On Monday, June 5, Palestinians and their supporters marked 50 years since the 1967 Six Day War, when Israeli forces occupied the remaining 22 percent of historic Palestine left over from the War of 1948. During this military assault, Israeli forces displaced another 350,000 Palestinians from their homes, and turned many 1948 refugees into refugees again.
How long must Palestinians wait to return to their homeland? How long until the international community exercises its political will to force Israel to comply with international law? How long until the UK and other western countries, explicitly or tacitly, end the double standard in its foreign policy and unconditional support for Israeli policies that contravene international law and deprive Palestinians of their basic human rights?
The international community is gradually losing patience with Israel’s occupation. U.N Security Council Resolution 2334 in December 2016, which refers to Israel as an “occupying power”, condemns “all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem”, and condemns, inter alia, the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians. The Resolution furthermore states in the clearest terms that the UN Security Council “will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations.”