What would say what some would dare to call the common sense on South Africa’s lawsuit against the Government of Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) from The Hague alleged genocidal conduct and for committing genocide in Gaza and violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank? I would say that the United Nations court is as irrelevant as the UN and that nothing will happen. Come on, who can believe that immediate suspension of war, one of the first most important precautionary measures requested by South Africa, will be adopted by the court when the United States has vetoed the Stop the fire in the Security Council? And can anyone help but imagine that the United States and Israel are trying abort the lawsuit before the two hearings scheduled for this Thursday, December 11 and Friday, December 12 in The Hague begin?
Well look where, they try. Last Friday, January 5, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Israel instructed its embassies and press officials from Tel Aviv to broadcast communications and statements against South Africa’s demand. This is a complete argument.
An urgent cable indicates: “A failure [contrario] by the court may have significant potential implications that are not limited to legal worldbut they would have bilateral branches, multilateral, economic and of security. Let us ask for an immediate and unequivocal declaration in the following lines. Establish publicly and clearly that YOUR COUNTRY rejects the unworthy, absurd and unfounded allegations against Israel.
The instruction, collected by the North American portal Axios from three different embassies, points out that according to United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948of which Israel has been a part since 1950, the crime is defined as the creation of conditions that prevent the survival of the population and the attempt to annihilate it. Therefore, highlighting Israel’s efforts to reduce the number of civilian casualties “It is crucial.” Likewise, it is intended to ask diplomats and politicians at the highest level “to publicly recognize that Israel is working both to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza and to minimize harm to civilians, by acting in self-defense after the horrific attack on October 7 by a genocidal terrorist organization”
The argument would be a joke if it were not about the tragedy that the world has seen since 1967, according to the widely documented story it contains. the demand.
The story, equivalent in its extraordinary precision and coherence to that made by the North American judge Robert J. Jackson in his capacity as prosecutor in the International Military Criminal Court of the main Nuremberg trial in November 1945, combines two overlapping points from a criminal point of view: the intention to commit genocide (especially after October 7, 2023) and the evidence of the destruction of the Strip and the death of a substantial part of the Palestinian people. Context is added to these two channels.
The ongoing genocide, then, is the extreme continuation of the policy carried out until 2005, the date on which Israel unilaterally abandoned Gaza, although it continued to control what was already at that time, according to the late Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling, “the “highest concentration in the world.”
On December 29, when the South African Government deposited its demand in The Hague, the number of deaths counted by the Gaza Ministry of Health amounted to 21,110 Palestiniansof which a 70% were women and children; 7,780 missing (4,700 women and children). “They have died slowly and decomposing in the streets where they have been killed,” the lawsuit states. As of December 29, the number of dead children rose to 7,729 with a death rate of 115 each day and with 2 mothers dying each day.
Mass expulsion from their homes
The mass expulsion from their homes and displacement of Palestinians in Gaza is an important chapter. “It is estimated that 1.9 million Palestiniansout of a total population of 2.3 million in Gaza, have been forced to leave their homes (85%). Those who have not wanted to move or were unable to do so have been killed or suffer the risk of being.
But the story is not limited to one of the occupied territories or the epicenter of the ongoing war. He is also busy painting the infernal picture of the West Bank before October 7, 2023 and after. The relevance is evident: the pretext of Hamas does not exist for Israel because the West Bank and East Jerusalem govern. Palestinian Authorityin command of the PLO Abu Mazenthat is, from an ally of Israel.
“Palestinians in the West Bank are also targets of routine violence by the Israeli soldiers and armed settlers of the settlements. Before October 7, 2023, between January 1 and October 6, 2023, 199 Palestinians were killed and 9,000 were injured.
Since October 7, 2023, the situation has worsened. A total of 295 Palestinians have been killed.
Netanyahu, Israeli government ministers and military leaders have taken advantage of the October 7 attack to talk about his genocide plan without complex. All statements are recorded in the complaint. And although a confession is made on behalf of the evidence, as the well-known judicial adage goes, the evidence and indications are terrifying.
South African lawyers demand declaration of various precautionary measures among them the decision of the TIJ to stop the war and return to the situation before October 7, while the merits of the demand are debated.
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To make this decision, it is not necessary, according to the TIJ doctrine, consider the claim valid in its entirety or enter into the merits. Suffice it to note that there is a conflict between South Africa and Israel regarding the implementation of the obligations of both countries to enforce the Convention against Genocide and estimate that the demand has what is called “good right appearance”, that is, it collects elements of the crime of incitement to genocide and genocidal actions.
If the events described are not genocide, that the Polish jurist Rafael Lemkin, the creator of the crime of genocide, rise from his grave and go to The Hague.