Israelis on Friday displayed what is called Jewish joy – they celebrated that the pogromniks only broke the windows, but did not kill anyone. The good news was the International Court of Justice did not effectively order us to wait to be tortured and murdered, by demanding a halt to the Gaza War. That is certainly good – but only in the twisted world where the ICJ is putting Israel, not Hamas, on trial for the absolutely absurd charge of genocide.

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Otherwise, the decision was horrible. The Court accepted South Africa's argument that it has jurisdiction and that Israel could possibly be proven to be committing genocide. The case is not over and will go on for years. In the meantime, the Court has made clear that it considers itself to have authority to review and superintend every aspect of Israel's war for survival – and demands monthly reports. No other country receives such treatment, and it is designed to make the military constantly look over its shoulders.

The ICJ is not an independent body – it is an organ of the United Nations. They serve a renewable nine-year term, further undermining their independence.  Its judges are elected by the General Assembly and Security Council, and their positions largely track the foreign policy of their home countries. Thus while we might get lucky sometimes, over the long run, the policy of the Court will reflect the policy of the United Nations.

The General Assembly's obsessive condemnation of the Jewish State is well known – Israel would never agree to have its fate determined by them. But agreeing to the jurisdiction of the Court indirectly does the same thing. In Israel it is thought unacceptable to have judges appointed by democratically elected politicians decide the meaning of ordinary laws. Yet we have agreed to have judges elected by dictatorial regimes decide the basic question of whether we can exist – whether we can defend ourselves.

It does not have to be this way: the ICJ does not automatically have jurisdiction over countries – they must specifically agree, typically by agreeing that The Hague can decide a specific dispute or questions under a specific treaty. In this case, Israel signed the Genocide Convention, which provides that "disputes between the …parties" about the treaty can be decided by the ICJ. But that does not mean cases like this, where a totally unrelated State has brought a purely political complaint in a matter it has no relation to. The Court should not have accepted jurisdiction, and by doing so it effectively claimed for itself power to supervise the conduct of wars around the world, so long as some country claims genocide is involved.

Israel did not have to agree to the ICJ jurisdiction to be a member of the Genocide Convention, and in retrospect, doing so was a major mistake. Countries are allowed to opt out of ICJ jurisdiction in various treaties, and very commonly do so. Indeed, sixteen countries have opted out of the Genocide Convention minus the ICJ jurisdiction – including the world's largest democracies, the United States and India.  Even the world's biggest superpowers did not trust the ICJ to hear cases involving the use of force in an apolitical way.

The United States also did not agree to the provision of the Genocide Convention that deals with speech, knowing the Court can twist legitimate speech into supposed "incitement." Indeed, those who think the statements of some MKs are what got Israel into trouble should consider the comments of President Obama, who spoke of "eradicating a cancer" in the campaign against ISIS, or Biden, who once said, "We should never take anything off the table when we are in war."

But Israel did not opt out, leaving itself exposed. The Genocide Convention was a response to the Holocaust, and it seemed appropriate that the Jewish State would be fully on board. Also, Israeli officials did not expect such a gross abuse of the Court's authority. But they should have. And the Genocide Convention which Israel so respected was turned into a farce, a platform to accuse the Jews of genocide even as they defend themselves from a systematic attempt to wipe them out.

The hearings in The Hague were a judicial Oct. 7^th – a completely unjustified surprise attack that shows us we must fundamentally rethink our defensive posture. In this case, the extraordinary work of the State's lawyers, and good fortune, prevented disaster.

But we must see that mere sentimentalism, or some lingering faith in international institutions, cannot leave us open to such attacks again. Even a slight change in the composition of the Court or the geopolitical climate would bring a disastrous result – and hostile states like South Africa can roll the dice as many times as they want, with no consequence if they lose and a huge payoff if they win.

Thus Israel must immediately end its acceptance of the ICJ's jurisdiction concerning the Genocide Convention. This will not end the current proceedings, but it will prevent further such attempts in this or other conflicts. Moreover, Israel must review all of its treaties for provisions granting ICJ jurisdiction and opt out of those. The US did just that when Iran used a long-forgotten treaty to bring America to The Hague a few years ago.

