declaration. Now France and Saudi Arabia have to have it approved by all the member States of the United Nations, as attested by the letter which France and Saudi Arabia addressed to the national delegations in New York on 29 July 2025².

It is of course the “two-State solution” which is advocated in this document. But the nature of the Palestinian State for which support is sought makes this solution more than uncertain. Welcoming the commitments recently made by Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, the declaration in fact stresses that “Palestine has no intention of becoming a militarised State.” In this context, it is a process of “disarmament, demobilisation and re-integration” (DDR) which must be carried out, with Hamas obliged to hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority (§11 of the Declaration). Politically, Hamas must be removed from power in Gaza and then, after a cease-fire, democratic elections would be organised within one year. However, the “democratic competition” envisioned will only be supported if it is organised “between Palestinian actors committed to respect the PLO political platform and its international commitments” (§22). On the pretext of assisting Palestinian emancipation, the text effectively backs the creation of a demilitarised Palestinian State which would thus be at the mercy of Israeli expansionism. The political expressions authorised in the framework of the hoped-for elections would also be limited, as would be the choice of political economy available to the so-called “State”.

For while there is a concern “to promote the economic development of Palestine” it will be with an eye to “facilitating trade, and enhancing Palestinian private sector competitiveness” on the basis of a revision of the Paris Protocol on Economic Relations (1994), concluded in the context of the Oslo process (§27). International assistance, presented as the responsibility of “donors”, should make it possible for the Palestinian Authority to “continue implementing its credible reform agenda”. These reforms should focus on “good governance, transparency, fiscal sustainability, the fight against incitement and hate speech, provision of services, business environment and development.” (§21). These recipes sound a lot like a free-market programme, compromising the sovereign choices of the State-to-be and requiring - incongruously in appearance, but in reality quite significantly - a control over freedom of expression.

In the same resolutely disturbing vein, the text envisages ending the activities of UNWRA, the UN agency in charge of Palestinian refugees, since the latter should “hand over its ’public services’ in the Palestinian territory to duly empowered and prepared Palestinian institutions.” This will occur “upon the achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee issue” (§14), in a “regional and international framework offering appropriate support to resolving the refugee question, while reiterating the right of return.” (§39). The phasing here is especially vague and fails to envisage implementing or facilitating the right of return. It probably implies only the compensation due in the event of non-return on the basis of General Assembly Resolution 194, adopted in December 1948.

This set of principles does indeed appear partly to favour the Israeli agenda which, as Monique Chemillier-Gendreau points out in her latest book, is to “make a Palestinian State impossible³.” The goal is to torpedo a sovereign State by favouring an entity under control, a State denied the essential attributes of sovereignty. Indeed, as concerns matters of security, the future State shall with “the continued rejection of violence and terrorism...work on security arrangements beneficial to all parties” namely Israel (§20). So it is the continuation of security co-operation between the Palestinian authority and Israel which is the condition for the fielding of the “temporary international stabilization mission” announced in the Declaration (§15).

This mission, which would include armed forces, would facilitate the respect of the cease-fire and peace agreement to come, by bringing “security guarantees for Palestine and Israel” (§16). It would have to be mandated by the Security Council, which seems totally unrealistic, and the text omits the role of the General Assembly in the deployment of an operation aimed at lifting the siege of Gaza.

Such are the principles submitted to all the member States of the United Nations. They are the result of a political engineering destined either to fail or to consecrate the submission of Palestine.

Condemnation of armed struggle, innocence of Israel

However, an even more radical version of this programme, announcing the elimination of Israel’s responsibilities, has also been presented by several States, at the end of July 2024, issuing the “New York Call”. It was a brief declaration by fifteen western States, surprisingly including Spain, Ireland and Slovenia⁴. This call, almost indecently, serves to wipe away the reality of the crimes committed by Israel and stigmatises Palestinian armed struggle.

The Call begins with a reminder of 7 October 2023, with the States condemning “the heinous and antisemitic terrorist attack”. Thus they espouse at the outset the Israeli rhetoric conflating the Palestinian armed struggle with a campaign targeting the Jews per se. As for the present humanitarian situation in Gaza, the States confine themselves to an expression of “grave concern” without holding anyone responsible for “the high number of civilian casualties” (sic). What is proposed here for Gaza is much more favourable to Israel than the cease-fire agreement presented by the United States in the spring of 2024, and validated by the Security Council before being violated by Israel in March 2025.

