On January 11 and 12, many people were glued to their screens for hours. To the point of crashing the United Nations website that broadcast the live broadcast, a completely exceptional thing. In fact, it is probably the first time that so many people have followed, and with great interest, the public hearings of a case brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). At the end of December, South Africa denounced Israel, accusing it of having failed in its duty to apply the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, of which the Jewish state is a signatory.
The basis of the accusation is the destructive war waged in the Gaza Strip since 7 October after the bloody surprise attack by Hamas, which Pretoria places in a broader context of apartheid, occupation and siege. “The violence and destruction in Palestine and Israel did not begin on 7 October 2023,” South African Justice Minister Ronald Lamola told the court. “Palestinians have experienced systematic oppression and violence for the past 76 years.”
It’s hard to ignore what the Palestinians are experiencing. In the era of social networks and instant information, news from the Gaza Strip has managed to reach outside the enclave despite internet connection interruptions and censorship repeatedly imposed by Israel since the start of the war. And the Israeli declarations, which would suggest the start of a third phase of fighting, at a lower intensity, seem contradicted by the facts, while the death toll given by the Gaza authorities exceeds 24 thousand deaths.
“There are so many people shocked by the number of Palestinian civilian victims in Gaza that South Africa’s genocide lawsuit against Israel is the subject of extraordinary attention,” says Kenneth Roth, former director of the US NGO Human Rights Watch (since 1993 to 2022), currently professor at the School of public and international affairs at Princeton University, in the United States. Even more so since the hearings to establish the provisional measures requested by South Africa – i.e. the cessation of Israeli military operations – are taking place at the same time as the conflict continues to rage. The Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera, which has stood out for its news coverage from within the Gaza Strip itself, broadcast live images showing the destruction and suffering in the enclave alongside the broadcast of the hearings.
Although court cases relating to genocide are rare, difficult to prove because not only the existence of the crime must be proven but also the intention to commit it, and require years of procedures, a court decision is expected in the coming weeks on the matter to the provisions that Israel should immediately adopt to prevent a possible genocide. “This case raises hope for another possible way to enforce accountability,” notes Roth. “If the court as part of its provisional measures orders the Israeli government to stop carrying out genocidal acts, this could help save the lives of many Palestinian civilians.” According to several analysts, there is a good chance that the court will take measures, but international jurisdiction does not have the tools to enforce them, except by passing through the UN Security Council, where Tel Aviv’s faithful US ally would certainly impose its veto. Noting that a risk of genocide is very real, however, such a decision would still harm Israel significantly.
The fear of seeing its image and its international reputation tarnished by the original sin which is the very foundation of its creation has pushed the Jewish state to implement a vast communications offensive aimed at foreign public opinion and its allies to discredit the South African complaint. Some observers have judged the journalistic coverage of the procedure in Western countries to be insufficient, denouncing bias and lack of independence of the media.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett described the prosecution as “the Dreyfus affair of the twenty-first century,” calling it a “shameful display of hypocrisy and flagrant anti-Semitism.” On January 11, after the hearing of lawyers in Pretoria who cited provisional data on damages, losses and victims, evidence and indications of genocidal intent, the head of the Israeli government Benjamin Netanyahu declared that “Israel he is accused of genocide while he is fighting a genocide, it’s a world turned upside down.”
But what is unusual about this complaint is above all the fact that it comes from the global south. International justice is often criticized for its costs and slowness, but many also consider it biased, an instrument of variable geometry power used by Western powers. A reality that South Africa’s complaint seems to have denied.
“The attention this case has received also stems from the fact that it represents an example of a major human rights initiative led by a government in the global south,” insists Kenneth Roth. Western governments, who are often the champions of the defense of human rights, have done nothing, or almost nothing, to stop the devastation of Gaza carried out by Israel and prevent the deaths of more than 24 thousand Palestinians.
Commenting on the hearings of the South African team on the social network it will make history, whatever happens.”
Will this be an opportunity for international justice to regain credibility in the eyes of the global south? The hearings were followed closely from Pretoria to Gaza, to the extent possible given current conditions. “Although most people don’t know much about the International Court of Justice – many confuse it with the International Criminal Court (ICC) – they do know that Israel is on trial,” underlines Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism project at the ‘Institute for Policy Studies in Washington: “And it is unprecedented, because for decades the United States has supported Israel not only with billions of dollars in military aid, but also by offering it impunity.”
This sentiment also emerges from the stalled investigation launched in 2021 by the ICC into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since June 2014. “Many are frustrated by the fact that so far its attorney general, Karim Khan , only published press releases, without making any war crimes charges,” observes Kenneth Roth, who believes that progress on this case could make “a huge difference in restoring trust in international law.”
The former director of Human Rights Watch specifies: “Without the law we would be limited to those power policies that so far have only encouraged the Israeli government in its trajectory.” It remains to be seen whether the members of the ICJ will not be influenced by their national affiliations, given that the president of the court, Joan Donoghue, is a US citizen. “Not all judges will probably vote according to their government’s preferences, but they will certainly keep in mind the political consequences” in the country, Bennis predicts. However, “the judges are undoubtedly concerned about their credibility and that of the court in the future, and are aware of the global outrage over Israeli actions in Gaza.” ◆ fdl
To know
One hundred days later
◆ One hundred days have passed since the start of the Israeli military offensive in Gaza Stripaccording to the Hamas authorities, 24,448 people died in the bombings, approximately 1 percent of the territory’s population. In recent days, Israeli attacks have concentrated on Khan Yunisthe great city of the south. The Israeli army said that one of the four divisions that participated in the ground offensive left the Strip on January 15. At the same time, however, the Israeli government insists that the conflict will continue for months, and on January 15 it allocated fifteen billion dollars to cover the costs.
◆On January 15, Hamas announced the death of two Israeli hostages in army bombing. Afp
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2024-01-19 01:26:19
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