Palestine Tet – 71 – South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza
Gaza
A memory stirs…
A certain rabbi in Colorado chides those in his congregation and staff from using the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign that continues unabated before the eyes of all the world. Previously he argued against people using the word “occupation” and before that “Palestine” pure and simple. An acquaintance, former colleague actually, also argues that applying the term “genocide” to the Palestinian fate in Gaza is an exaggeration, that “this is just what happens in a war”.
Yet genocide is what it is, “it” being Israel’s merciless bombing of Gaza, its ground offensive there and bulldozing of large tracks of bombed out neighborhoods, its withholding of water, electricity and food, its forcing most of the Strip’s population into homelessness – now 1.9 million of the 2.3 million people, etc. etc. And all this before the eyes of the whole world as it happens.
Then there are those – I’ve met a few – who take the genocide argument and turn it on its head: no, it’s not the Palestinians who are experiencing genocide but the Israelis! I’ve heard such logic (illogical?) not only from died in the wool Zionists (who also get squeamish when terms like “occupation” are used) but from a number of others who don’t want to face the fact that their U.S. tax dollars are being used to fuel such outright butchery.
But then history suggests that those who commit genocide often deny it, leaving it to their victims one more indignity: to prove their own suffering.
A few days ago, on Thursday, December 28, 2023, South Africa submitted an 84 page application to the International Court of Justice in the Hague accusing the Israeli government of genocide. As noted by Robert Herbst in MondoWeiss, it is a “devastating document laying out Israel’s genocidal acts and statements in horrifying detail.”
Called an “Application Instituting Proceedings” it called for the Court “to commence proceedings in a legal forum against Israel for its genocide in Gaza, and to press for “provisional measures” – a preliminary order requiring the Israel Government and military to cease their genocidal acts in Gaza pending a full hearing by the court.”
South Africa’s Application is 84 pages in length. It accuses the State of Israel, its Jewish political and military leaders and personnel of committing the genocidal acts and speaking openly of their genocidal intent. The Application details these genocidal acts including the contextual background so often missing in diplomatic and mainstream media discussion of the Gaza war.
Israel’s acts of genocide – so says South Africa,
“are distinct from other violations of international law sanctioned or perpetrated by the Israeli government and military in Gaza — including intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population, civilian objects and buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected; torture; the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare; and other war crimes and crimes against humanity” – all of which have occurred “in the broader context of Israel’s [] 75-year-long apartheid, its 56-year-long belligerent occupation of Palestinian territory and its 16-year-long blockade of Gaza[.]”
It lists actions taken by Israel prior to the Palestinian Resistance’s October 7, 2023 armed raid out of Gaza and into the neighboring areas of southern Israel. Again quoting Robert Herst at length:
Indeed, one of the most salient parts of the Application is its meticulous documentation of the misery that Israel imposed on Gazans before October 7, imposing a stringent blockade and effectively sealing them off from the outside world, reducing the area available for farming, severely reducing their ability to fish in the 20-mile zone stipulated in the Oslo Accords, and severely restricting food imports by calories per head to a humanitarian minimum after its “disengagement” and Hamas’s election victory in 2006, restricting electrical power, and polluting the coastal aquifer, the sole source of natural drinking water, all severely impairing daily living and the economy, resulting in a 45 percent unemployment rate and a 60 percent poverty rate, with 80 percent of the population dependent on some form of international assistance. And in the three years before October 7, Israel killed approximately 7,500 Gazans, including approximately 1,700 children. Over 18 months of weekly, peaceful protests at the separation fence against the blockade, Israeli snipers killed hundreds and wounded over 36,000, including nearly 9,000 children. Almost 5,000 unarmed people were shot in the lower limbs, deliberately, many standing hundreds of meters away.
There are many more examples of the same theme of Israel’s systematic cruelty, repression, ethnic cleansing that it is executing in Gaza. I will be referring to the specific examples in further blog entries.
Not surprisingly, in a public statement, Israel rejected the South African claims completely referring to the accusations in the Application as ““blood libel” by a nation cooperating with a terrorist organization. Israel claimed that its army only directs its military efforts against Hamas, a defense so filled with holes that it is not worth commenting upon further. But finding itself under searing criticism from all sides, with massive demonstrations worldwide accusing Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing, the Netanyahu government, which usually ignores such international criticism, finds itself pressured to formally respond to South Africa’s charges at the ICJ and has announced it will do so.
For those of you blog readers that want to read the Application in full, click here.I just want to share that section of it.
