Ardi Imseis, an assistant professor of international law at Queen's University in Canada, said the Israeli political establishment shows “total disregard” for the “rules-based international legal order” when it comes to illegal Israeli settlements.
As evidence of this, he pointed to the Return to Gaza Conference, which took place just days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take measures to prevent genocide in Gaza.
At the conference, held in West Jerusalem on Sunday, Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for “voluntary migration” of Palestinians, while also announcing 21 illegal new Israeli settlements.
Imseis said that given the current political climate in Israel, the “material prospects of a Palestinian state are bleak.”
“To be honest, they’ve never looked bleaker. But that does not mean that the State of Palestine does not exist,” he said. “Legally – that is, legally – 140 states recognize the State of Palestine within the territorial boundaries of the occupied Palestinian territories.”
People attend a far-right conference calling for the establishment of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip at the International Convention Center in West Jerusalem on January 28 (Abir Sultan/EPA-EFE)