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The day after Yom Kippur, Israel's interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid planned to sign an agreement that would make Israeli citizens living in the towns of Katzrin, Ariel, and Pisgat Ze'ev second-class citizens, at least in terms of their right to consume culture. The agreement that was supposed to be signed with the European Union would have officially and institutionally discriminated against everyone who lives in areas beyond the Green Line, including the Golan Heights, the Old City of Jerusalem, and the Jerusalem neighborhoods built after the 1967 Six-Day War.
Minister of Culture Chili Tropper refused to admit that these are the consequences of signing the agreement. This denial is false.

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Signing the agreement would be unprecedented. In 2017, the Israeli government specifically refused to sign the agreement precisely because of the territorial issue. Although it was reported last summer that the government had decided to move forward with the agreement, the decision only concerned the actual conduct of the negotiations. Now, after the end of the negotiations and Israel's surrender to the territorial discrimination clause, the agreement was expected to be signed and come into effect during Lapid's October visit to Europe.

In the past, under much heavier political pressure, Israel signed the Horizon 2020 program that funds scientific research, which also includes the same territorial discrimination. But there is no reason to repeat such a mistake. Moreover, the cultural agreement is worse than the Horizon agreement because the latter "only" discriminated against scientific institutions. For example, Ariel University could not receive EU funding. Government funds can compensate for this kind of damage. Cultural funding, however, involves consumers. The cultural agreement would mean that anything using EU funds, such as an exhibition or an entire theater, would not be able to operate in the Old City of Jerusalem or in Katzrin. This is discrimination that is prohibited under Israeli law.
In addition to this, the scientific agreement was in a highly competitive field where countries are fiercely fighting for supremacy. With all due respect, this is not the case in the fields of, say, dance or visual arts.

More importantly, since the signing of Horizon 2020, Israel has garnered major and hard-won political achievements, such as anti-BDS laws passed in many US states and prohibitions on boycotting the settlements; American recognition of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights; and the change in American policy that enabled the funding of research institutions in Judea and Samaria.
Signing this latest regressive text will set Israel back diplomatically by at least a decade and weaken anti-BDS laws and anti-boycott actions. How can American activists demand that US states punish Ben & Jerry's for refusing to sell beyond the Green Line while the State of Israel agrees that the Europeans can pay theaters in Israel to do exactly that?

After Horizon 2020, the EU did not wait long. It immediately acted to anchor the separation between the territories inside and beyond the Green Line in the lamentable U.N. Resolution 2334. Israeli leaders, including the current leadership, claim that they are determined to fight Resolution 2334. This cannot be done if the Israeli government signs an agreement that actually implements the resolution.

Israel will do all this damage for a handful of euros – a few million a year. Israel will pay 33 million euros for the agreement and will receive back funding, according to estimates, of about seven million euros per year. Signing the cultural agreement is unprecedented. It will harm Israel's supporters fighting BDS; it will harm Israel's claims against its detractors; it will cause prohibited discrimination against about 800,000 Israeli citizens – and all this for a very small profit. Professor of law Eugene Kontorovich is one of the world's preeminent experts on universal jurisdiction and maritime piracy, as well as international law and the Israel-Arab conflict.

Featured on JNS.org, this article was first published by Makor Rishon. 

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The US is pushing to open up a new diplomatic office in Jerusalem – one that would be directed to the Palestinian Authority. The US Embassy in Jerusalem already provides consular services to the Palestinians. It is unheard of to have an independent consulate in the same city where a country has an embassy. The point of creating a separate consulate is to undermine former US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem. But under international law, the US would need Israel's permission for this move.

The US does not want to open a consulate merely to have a place for diplomatic liaisons with the PA. If that is all they wanted, they could easily do this by opening a mission in Abu Dis or Ramallah – where most other countries conduct their relations with the PA. Or they could reopen the Palestinian mission in Washington, DC, which Trump also closed. But by instead demanding that Israel accede to a consulate in Jerusalem, the administration is showing this is not just about having a convenient place for coffee with PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

Indeed, the purpose of opening the consulate is to recognize Palestinian claims to Jerusalem. If the PA has no legitimate claim to Jerusalem, there can be no reason to have a consulate there. To be sure, this is why opening the consulate is the main Israel-related policy demand of radically anti-Israel Rep. Ilhan Omar. Point of fact, former US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro made clear before the last US election that opening a separate consulate to the Palestinians would be designed to signal US support for a Palestinian capital in that city.

