TEHRAN- Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has brazenly violated international law in the wake of its atrocious crimes in Palestine and beyond.

Israel's blatant disregard for international conventions has become increasingly evident since the regime initiated its campaign of genocide against Gaza on October 7, 2023.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) amid its massacres in the besieged Palestinian territory. The genocidal case was brought up by South Africa. 

In late January this year, the ICJ ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza.  But Israel turned a blind eye to the ruling and continued its deadly strikes in the Gaza Strip. 

Over a year into the Gaza onslaught, Israel has killed more than 43,600 Palestinians in the enclave.  According to a UN analysis of verified deaths released on Friday, nearly 70% of the victims have been women and children.

Meanwhile, the ICC chief prosecutor has been seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former war minister Yoav Gallant. In May, Karim Khan called on the court to consider the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant over committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip. 

But Israel and its main Western supporters have intensified pressure on the ICC to drop the case. 

Israel has slaughtered more than 43,600 Palestinians in Gaza since launching war on the territory in October last year.   Against the backdrop of such violations, more than 500 scholars and practitioners of international law, international relations, conflict studies, politics and genocide studies have urged the United Nations General Assembly and its member states to unseat Israel from the world body.  

In a joint letter, they outlined a comprehensive array of violations committed by Israel over the past decades. 

It pointed to the consistent breach of resolutions issued by the Security Council and the General Assembly as well as ICJ rulings. 

The signatories said the UN General Assembly should fire Israel as it expelled apartheid South Africa in 1974.

“To permit Israel to continue participating in the General Assembly as it commits grave illegalities that pose a threat to international peace and security in contravention of the premises of the UN Charter aggravates a crisis of legitimacy in the international legal order," they said. 

The letter added, "The unseating of the Israeli state, by contrast, signals that the General Assembly, as well as the UN more broadly, remains dedicated to defending and protecting the rights and principles upon which the UN was founded nearly eighty years ago.”

The letter brings to mind the Israeli UN ambassador’s utter contempt for international law at a General Assembly session back in May. 

On May 11, Gilad Erdan pulled out a paper shredder at the podium of the General Assembly and shredded a copy of the UN Charter. He wanted to vent his anger at the assembly’s resolution in support of Palestinian membership.

Historic boycott

Last month, more than 1,100 authors also launched “a mass boycott of Israeli publishers complicit in the dispossession of the Palestinian people.”

A coalition of solidarity groups said in a press statement that the declaration was the biggest cultural boycott against Israeli institutions in history.

“Signatories have stated that they cannot in good conscience engage with Israeli institutions without interrogating their relationship to apartheid and displacement,” it said. 

Global resentment against Israel’s decades-long atrocities in Palestine has been growing in the face of the Gaza carnage. 

The Israeli apartheid regime is experiencing unprecedented international isolation due to its brutal war in Gaza which has expanded into Lebanon. 

Israel’s growing isolation is rooted in the resilience of Palestinians and the stiff resistance put up by Hamas on the battlefield against Israeli forces who are armed to the teeth.