The same cannot be said about Mr. Annan's facility. In a complaint to the International Court of Justice, the UN's main judicial body, South Africa accused Israel of “genocidal in nature” in its war effort in Gaza, and grotesquely accused Lemkin of He cited statements in support of the charges. “Israel and its officials and/or agents acted with the intent to destroy the Palestinian population in Gaza,” South Africa claimed.
On Friday, the ICJ issued a preliminary judgment against Israel. It could have been worse. The order stopped short of directing Israel to immediately halt military operations in Gaza, as South Africa had called for. But the court found, in a unique language of international law, that “it appears that at least some of the acts and omissions allegedly committed by Israel in Gaza may fall within the terms of the treaty.”
This is a serious misconception about genocide. In fact, it's a perversion of the term. It is terrifying when applied against any nation, but especially offensive when used against Israel. Israel was built in the ashes of the worst genocide in human history, was one of the first countries to sign the Genocide Convention, and is now one of the countries fighting back. The largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
If there is a party responsible for genocidal intentions and acts in this war, it is Hamas, but since Hamas is not a state, terrorist groups cannot be brought before the ICJ. Hamas' founding charter speaks of “the usurpation of the land by the Jewish people” and “our struggle against the Jewish people.” He declares that “the Day of Judgment will not come until the Muslims fight against the Jews and kill them.”
Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and will repeat the atrocities of October 7th if allowed. “Israel is a country that has no place on our land,” Ghazi Hamid, a senior Hamas official, told a Lebanese television station after the attack. “We have to teach Israel a lesson, and we will repeat it again and again. The al-Aqsa flood was the first, and there will be a second, third, and fourth.” Who has genocidal intentions here?
None of this is meant to defend Israel's actions around October 7th as a whole. Although I am a proud Jew and Zionist, I do not support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Israeli government and his ultra-Orthodox and settler allies. Israel's relentless settlement expansion and mistreatment of Palestinians in the West Bank is indefensible and counterproductive.
Hamas has a dual responsibility when it comes to the current war, but that does not make Israel innocent. First, Hamas is responsible for this barbaric attack. Israel was fully justified in responding to prevent future genocide. Second, Hamas is responsible for deliberately embedding itself among Gaza's civilian population and causing severe civilian casualties. Keep in mind: without Hamas, none of this would have happened.
Still, Israel is in dire straits as it attempts to hobble, if not destroy, Hamas and recapture the hostages, whose seizure and captivity is itself a war crime. If an attack is expected to result in civilian casualties, the laws of war require that it be commensurate with military objectives. There is an obligation to take all possible precautions to minimize harm to non-combatants. Given the ferocity and scope of the attack, Israel has the right and obligation to defend itself.
But, like the Biden administration, there are concerns that Israel's response may be overreaching, that the collateral damage will be disproportionate given the virtual impossibility of eradicating Hamas, and that at the very least Israel will It is natural to have doubts as to whether or not they are taking it. Disadvantages in the court of public opinion.
However, all this is far from considering Israel's actions as genocide. Let's go to the text of the Genocide Convention, which requires both an act and an intention. This includes killing members of a “national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.” Causing “serious physical or mental harm.” and “deliberately inflicting conditions of life on the population calculated to bring about physical destruction, in whole or in part.” Those acts must be accompanied by the intent to “destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.”
Is that what Israel is aiming for? Killing civilians benefits Hamas and undermines Israel's interests. Israel has taken extraordinary measures to prevent civilian casualties and alleviate the suffering of innocent people. To claim that they are not sufficient, or even that Israel's actions violate international humanitarian law, is not to conclude that the actions are genocidal. Even if Hamas magically disappeared tomorrow, even if Israel somehow found itself secure, Israel would have no interest in harming civilians.
The court's opinion conveniently ignores this.You won't know where Hamas is located just by reading this. Operations within the civilian population, aimed precisely at using civilians as human shields and maximizing casualties. The order instead echoed some statements made by Israeli officials in the immediate aftermath of October 7, which were ill-advised but far from indicating genocidal intent, such as “We are fighting humans and animals. The focus is on Defense Minister Yoav Gallant's statement.
The sole dissenter, Ugandan judge Julia Sebutinde, said South Africa had not yet reached the stage of proving its case. He called for Israel's “limited and targeted attacks on legitimate military targets in the Gaza Strip” and “reduction of harm to civilians by warning them of impending attacks through leaflets, radio messages and telephone calls”; He then referred to “promoting humanitarian assistance.”
He said that while problematic Israeli statements have been taken out of context or misinterpreted, “the Israeli government's official war policy presented to the court contains no indication of genocidal intent.” said. For some reason, the majority could not say the same.
The most scathing statement came from Aharon Barak, Israel's representative at the court. Aharon Barak is a former Israeli Supreme Court justice who survived the Holocaust in Lithuania as a boy and rose to prominence as an Israeli human rights defender. “Genocide is not just a word to me. It describes calculated destruction and human behavior at its worst,” Barak wrote. “This is the most serious accusation imaginable and is deeply intertwined with my personal life experience.”
Barak cited Lemkin and how the court's approach serves to “dilute the concept of genocide” and contradicts the high standard of proof of intent applied in other far more persuasive cases. It was convincingly demonstrated that For example, the ICJ concluded that, with the exception of the 1995 massacre of Muslims in Srebrenica, “the widespread and serious atrocities committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina were partially motivated by a specific intent to destroy Muslim groups in Bosnia.'' “It was not carried out with the intention of carrying out the act,” he said. ”
Comparing the “scarce evidence” of genocidal intent by Israel relied on here, the ICJ, which is investigating Myanmar's treatment of Rohingya Muslims, said it had “2 “We have been collecting evidence in detail for more than 20 years,” he said. We reviewed analysis of satellite images, photographs and videos, cross-checked information with reliable secondary sources, expert interviews, and raw data before concluding that there was evidence of “plausible” intent.
What is the difference in the treatment of Israel? I can't help but think it's the same thing that necessitated the existence of a Jewish state in the first place.