ISRAEL FACES GENOCIDE CHARGES THIS WEEK

 

This week, Israel will be forced to appear before the International Court of Justice to answer charges that it is committing genocide in Gaza.


ON  27 OCTOBER 2023 Israel launched its military assault on some two million people imprisoned within the Gaza enclave. According to Gaza's Health Ministry, approximately 22,000 people have since been killed, with nearly 60,000 people injured. It's estimated that the deaths include nearly 9,000 children. More than 1,000 children have had limbs amputated since Israel began its bloody rampage.

According to Al Jazeera, the three months of Israeli bombardment has destroyed nearly 70 percent of Palestinian homes -  a stark refutation of Israel's frequent claim that it has been concerned solely with bombing military targets.  

We are witnessing what, as one commentator has described it, 'a textbook case of genocide'. The crime of genocide is defined by 'the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,' as noted in the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

While Israel's far right regime continues to deny that it is engaged in genocide, its actions and words say otherwise. In October last year Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant declared,  "We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.”

Israel is bent on destroying and extinguishing Palestinian society. It's  being allowed to pursue its objective by an US administration led by a President who seems strangely unconcerned that his dramatic collapse of support among American Muslims and millennials means he runs the real risk of delivering the US presidency to Donald Trump on a platter.

Throughout the course of Israel's genocidal campaign, protests have swept around the world. But there has also been an increasing sense of frustration that the protests have not brought Israel's barbaric military campaign to a halt. The calls for an immediate ceasefire have been ignored by both the United States and Israel.

But the global support for the Palestinian people will receive a much-needed boost this week. The South African government will head for the International Court of Justice in The Hague to argue that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.  

South Africa's 83 page application describes Israel’s actions in Gaza as 'genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has compared Israel’s policies in Gaza and the occupied West Bank with his country’s past apartheid regime of racial segregation imposed by the white-minority rule that ended in 1994. 

The case will be heard on January 11 and 12 with a preliminary ruling from the ICJ expected within weeks. South Africa has requested that Israel immediately cease all acts and measures in violation of its obligations as a signatory to the 1948 Genocide Convention. Decisions of the ICJ are legally binding, but the court has little power to enforce them.

Jordan, Malaysia, Turkey and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation have so far declared their support for South Africa's case against Israel, and other countries are expected to follow.  

But there has been no response from the New Zealand Government.

Last week a group of ten lawyers and academics, including leading human rights lawyer Frances Joychild KC, as well as Auckland University law professor emeriti David V Williams and Jane Kelsey issued an open letter urging the Government to join South Africa’s case against Israel.

But the New Zealand Government has demonstrated that it is unwilling to oppose the United States and last week White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that South Africa's case was '...meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.'

Having already declined to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, calling only for 'steps' to be taken toward such a ceasefire, it's unlikely the New Zealand Government will take on board a case that the United States has already attacked.

While the New Zealand Government has failed to condemn the carnage that Israel has inflicted on Gaza, it has been more than willing to attack Israel's political adversaries. Last week it joined eleven other countries, including the United States, in condemning the continuing attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea by Yemen's Houthis. The Houthis have declared their support for the Palestinian people in Gaza and have said they will target any ship travelling to Israel.

Minister of Defence Judith Collins said last week that it was 'important' New Zealand 'stood with its allies'. There was no acknowledgement by Collins that the attacks have been prompted by Israel's continuing assault on the people of Gaza.  

But Judith Collins is no friend of the Palestinian people. In 2016 she criticised the then-Foreign Minister Murray McCully when New Zealand was a member of the Security Council, and he had led the passing of a resolution opposing Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. Collins opposed the move.

The hearings will be streamed live on the ICJ’s website and on the UN Web TV.