by UK artist Billy Ruffian

The July 19, 2024 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), aka the World Court, the highest judicial body of the United Nations, has been hailed as “historic,” “a seismic event,” “a landmark ruling,” “ a significant milestone,” “a watershed moment.” It is “crystal clear” in its ruling that Israel’s occupation is illegal under international law and must be dismantled. Will the ICJ’s ruling create the kind of “great sea-change” that the poet Seamus Heaney describes in his poem, The Cure of Troy, when “justice can rise up/And hope and history rhyme?” That remains to be seen.

One sign, however, that the tides are shifting is a recently released statement by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Justin Welby. In a reversal of his previous position, he wrote, “The Advisory Opinion by the International Court of Justice (19 July 2024) makes definitively clear that Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is unlawful and needs to end as rapidly as possible.” (See article in the section of Breaking the Stories specific to the ICJ ruling).

UCC PIN celebrates and applauds the ICJ’s advisory opinion and has written a working paper, “Israel’s Occupation is Illegal: What we can do; what we must do,” detailing why we believe this ruling “marks a critical inflection moment for human rights and the rule of international law, for Palestinian solidarity work, and for the UCC’s and UCC PIN’s ongoing work for justice.” You can access UCC PIN’s working paper in its entirety on our website here.

In their recent statement, “A Prophetic Call for Justice and Peace in Palestine,” the UCC’s national executives – the Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia A. Thompson, the Rev. Shari Prestemon, and the Rev. Dr. Bentley DeBardelaben-Phillips – lift up the ICJ’s advisory opinion, calling for the United Nations General Assembly “to take clear and decisive action” in its support. This is one of several prophetic calls in their powerful and comprehensive statement. Some examples of other calls include: the call for an end to Israel’s genocide; the call for the release and return of all Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees; the call for U.S. policymakers to end the sale of weapons to Israel and withhold all military aid; the call for addressing root causes and dismantling Israel’s systems of apartheid; support for the call from the International Criminal Court prosecutor for warrants for the arrest of Israeli and Hamas leaders responsible for crimes against humanity; and the call for “the necessary reparatory justice Palestinians are owed” by Israel. UCC PIN encourages clergy and congregations to engage in a close study, a kind of lectio divina, of “A Prophetic Call for Justice and Peace in Palestine” and to listen for how God is calling us all to action. Go here to read the full statement.

God is calling us all to action. About that we can be sure. We have a part to play in the rising up of justice, contributions to make to a sea-change. With their advisory opinion, the ICJ has given the world not just a strong legal framework, but the strongest of legal foundations. It provides an important and essential “tool in a toolkit to use for advocacy efforts by civil society,” as Wesam Ahmad of Al-Haq says in The Inside Story podcast (see link at the end of this newsletter). It is incumbent upon all those working for Palestinian rights, he goes on to say, “to make use of this decision and to turn it into tangible action.” 

One very tangible action for us all to continue to push and pursue is boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS). Craig Mokhiber argues for this in his article, “The ICJ finds that BDS is not merely a right, but an obligation,” (see Breaking the Stories). There he points out that the advisory opinion of the ICJ allows activists to “credibly assert that participating in boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israeli occupation, colonization, and apartheid is not only a moral imperative and constitutional and human right, but also an international legal obligation.”

In 2015 the UCC passed a General Synod resolution supporting BDS. In 2023, the national UCC took the pledge to be Apartheid-Free. Now is the time for us all to double-down even more in our advocacy, including our promotion of BDS, to stem the tide of Israel’s occupation, apartheid, and genocide, and to catch the wave as the tide turns instead toward justice and human dignity and flourishing, until the day when finally “hope and history rhyme.”

This is a section of the UCCPIN August 2024 E-Newsletter. To read the entire newsletter, follow this link.