For the moment however, I want to focus on the basis of South Africa’s charge of genocide against Israel. The question of “intent” is fundamental to the definition of genocide as defined in the definitive legal document on the subject, the 1948 United Nations Convention on Genocide. The section is entitled “D. Expressions of Genocidal Intent against the Palestinian People by Israeli State Officials and Others. It starts on page 59 of the Application:
It cites extensive literally blood thirsty comments made by Prime Minister Netanyahu himself (with extensive documentation – for footnotes see the like provided above):
— Prime Minister of Israel:
- On 7 October 2023, in a televised address by the Government Press Office, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to “operate forcefully everywhere”.
- On 13 October 2023, he confirmed that “[w]e are striking our enemies with unprecedented might . . .”.
- On 15 October 2023, when Israeli airstrikes had already killed over 2,670 Palestinians, including 724 children,441 the Prime Minister stated that Israeli soldiers “understand the scope of the mission” and stand ready “to defeat the bloodthirsty monsters who have risen against [Israel] to destroy us”.
- On 16 October 2023, in a formal address to the Israeli Knesset, he described situation as “a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle”,
- a dehumanising theme to which he returned on various occasions, including: on 3 November 2023, in a letter to Israeli soldiers and officers also published on the platform ‘X’ (formerly Twitter); the letter asserted that: “[t]his is the war between the sons of light and the sons of darkness. We will not let up on our mission until the light overcomes the darkness — the good will defeat the extreme evil that threatens us and the entire world.”
- The Israeli Prime Minister also returned to the theme in his ‘Christmas message’, stating: “we’re facing monsters, monsters who murdered children in
front of their parents . . . This is a battle not only of Israel against these barbarians, it’s a battle of civilization against barbarism”. - On 28 October 2023, as Israeli forces prepared their land invasion of Gaza, the Prime Minister invoked the Biblical story of the total destruction of Amalek by the Israelites, stating: “you must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember”.
- The Prime Minister referred again to Amalek in the letter sent on 3 November 2023 to Israeli soldiers and officers.
- The relevant biblical passage reads as follows: “Now go, attack Amalek, and proscribe all that belongs to him. Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings, oxen and sheep, camels and asses”
Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog was among those who placed his handwritten messages on bombs and missiles meant for Gaza. He, who addressed a meeting of the National Jewish Fund in Denver, Colorado in late November, adds his own comments on how the Israeli Defense Force would target everyone, Hamas fighters and civilians, Palestinians of all ages:
President Isaac Herzog made clear that Israel was not distinguishing between militants and civilians in Gaza, stating in a press conference to foreign media — in relation Palestinians in Gaza, over one million of whom are children: “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware not involved. It’s absolutely not true. … and we will fight until we break their backbone.” On 15 October 2023, echoing the words of Prime Minister Netanyahu, the President told foreign
media that “we will uproot evil so that there will be good for the entire region and the world.” The Israeli President is one of many Israelis to have handwritten ‘messages’ on bombs to be dropped on Gaza.
Yoav Gallant, Israel’s Defense Minister poured more fuel on Netanyahu’s genocidal fires. He noted that Israel was:
“imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” He also informed troops on the Gaza border that he had “released all the restraints”, stating in terms that: “Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything. If it doesn’t take one day, it will take a week. It will take weeks or even months, we will reach all places.”He further announced that Israel was moving to “a full scale response” and that he had “removed every restriction” on Israeli forces.
“Fighting human animals”, “released all the restraints” (on the military), “no food, no water, no fuel”.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israeli Minister for National Security, stating official government policy, literally calls for targeting everyone in Gaza, stating: “[t]o be clear, when we say that Hamas should be destroyed, it also means those who celebrate, those who support, and those who hand out candy — they’re all terrorists, and they should also be destroyed.”
Hitler couldn’t have said it better.
The statements of others, government officials, media workers, and the general public all echoed Netanyahu’s call for genocide and ethnic cleansing to a disturbing degree.
Will South Africa’s initiative receive support from other nations, particularly in the Global South? The more countries that sign on to the Application, the harder it will be for Israel to ignore it and for the Biden Administration to continue to support Israel’s murderous actions.
Regardless, the fact that a country which has just freed itself from the shackles of apartheid has come out so forcefully and in such detail pointing its finger at Israel with “We charge genocide” is a strong blow to Israel’s image, or what’s left of it. In reviewing the South African Application I was struck by the fact that most of the information therein, the charges leveled against Israel have been done before and at present but the United Nations itself, by many human rights organizations.
What is new or different this time that the charge of genocide comes from the South African government, which knows something about apartheid and genocide, about racism and that it has in a carefully constructed fact-based manner, joined in as well and in so doing has shown a kind of courage itself often missing.
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