Israel has demonstrated contempt for the UN’s role in promoting international law and human rights - not only by maintaining a policy of systematic rights violations in the face of widespread international condemnation, but also by openly challenging the application of universal legal principles to its behavior. This contempt poses a fundamental challenge to the UN’s integrity and its ability to implement basic international norms of behavior.
The HRIC report is unequivocal in opposing Israel's rejection of international law: "While an occupying power or party to a conflict may be given a margin of appreciation in its assessment of the nature of the conflict, it cannot be allowed unilaterally to categorize a situation in such a way that the restraints of international humanitarian law and human rights law are abandoned” (p. 17, para. 8). In particular, the HRIC responds to Israeli efforts to evade its international obligations in three critical areas, as detailed below: the laws of occupation, human right law, and laws of war and police responsibility.
Alone against the combined weight of international authority and decisions, Israel has since 1967 maintained that the Geneva Conventions do not legally apply in the OPT due to confusion in the status of the prior sovereigns. The purpose of this argument is to deny Palestinians the protections accorded under international humanitarian law to occupied peoples. The HRIC points out that Israel’s “argument, based on a strained interpretation of Article 2 of the Convention, fails to take account of the fact that the law of occupation is concerned with the interests of the population of an occupied territory rather than those of a displaced sovereign.” Due to Israeli intransigence, the HRIC “sees no alternative to the exercise of the supervisory powers of the High Contracting Parties under Article 1 of the Fourth Geneva Convention” (p. 17, para. 7). Likewise, in her report, the High Commissioner for Human Rights “recalls that the General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights have repeatedly reaffirmed the de jure applicability of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention…” and states that “It would be appropriate for the High Contracting Parties to assume their responsibility under the Convention.” (E/CN.4/2001/114).
Since the Oslo process began in 1993, Israel has denied the application of human rights standards to its conduct in the OPT on the grounds that the Palestinian Authority now exercises effective control over the population. The HRIC notes that the test established in the Nuremberg Trials is whether the occupier “has the ability to exercise such control” (p. 17, para. 7) regardless of whether it chooses to exercise this power. The UN human rights treaty monitoring bodies have similarly concluded that Israel is bound by human rights obligations. For example, the Human Rights Committee stated in August 1998 that Israel was responsible for protecting human rights in the OPT based on "the long-standing presence of Israel in these territories, Israel's ambiguous attitude towards their future status, as well as the exercise of effective jurisdiction by Israeli security forces therein" (CCPR/C79/Add.93 D10).
Israel is treating the current crisis as an internal armed conflict to justify the use of overwhelming force on grounds of military necessity and to avoid stricter international regulations governing police response to demonstrations. The HRIC expressed deep skepticism of Israel’s claim to be engaged in "active warfare" with an organized and armed enemy force, noting that “to the best of our knowledge, the IDF, operating behind fortifications with superior weaponry, endured not a single casualty as a result of Palestinian demonstrations, and further, their soldiers seemed to be in no life-threatening danger during the course of these events” (p. 10, para. 17). At the same time, the HRIC echoed the observation of numerous other UN bodies that even under the laws of war, Israeli actions have violated both “the principle of distinction requiring that civilians not be made the object of attacks” and the principle of proportion requiring restraint in inflicting civilian casualties.