It is true that the US had a consulate in Jerusalem since 1844, which was separate from the embassy. But that is because the US had not recognized Jerusalem as even being in Israel (and obviously that consulate was established without any relation to the Palestinians). When Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital and moved the embassy, he had to close the consulate because its separate existence was simply inconsistent with this recognition. Opening the consulate would turn the clock back to before the US recognition of Jerusalem. The Biden administration knows it does not have domestic support to completely unrecognize Jerusalem – so it is catering to far-left demands by undoing the natural consequences of recognition.

This would be a big deal: Since the creation of the state, no Israeli government of any political inclination has allowed the opening of a diplomatic mission not to Israel. This would be unprecedented. While there are a few European consulates in Jerusalem not accredited to Israel, these predate the creation of the state.

If Israel allows the opening of such a consulate, it is hard to imagine how any country in the future would be diplomatically capable of opening an embassy in Jerusalem without opening a parallel mission to the PA. This would then cement the notion that "both sides" have legitimate claims to the city.

Fortunately, the current government understands how fundamental an issue this is and has strongly rejected the US proposals. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has expressed his opposition even more firmly than then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did when the new administration first raised the issue. Netanyahu never had to withstand the significant ongoing pressure the US State Department continues to exert. Lapid has made it clear that he understands this is not about a diplomatic office; it is about the status of Jerusalem.

But the story is far from over, as the US has recently doubled down on its insistence. The real test of the government will be in action – in ensuring that no consulate opens even as Washington turns the diplomatic screws.

The US administration is attempting to intimidate Israel by describing the consulate as a "campaign promise" of Biden's – though it is hard to find any public statement on the issue during his election campaign. Israel's government must make it clear that sole Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem is not a "campaign promise" – it is a fundamental, obvious axiom.

The Americans are indicating they may just try to muscle the issue, declaring that they are opening the consulate and counting on Israel to go along. Israel needs to spell out now that it will not accept a fait accompli. A diplomatic mission needs many things from the host government, from diplomatic visas and license plates to security coordination. If Bennett and Lapid want to deter the US from attempting hardball tactics, they should declare now that the government will in no way recognize a new diplomatic mission opened without its consent.

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One hundred and one years have passed since the international community met in Paris and San Remo to establish a post-imperial world order founded on independent nation-states. In San Remo, Jews were promised a "national home" in Palestine – as it was then referred to – and an explicit right to settle in all parts of the country, which included Judea and Samaria. But the international community did nothing to implement this promise, given the reluctance of the Mandate government to act on the one hand, and growing xenophobia against Jewish immigrants by local Arabs on the other.

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The Jews are the ones who translated the international promises into facts on the ground. In 1948 they did so in part because much of the territory, including the holy sites, fell into Jordanian hands. After Israel regained control of these territories in 1967, a large part of the international community pretended that previous promises had not been given at all. Not only that, all areas that were "clean" of Jews in 1948 must remain such indefinitely, even if Israel actually controls them.

Despite this, more than a century after that conference, one leader arose who was willing to fulfill the old commitments of the League of Nations. It was President Trump, who recognized a united Jerusalem, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who declared that Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria was not a crime but represented an understanding of the legal significance of those promises by the League of Nations. The two are perhaps the first leaders to refuse to bend Israel's legal rights and allow for political blackmail by Arab states.

The post-World War I peace arrangements, which began in Paris in 1919 and culminated in San Remo the following year, gave birth to the countries of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Israel, as well as the borders of those countries.

It is easy to criticize the artificiality of the countries established by the League of Nations. But in the world – and especially in an area where ethnic and religious groups are mixed and live without separation – there is no escape from the arbitrary setting of boundaries. In any area ruled by the Mandate, it was determined that an unfortunate minority will live among a majority: Muslims with Christians in Lebanon, Kurds with Arabs in Iraq, and Syria on the whole is an inexplicable mix. The process was not perfect, but the alternatives that existed in the past – a vast pan-ethnic empire, or one group trying to take over others – eventually made countries look like the Syria we have known in recent years.

This is why the post-World War I borders were widely accepted as the binding sovereign borders of the countries established in the territories of the British Mandate. Neither the Kurdish separation nor the Syrian annexation of Lebanon as a protégé receive international support, because such support would call into question the same Mandatory borders.

