The recent tension between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reminds us that the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is a perennial challenge for the modern international legal system.

On 27 January, Ban Ki-moon addressed the outlook of Palestinian people who have experienced nearly 50 years of Israeli occupation:

[Young people especially] are angered by the stifling policies of the occupation. They are frustrated by the strictures on their daily lives. They watch as Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, expand and expand. They are losing faith in their own leadership to deliver genuine national reconciliation and see the dream of a sovereign, contiguous and independent Palestinian state slip away.

…. And some Palestinians wonder: Is this all meant to simply run out the clock? They ask: Are we meant to watch as the world endlessly debates how to divide land while it disappears before our very eyes?

Ban’s comments ought to be contextualised in the sense that, the previous day, he had appeared before the Security Council to condemn Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians.

Nevertheless, Israel was outraged by Ban’s views. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seized on Ban’s comment that ‘it is human nature to react to occupation’ as evidence that the Secretary-General sought to give a ‘tailwind to terrorism’. The Israeli Ambassador to the UN similarly decried Ban’s comments as encouraging terrorism.

In the Israeli Wall case, the International Court of Justice concluded that the UN and its members were obliged ‘not to recognise the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall’, but rather to consider what they could do to bring the illegal situation to an end. Ban’s comments were clearly directed to this end and – as he later argued himself – in no way contradict his view that ‘nothing excuses terrorism’.

Palestine’s status in the international community

The UN has always been a key site of Palestinian advocacy. The General Assembly and Security Council have resolved that Israel is in violation of the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force. Israel’s conduct in Palestine is frequently debated within and beyond the Security Council.

Since 2012, Palestine has had permanent status as a UN non-member observer state. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas described this elevation as progress towards a ‘birth certificate’ for a Palestinian state. In 2015, the UN General Assembly voted to fly the flags of non-member observer states at its headquarters. Ban described the subsequent raising of the Palestinian flag as a sign that Palestinian statehood can be achieved.

Israel’s status in the international community

However, recent symbolic gestures at the UN have done little to address the severe power imbalance between Palestine and Israel. Indeed, until Palestine achieves statehood the international legal system is severely limited in its capacity to aim for substantive equality between the two entities.

As a sovereign state, Israel has access to the full range of entitlements of the most powerful legal actors under international law. Its power over Palestine is evident not only through the occupation, but in its capacity to resist outside proposals for a negotiated settlement and continue to dictate terms. Israel also enjoys the patronage of the United States, one of the five permanent member states of the UN Security Council and, practically speaking, the most powerful. US support has been critical in enabling Israel to continue its violations of international law in relation to Palestine.

The Israeli “wall” and Palestinians’ rights

Israel’s construction of a wall in the West Bank symbolises its posture towards international law. Construction began in 2002 and is around 80 percent complete. The wall extends more than 700km in length, including at least 70km of concrete slabs.

Israel calls the wall a ‘separation barrier’. In 2002, then-prime minister Ariel Sharon claimed the wall was necessary to protect citizens from Palestinian suicide bombers. Some commentators credit the wall as highly successful in achieving this. Others question whether reductions in terrorist attacks can be attributed to the wall. Some refer to it as an ‘apartheid wall’.

The wall does not follow the “Green Line” considered essential for preserving territory to create a viable Palestinian state. 85 percent of the wall runs inside occupied Palestinian territory on the West Bank. Some Palestinian towns are almost entirely encircled by it.

In January 2016, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Makarim Wibisono, resigned, citing Israel’s denying him access to Palestine. He said:

It is my sincere hope that whoever succeeds me will manage to resolve the current impasse, and so reassure the Palestinian people that after nearly half a century of occupation the world has not forgotten their plight and that universal human rights are indeed universal.

Land grab undermines the two-state solution and the rights of Palestinians

Israel is now preparing to make its largest land seizure in the West Bank since August 2014. Israeli settlers are already farming the 154 hectares in the Jordan Valley, displacing Palestinian communities.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on Israel to change its settlement policies. Settlements are illegal on occupied territory. They undermine the widely acknowledged right of Palestine to statehood. Yet Israel violates international law with near impunity.

The Israeli government publicly states its commitment to a “two-state solution”. Yet many of its ministers oppose the proposal and the peace process itself.

Academic and author Padraig O’Malley recently reported that the Israeli Defence Force is increasingly becoming a religious army. Its ideological makeup may very soon make it incapable of enforcing the evacuation of the 100,000 Israeli settlers who will be required to leave the West Bank to enable a two-state solution.

As acknowledged in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, not every diplomatic initiative ‘is a threat to the state of Israel’. Rather, ‘Recognition of a Palestinian state that will live in peace alongside the State of Israel is not a threat to Israel. It is a welcome contribution to its peace, security and morality’.

It is time for Israel’s leaders to demonstrate respect for international legal obligations, and for the UN and its member states to bring greater pressure to bear on Israel to end its illegal actions in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Dr Amy Maguire is a lecturer in international law at the University of Newcastle Law School. This article can be republished under a Creative Commons License and contains some content drawn from Dr Maguire’s article on The Conversation published 25 January.