With a stroke of brilliance never seen before in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), South Africa at once put on notice all would be genocidal enterprises and brought Israel’s genocidal war to stand trial, bringing to an end the era of immunity accorded to Israel’s 75 years life of crime.
Essentially, South Africa’s case told the world Israel is not above the law, is not accorded by God the divine right to commit genocide despite Israel’s biblical claims, is not a victim but is in fact a perpetrator of crimes, can no longer hide behind the claims of anti-Semitism nor use the Holocaust to commit a holocaust of its own against another group of people. Israel can, must and will be held accountable. The era of immunity must end.
Ironically, that repudiation of Israel’s criminal behavior came just a day before Jewish people celebrate another Holocaust anniversary, perhaps underlining the distinction between Jews and Israel, a state created on the foundation of Zionist ideology, rejected by many Jews, whom Israel purports to represent.
As South Africa’s brilliant legal team described, sometimes in visual and gruesome detail, Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians, the rest of the world listened and watched while the corridors of Western power, still determined to uphold Israel’s immunity, blocked out South Africa’s presentation from its airwaves, leaving people there to resort to non-Western media. So much for Western duplicity when it comes to freedom of information. Nothing could possibly have demonstrated so vividly Israel’s stranglehold on the West. And when that stranglehold ends, as it surely must, the West will have not only Palestinians and their sacrifices, but South Africa too, to thank.
It is worth noting that both, Indigenous South Africans and Palestinians are the victims of settler colonialism that created two of the most ruthless eras of apartheid which, ironically, were established in the same year, 1948. South Africa, which managed to break the chains of apartheid, has now taken upon itself the challenging mission of helping Palestinians break them too. Israel and its Western allies will attempt to make South Africa pay dearly for its role. But that is a discussion for another time, when analyzing the emerging powers of BRICS, which South Africa currently leads, and its role in rebalancing the world.
The battle Palestinians won in the ICJ through South Africa’s powerful application, despite its substantial results, is nevertheless not complete. When it comes to ending a genocide, a half-full glass is still half-empty. There can be no half-measures. Killing has either stopped or not. And that is the distinction the ICJ miserably failed to rule on, and do so unambiguously.
To many of us, the ICJ ruling was not surprising, but disappointing nevertheless. Particularly given that South Africa’s application was backed by substantial evidence that warranted a clear ruling by the ICJ. Instead, even as ICJ president, Judge Joan E. Donoghue, read page after page of damning evidence that supported South Africa’s claim that Gaza Palestinians are exposed to a genocide perpetrated by Israeli forces, directed by Israeli leadership and supported by Israeli Knesset members, the ruling that followed was not one that clearly ordered an immediate cessation of attacks but one that only added ambiguity. So much so that the parties to the dispute and the rest of the world were left to ask, how can you stop a genocide if the attacks that create the genocide are not made to stop? The fact that the airwaves are now full of speculation, debate and interpretation, only proves the extent to which the ICJ’s ruling, rather than addressing a problem, perhaps compounded it.
Worse still, it will be this ambiguity that will serve a U.S. veto on Wednesday when the U.N. Security Council meets to discuss the implementation of the ruling. While South Africa’s application seeks to deny Israel immunity, the probable U.S. veto will seek to protect and enable Israel to continue its criminal enterprise, with impunity.
Clearly, South Africa’s interpretation of the ruling makes sense, you cannot bring life-sustaining support amid a shooting war. You cannot stop killing civilians without stopping the shooting. So, that makes a cease-fire mandatory. Which brings us back to the question: why then didn’t the ICJ clearly and unambiguously order a cease-fire to stop the “plausible” genocide and to restore life-sustaining resources pending the final outcome of the case? In the case of the 100 or so prisoners held by Hamas, the ICJ was unambiguous. It ordered the unconditional and immediate release of the captives. Ironically the ICJ found that such clarity unnecessary in the case of hundreds of Palestinians being killed daily under Israeli bombardment and blockade! So far, the toll is more than 26,000. Not including those unaccounted dead and buried under rubble, the wounded and the displaced.
It is now left to each country to determine what exactly the ICJ ruled and how should the ruling be treated. And while countries will race to seek time-consuming clarifications to determine their political positions, we will potentially be left watching as Israel attempts to continue its violent liquidation of an entire population. To underline what the days ahead promise, the United States is restocking Israel’s war machine through the delivery of a new batch of F-35s, F-15 and Apache helicopters. There’s no prize for guessing how genocidal that new batch of firepower will be used.
The ICJ’s ruling has now made it incumbent for countries in the region to protect against any prospect of Israel and its Western allies, especially the U.S., winning this war. The consequences of such victory will be devastating for the entire region, so much so that sacrifices being currently made, whether by Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq and especially Palestinians themselves will pale by comparison to the cost the region will later pay.
While understandably governments in the region are hesitant to engage Zionist Israel and its allies militarily the way Europeans engaged Nazi German and its allies, there are other methods that can be deployed on a wide scale by the same group of countries that met in Riyadh. Actions that go beyond the condemnation, such as that came out of their conference.
These are measures that have been deployed against Russia in the Ukrainian war and can be used to prevent Israel’s continuing genocidal war in Gaza.
As we watch the world’s uprising against Israel, we are reminded of another ruthless regime that was brought down, not by governments but by peoples’ power, forcing governments to end their complicity and instead adopt punitive measures that eventually dismantled South Africa’s apartheid regime. Governments everywhere, but especially Israel’s Western allies, will now become answerable to the same global pressures. Israel is facing the United Nation’s court, the ICJ, accused of genocide. Will Israel’s Western allies face their own peoples while they continue to:
Essentially, will Israel’s Western allies continue business as usual with a regime standing trial for genocide?
South Africa’s case against Israel is clearly leading us in the same direction that eventually brought down its own apartheid regime. There is a strong case that Israel’s days, as a Zionist regime, are numbered. Beyond that, the process started in the ICJ will have a profound effect on how the international rule of law is viewed, especially by those who profess to uphold it. If the ICJ doesn’t represent that rule of law, who does?
The days ahead, starting with the U.S. vote or veto in Wednesday’s United Nations Security Council’s meeting will be interesting to watch. The ramifications of whatever decision that passes or is vetoed cannot be overestimated.