There is one place in the Middle East where the international community takes a completely opposite position regarding the borders of the Mandate. This is happening, of course, in Israel. Although Pompeo's statement during the previous US administration did not deal with borders, it did put back on the agenda the principle established in San Remo, according to which Jewish settlement is not illegal.

Pompeo rejected the conclusions of a memorandum authored by former Legal Adviser of the Department of State in 1978, Herbert Hansell. The conclusions of the memorandum were rejected by President Ronald Reagan 1981, but never officially. The four-page memorandum dealt with new decisions, issues that according to its author were never resolved. In the decades since its formulation, the legal analysis of the occupation and the settlements has not changed, and Israel has always been treated in a special way.

That memorandum had two main conclusions. The first was the definition of Israel as an "occupying power in the West Bank". Its author clings to an unknown clause in the Geneva Convention, one that has never been applied to any country. The same Herbert Hansell, who held almost no consultations, stated that Israel should prevent Jews from living in areas that Jordan had "cleansed from Jews" years before.

Under international law, occupation occurs when a state takes over territory subject to the sovereignty of another state. This is, for example, the reason why Russia is considered an occupying power in the Crimea, even though most of the island's population is made up of Russians and historically the peninsula is considered part of Russia. In terms of international law, there is ultimately clear Ukrainian sovereignty in place, even against the backdrop of opposition to the self-determination of a local ethnic majority.

But Judea and Samaria were never part of Jordan. On the contrary, Jordan only took control of this territory in 1949.

Moreover, a state cannot occupy territory in which it is sovereign. Israel has the strongest sovereign claim to the territory. In international law, a new state inherits the boundaries of the previous geopolitical unit in this area. In this case, that unit was the mandate of the League of Nations for Palestine. Hansell preferred to ignore all of this.

The memo that Hansell has failed the test of history. The U.S. State Department did not apply the definition of "occupation" to Western Sahara controlled by Morocco, Dutch New Guinea, nor any other situation in which the territory that had not changed hands in war had no previous sovereign power.

And there is another matter: Hansell's conclusions are irrelevant. This is because he explicitly stated that the state of occupation will not exist if Israel enters into a peace agreement with Jordan, since the law of occupation is part of the law of war; It does not apply in times of peace. Jordan signed a full and unconditional peace agreement with Israel in 1994 and rendered the memorandum irrelevant.

And the claims that the occupation creates an impenetrable demographic bubble around the territory have no basis in history or international conventions. Even the attempt to tie it to the Geneva Convention is a lie. Neither the United States nor the United Nations have ever claimed this in any case of similar conflicts.

As we celebrate the 101st anniversary of the San Remo Conference, we must also remember the boundaries that it set. But nothing determined then will be preserved if Israel does not claim its sovereignty itself and insist on it loud and clear in the international arena.

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Israeli governments have largely failed to state forthrightly their rights over all parts of the country, leaving their opponents in the international community free to make statements and carry out measures, such as the disengagement from Gaza by the late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, as an ax to grind.

Israel is the sovereign in Judea and Samaria, and this territory belongs to it. It is not enough that this was decided in San Remo. State leaders must speak loud and clear so that the whole world understands that this is the reality, and there is no alternative.

Eugene Kontorovich is a professor at George Mason's Antonin Scalia School of Law, specializing in constitutional and international law.

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There are other instances in which the UN temporary peacekeeping force – UNIFIL – has directly or indirectly hurt Israel's defense and security interests in the area and limited the IDF's ability to respond. The main claim voiced in the defense establishment at the time was that the forces had no real power and were too small to carry out their mandate of restoring peace and security and helping restore control to the South Lebanese Army.

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But in 2006, after the Second Lebanon War was over, that idea crashed on the rocks of reality. The UN Security Council resolved to increase UNIFIL forces nearly fivefold, to 10,900 personnel, and expanded both its enforcement mandate and budget. Nevertheless, the increased forces failed in both motivation and efficacy when it came to taking action against violations on the Lebanese side of the "Blue Line." Since then, Hezbollah has dug attack tunnels under the border into Israel under the very noses of the UN troops, with the hope of carrying out a mega-terror attack against communities in northern Israel.

