In January 2020, during the first Trump administration, the United Sates presented its strategy for addressing the situation in Palestine. This Plan, entitled 'Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People'1 constituted a blueprint for the unlawful annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory by Israel.2 The Plan, by reference to Israel's exclusive need for 'security', sought to sanction and legitimise the institutionalised and systemic regime of racial oppression and domination prohibited under international law as the crime of apartheid. As such, the Plan envisioned the rampant escalation of Israeli annexationist policies over large portions of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), and the retention of the remainder under military occupation.
Since 2020, many elements proposed in the Plan have been unilaterally implemented or effected by Israel, with enduing US support, including by way of claimed annexation, the banning of UNRWA, the fragmentation of the West Bank through additional walls and fences, and the consolidation of its apartheid regime.
The following report was finalised during 2021 as an internal Al-Haq study but has not been previously published. As such it does not take into account subsequent developments, whereby increasingly the recognition of Palestinian rights under international law have arrived in tandem with the outrageous complicity of the international community in Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Of particular significance has been the affirmation by the International Court of Justice in its 2024 Palestine Advisory Opinion that Israel's presence in the OPT is unlawful, including as a result of Israel's annexation of Palestinian territory, the denial of the Palestinian right to self-determination, and the violation of the prohibition of racial segregation and apartheid. Also of significance is the issuance of International Criminal Court arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defence, Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The publishing of the Report at this time, serves to assist in understanding the underlying dynamics relevant to the current externally proposed peace plans presented in the context of Israel's ongoing genocide and apartheid.
In this regard Al-Haq again emphasises that Article 47 of the Fourth Geneva Convention stringently protects the inviolable rights of the Palestinian population and explicitly prohibits 'any annexation' by the Occupying Power 'of the whole or part of the occupied territory'. The ICJ's 2024 Palestine Advisory Opinion clearly affirmed the significance of Article 47 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which provides that the protected population 'shall not be deprived' of the benefits of the Convention 'by any agreement concluded between the authorities of the occupied territories and the Occupying Power', and stressed that such agreements 'cannot be understood to detract from Israel's obligations under the pertinent rules of international law'. Regardless as to whether representatives of the Palestinian people are coerced into accepting US demands as a price for seeking to bring a pause to genocide, international law does not permit the legal rights of Palestinians to be extinguished nor the legal obligations upon Third States to be abandoned. The persistent failure of Third States, including at the Security Council, to adopt and enforce the necessary action to bring to an end the occupation and ensure the realisation of legal obligations has had a severely detrimental and far-reaching effect on the efficacy of the international legal framework and contributed to the impending reality of Annexation and the further fragmentation of Palestine and the Palestinian people.