THE WORLD COURTS SAY ISRAEL ILLEGAL OCCUPIER
Ontario, 24 Rajab 1434/3 June 2013 (MINA) – International human rights lawyer Edward Corrigan in Ontario, Canada, said that the world court agree calls Israel is illegal invaders.
Corrigan delivered his statement in an interview with Press TV , Sunday (2/6), as quoted Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).
Corrigan revealed that Israel has invested actually billions of dollars in constantly expanding the settlements, seizing land from the Palestinians, destroying their water supply, destroying their olive orchards; just taking land under various pretexts.
“This massive investment, which of course is heavily subsidized by the United States, is all illegal. Even the Israeli courts have said it’s illegal to build settlements in the occupied territories, the Israelis are illegal occupiers, they cannot take the land,” Corrigan said.
And he said the international court, which ruled on the wall also made a similar ruling, almost a unanimous decision – one judge dissented so it was like 14:1. But a very strong decision from the international courts saying Israel is an illegal occupier and must return the land.
According to Corrigan , most Western powers actually give lip service to the fact that there should be some negotiation; there should be a Palestinian state. But it has to be determined by negotiations, which of course are dictated and controlled by the Israelis and they have veto power and it’s not in the interests of the Israeli elites to want to give back the land; they’re continuing their expansion.
Reputable lawyers in Canada was also revealed that there a contingent of Israeli protesters in Tel Aviv calling on their government to withdraw from Palestinian lands at a time when the elites want expansion.
“Obviously there’s a contingent of Israelis who do want to disengage from the West Bank, they see that it is poisonous to the state, destroying democracy and of course you can’t have a democracy when you’re occupying and controlling the lives of actually probably more Palestinians than in fact there are Israeli Jews,” he said.
Corrigan stated that for most Israelis the occupation is not realized. Soldiers go there, they occupy it; there is a large contingent of Israelis who refuse to serve in the occupied territories. But for most Israelis life goes on.
“For the average Israeli unfortunately it is invisible, its hidden from them, they’re not allowed to go there, they don’t see it, there’s only limited exposure to it. So their life goes on so there’s not a lot of awareness of the problems for the average Israeli,” Corrigan said.
“But for most Israelis the occupation is invisible; however, there is a strong contingent of activists – people in the Hadash party, people in the progressive movement, the Gush Shalom, all sorts of different organizations that are supportive of peace.”
However Corrigan deplore, the vast majority of people unfortunately it’s not part of their political reality, it wasn’t even a major issue in the last election. (T/P09/P04).
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