In biased reports to the UN Security Council and by its very presence in the region, UNIFIL "whitewashes" violations by Hezbollah and the Lebanese army, allowing them to act freely. If another war in the north takes place, UNIFIL's presence will likely hamper the IDF's ability to maneuver in south Lebanon, and serve as a de facto human shield for Hezbollah.

The next few weeks will bring a unique opportunity to improve security in the North and reduce the UN's biased intervention against Israel. This has to do with the nature of the UNIFIL mandate, which is extended on an annual basis in the Security Council. The next date for an extension is Aug. 31. Our leaders would do well to take advantage of the window of opportunity in which our friends in the Trump administration still have diplomatic influence and demand the cancellation of the mandate or that the forces be cut significantly. This request would fall in line with the Trump administration's aspiration of cutting back on bloated, ineffective international missions.

It would be a mistake for Israel to trust the illusion of stability created by the UNIFIL forces. The reality is fluid, Hezbollah is sedulously preparing for the next war, and the IDF needs to be ready for a rapid strike, without having its maneuvers restricted by UN soldiers. Cancelling or cutting back the mandate will be helpful to Israel's strategic interests in the region and will illustrate the defense ethos that Israel defends itself, by itself.

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The Left's new legal proposals show that they now also agree that there are no implicit constitutional limitations on majority rule – at least while they have a majority.

What drove them to this massive reversal of principles is quite simple: an all-consuming desire to end Benjamin Netanyahu's rule.

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This week, the opposition to Netanyahu introduced a series of laws aiming to change Israel's electoral and political system. All have one thing in common: they are narrowly written to do little more than bar Netanyahu himself from forming a government. One bill, for example, allows the Knesset to remove a prime minister who is under indictment.

But the most problematic and illegitimate of the measures introduced by Gantz's supposedly "democratic" coalition is a law that bar an MK under indictment from forming a government.

By passing the law now – which would apply to the current coalition formation process – Gantz and his allies seek to disqualify one of the two main possible PMs, leaving Gantz the next prime minister by default.

It may be tempting for opponents of the bill to say that the law is unconstitutional - but they would be wrong. The law is certainly unprincipled and offensive to principles of fair play and democracy. But that does not make it unconstitutional – it just makes it a bad law.

The law violates basic principles of democratic governance. In Israel, voters do not cast their ballots for candidates but for parties, with the leaders of major parties holding themselves out as de facto prime ministerial candidates.

In short, they are voting on which party or coalition should form the government. No election results in an outright winner, and thus the subsequent government-formation period is effectively part of the electoral process. Indeed, if government formation fails, new elections are held, as has happened three times in the past year. Thus the process of forming a government is in fact part of the electoral process.

What Blue and White's proposed bill would do is to change the rules for the electoral process in the middle of that process. When voters went to the polls a few weeks ago, those who voted Likud did so with the understanding that Netanyahu would be the prime minister in a Likud-led government; this was instrumental to their vote. Indeed, that fact may also have been instrumental to Blue and White voters, many whom support that party purely to end Netanyahu's ministry. Had this law been in place during elections, they may well have voted Likud.

The rationale presented of the law explicitly makes clear that it sets out to negate the electoral choice of the people. The bill explains that an indicted Prime Minister may be suspect, may have a conflict of interest and other kinds of problems.

Those are all valid reasons the electorate might choose to vote against such a candidate. But in this election, Netanyahu got the most votes, while under indictment. The bill in effect says voters did not give sufficient weight to the indictment. Perhaps the voters should have reacted differently, but this bill seeks to substitute the new Knesset's judgment for theirs.

To be sure, there is no problem with a law that prohibits an indicted person from forming a government after the next elections. Laws about the qualifications of officeholders are commonplace. In such a case, voters in an election now what they are getting. But this law is specifically passed immediately after an election and before a government is formed. It changes the rules in the middle of the game. This interference in the democratic process.

Imagine if a narrow right-wing coalition a law after the last election saying that to protect the separation of military and civilian realms, no general can form a coalition.

Indeed, in the US, courts have held that qualifications on office-holders such as term-limits can only apply purely prospectively – that is, the legislature cannot kick out a three-term legislator by passing a three-term limit.

But in Israel, the anti-Bibi law is not unconstitutional - because Israel has no Constitution. The only constitutional texts are basic laws, none of which prohibit unprincipled or undemocratic legislation. Under the Israeli system, the Knesset can do whatever it wants so long as it does not violate the Basic Laws; and it can change the Basic Laws too.