The fifteen countries that signed the New York call content themselves with demanding “an immediate ceasefire, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas, including the remains of the dead, as well as ensuring unfettered humanitarian access”. There is no mention of prisoner exchanges or of an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza strip or an end to the genocidal siege. It is rather a demand for surrender, tinged with humanitarian considerations, since the “day after” in Gaza is to include the “disarmament of Hamas”.

At the end of the day, the New York Call is not a call for the recognition of Palestine, which we may remember has already been recognised by 148 nations and considered a non-member observer State at the UN since 2012. It is quite literally a call for normalisation, i.e. for the recognition of Israel by those countries which have not yet formally recognised it. The fifteen signatories state this unambiguously at the end of their text, urging “countries who have not yet done so to establish normal relations with Israel, and to express their willingness to enter into discussions on the regional integration of the State of Israel”.

Relations with Israel should thus become “normal”, even though sanctions have been demanded by the ICJ and subsequently by the General Assembly, on account of the glaring violations of the fundamental norms of international law by that State. These violations should rather lead to considering Israel’s expulsion from the UN or from the sessions of its plenary body. The Call takes quite the opposite view: support for Palestine is conditioned on the commitments made by Mahmoud Abbas, which are duly recalled here, as in the New York Declaration, examined above. The fifteen States thus “welcome the commitments made...namely (i) to condemn the October 7^th terrorist attacks, (ii) to call for the liberation of hostages and disarmament of Hamas, (iii) to terminate the prisoner payment system, (iv) to educational reform, (v) to call for elections within a year to trigger generational renewal and (vi) to accept the principle of a demilitarized Palestinian State.”

In the Call as in the Declaration any reference to the genocide is taboo. Nor is it ever question of taking up the decisions of the ICJ concerning Israel or Germany, which reminded all the States party to the 1948 Convention of their obligation to prevent any genocide or put an end to an on-going one.

Cancelling the judicial gains of 2024

If the UN General Assembly were to validate the New York Declaration, it would seal a new betrayal of the Palestinian cause. Based on the persistent illusion that Israel could possibly agree to the creation of a Palestinian State, it recommends a hackneyed method, bilateral negotiations under western influnce. It proposes to support "the conclusion and implementation of a just and comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and Palestine (...) in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions, the Madrid terms of reference, including the principle of land for peace” (§7). In the absence of negotiations between the parties, it is the conditional recognition of Palestine which should initiate the political solution advocated here (§25).

But at the end of the day, do we still need to talk illusions? At the present genocidal stage of repression of the Palestinians, we are no longer dealing with “nefarious il-lusions”, but with “wilful blindness” thriving on a “consciously fostered ambiguity” in support for Palestine, tendencies already denounced by Monique Chemillier-Gendreau⁵ and which can no longer fool an-ybody. The Franco-Saudi project is indeed the latest stage in the “war against Pales-tine” as chronicled by historian Rashid Khalidi⁶. In addition to ignoring the obligations to prevent and stop genocide, the sanctions that should be adopted to put an end to the occupation are minimized (§§ 32 and 33). And while the Declaration does indeed mention the right to self-determination (§§ 25 and 30), its essence is profoundly altered by the recommended engineering: no political or economic sovereignty for the future State, no defence capabilities but a police system meant to ensure Israel’s security. It is an extension of Oslo, i.e a guarantee that an independent Palestinian government shall not exist.

True enough, the project does not directly enshrine Israeli expansionism or the Gaza genocide: this would have been impossible. But nor does it ever consider Israel’s legal responsibility. In short, it can be seriously asserted that the organisers of the New York Conference were seeking to cancel the judicial gains of 2024. Nor had they any intention of favouring a real self-determination any more than they sought to force Israel to end its illegal occupation and genocide, or to make an issue of its responsibility as a State.

Will the UN General Assembly agree, in September 2025, in contradiction with its own resolutions, to overturn international law as laid down by the ICJ in 2024 ? It would then become necessary to reconsider the meaning that the Assembly at one time conferred on its “permanent responsibility” for Palestine and admit that it favours henceforth, in a genocidal situation, a major injustice, under cover of the recognition of a Palestinian pseudo-State. The peoples of the world must demand of their governments that they refuse to contribute to this burial of international law.

Translated from French by Noël Burch.