"Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories." -- Benyamin Netanyahu, Deputy Foreign Minister, November 24, 1989 https://x.com/R34lB0rg/status/1861619654784942120/photo/1

Analyzing Benjamin Netanyahu's 1989 statement in the context of contemporary international law involves several key areas:

Geneva Conventions:

• Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention: This article explicitly prohibits "individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory." Netanyahu's suggestion of mass expulsions would clearly contravene this principle if acted upon in an occupied territory like the West Bank or Gaza Strip at that time.

• Occupied Territories: The territories Netanyahu refers to were, and still are, considered occupied by much of the international community. The laws of occupation under the Geneva Conventions set out responsibilities and prohibitions for occupying powers, including the protection of the civilian population.

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court:

• War Crimes (Article 8):

  • Deportation or Transfer of Population: As noted in Article 8(2)(b)(viii), the transfer of parts of an occupying power's population into the territory it occupies or the deportation/transfer of the occupied territory's population is considered a war crime. Netanyahu's statement implies an action that would fall into this category.

• Crimes Against Humanity (Article 7):

  • Deportation or Forcible Transfer of Population: If the expulsion were part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack, it could be considered a crime against humanity. This would involve the forcible movement of people without their consent, which is what Netanyahu's statement seems to advocate.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

• Article 13(2): Everyone has the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return to their country. This right would be violated by actions that prevent people from returning to their homes.

• Article 15: Everyone has the right to a nationality, and no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality. Mass expulsions could lead to such arbitrary deprivations.

Other International Legal Principles:

• Right to Self-Determination: The statement implies a policy that would undermine the Palestinian right to self-determination by altering the demographic composition of the territories.

• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR):

  • Article 12: Protects the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state, including the right to leave any country and to return to one's country.

• Prohibition Against Ethnic Cleansing: While not explicitly defined in international law, ethnic cleansing is considered by international bodies and law experts to encompass acts like forced population transfers aimed at altering the ethnic makeup of a territory. These acts are treated with severe condemnation and are often prosecuted under the banner of crimes against humanity or war crimes.

• State Responsibility: States are responsible under international law for the actions of their officials; thus, if such a policy were implemented, Israel would be held accountable for violations of international law.

Netanyahu's statement, if acted upon, would have breached numerous international legal standards established to protect civilian populations, human rights, and to prevent the kind of demographic engineering through forced population transfers that was tragically common in earlier parts of the 20th century. At that time, the full scope of international humanitarian law had evolved, particularly with the Rome Statute coming into effect in 2002, making the legal implications of such policies even clearer under contemporary law. However, at the time of the statement (1989), while the legal framework was less developed, the principles against forced population transfers were already well-established.