Yet much of the so-called "rule of law" that has been trumpeted by the left consists of the Supreme Court's ability to declare laws unconstitutional simply because they violate some general principle. Indeed, even Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People is being challenged for violating principles that do not exist in any Basic Law. The Supreme Court has repeatedly invoked general principles of law to strike down legislation.

The bill barring an indictment MK from forming a government violates one of the most common general principles of law – the rule against retroactive legislation. But in the US, that principle is written in the Constitution. In Israel, it is not, and thus Gants has discovered that if something is not explicitly forbidden, it is permitted.

This is, of course, a complete repudiation of his consistent line that Netanyahu threatened the rule of law by insisting that judges follow only written, not general principles they pull out of the air. With this new bill, the entire Left has come around to the Right's legal position. The best thing the Right can do is simply announce victory on the fundamental constitutional issues and refuse to challenge the law in Court.

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Israel has more observers than any other country, from the U.N. presence in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv neighborhood to the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force on the Golan Heights. But the TIPH is an entirely different animal. It isn't operated by the U.N. yet it is still an international force in Hebron. And unlike other such forces, which only the U.N. can abolish, it maintains an ongoing presence in Hebron because Israel says it can.

Israel was pressured to accept TIPH's presence after Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinians at the Cave of the Patriarchs in 1994. The organization received its current mandate as part of a 1997 agreement stipulating that its validity must be renewed every three months – hence its "temporary" status. For 20 years now Israel has renewed the hostile organization's mandate to operate in Hebron.  Otherwise, its presence would have ended long ago. It is now one of the oldest observer forces in the world, and it contributes to Israel's image as an outlaw state that demands special observation.

The anti-Israel bias of TIPH is built into its mandate, which tasked organization members with the one-sided mission of "promoting by their presence a feeling of security" for Palestinians in Hebron. Protecting Jews from constant terrorist attacks is not part of their job description. Members of the organization even "succeeded" in veering from this narrow definition by attacking Jews in Hebron in the last year. The attackers were later pulled out of the country by the TIPH leadership without ever having to stand trial. TIPH has cooperated with radical groups like Breaking the Silence and leaked confidential reports to the press. The organization's reports are full of anti-Israel claims that have no connection to its stated task. According to media reports, TIPH asserts that Jews have no right to any presence anywhere in Hebron.

Unlike comparable U.N. forces, TIPH is not a separate international organization but an operational framework for security officials from five countries – Norway, Sweden, Turkey, Italy and Switzerland. These countries are themselves problematic in that they are often hostile to Israel. Turkey, the most blatant example, treats Israel as an enemy state. Ankara supports Hamas and has dispatched anti-Israel flotillas to Gaza, promotes anti-Semitic defamation and works to undermine Israel's sovereignty in Jerusalem. Despite all this, Israel grants official immunity to Turkish representatives who photograph and video record Israeli soldiers and citizens. When TIPH was first created, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was mayor of Istanbul. Ever since taking control of the government, he has turned his country into an anti-Israel state.

In 2014, Sweden became the first European country to recognize the "State of Palestine" in violation of the 1993 Oslo Accords. Israel sufficed with castigating the Swedes for the move and allowed their "observers" to remain in Hebron. Norway, the most powerful country in the organization, is one of the biggest supporters of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. Italy helped build the Bedouin shanty town of Khan al-Ahmar and is involved in the violation of Israeli sovereignty in Area C in the West Bank. It is important to maintain diplomatic ties with these countries, but it is absurd to give them special policing privileges.

The continuation of TIPH's mandate sends these countries the message that no matter how much they harm Israel we will turn the other cheek. TIPH symbolizes the failure of Israeli foreign policy. Faced with a series of constant and ongoing campaigns against us – such as recognition of a Palestinian state, the banning of Israeli products and payments to Palestinians who relocate to the area – Israel always reacts out of diplomatic anxiety. It doesn't take concrete action and as a result, the status quo continues unabated at our expense. Israel would be fully within its rights to act against TIPH.

But Israel doesn't have to do a thing. It just has to abstain from signing the next round of agreements on Jan. 31. The decision is entirely up to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We have never been required to do so little to advance Israel's interests.

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