AT THE HAGUE, THE U.S. IS THE UNNAMED CO-CONSPIRATOR
Police officers disperse demonstrators in support of Palestine during a hearing at the International Court of Justice on a genocide complaint by South Africa against Israel in The Hague, Netherlands, on Jan. 11, 2024. Photo: ANP/AFP via Getty Images
South Africa laid out a meticulous case detailing Israel’s genocidal intent. The U.S. supported it all.
“SOUTH AFRICA HAS recognized the ongoing Nakba against the Palestinian people.”
With those words, Vusimuzi Madonsela, South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands, opened his government’s historic suit at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, charging the state of Israel with multiple violations of the Genocide Convention during its three-month siege of Gaza.
South Africa, a nation whose population suffered for decades under an apartheid regime backed by the U.S., has embarked on its historic effort to prosecute Israel for its genocidal war against the people of Gaza. Its 84-page filingOpens in a new tab at the ICJ is a harrowing document. In meticulous detail, it offers an overview of a murderous campaign waged against a civilian population under the fraudulent cover of “self-defense.” It lays out the horrifying scope of Israel’s destruction in Gaza of human life, civilian infrastructure, history, and culture, and paints a devastating picture of the grave conditions faced by those Palestinians who have managed to survive.
The charges describe “an exceptionally brutal military campaign by Israel in Gaza, which is extensive and ongoing, and which Israel intends to intensify further still,” South Africa’s lawyers argued. “Israel has engaged in and failed to prevent or to punish acts and measures which are genocidal, constituting flagrant violations of Israel’s obligations” under the Genocide Convention.
South Africa’s filing cites scores of genocidal statements made by Israeli government and military officials, lawmakers, and former officials describing Israel’s intentions in Gaza since October 7. It spans some nine pages. It is difficult to imagine an honest argument that the sum of these statements — including Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoking the biblical tale of the Israelites’ collective killing of the men, women, children, and livestock of Amalek — do not constitute an announcement of genocidal intent.
Yet that is precisely what U.S. officials want the public to believe. “Yes, I read the indictment,” said National Security Council spokesperson Adm. John Kirby. “We find it without merit. We find it counterproductive. And I’ll leave it there.”
If we lived in a just society, one which was governed by a rule of law applied evenly and fairly to all nations, U.S. officials would be appearing in international war crimes tribunals alongside the Israeli leaders whose criminal actions they are facilitating in every measurable manner. But that will never happen. Since the end of World War II, the U.S. government has operated as an emperor on matters of international law, issuing edicts about who can and cannot be held accountable for the gravest of crimes. There is even a law, known as the Hague Invasion ActOpens in a new tab, that authorizes the U.S. president to use force to liberate any American or allied personnel brought before an international court on war crimes charges.
On matters related to Israel, the U.S. has functioned as its rogue defender as a matter of bipartisan orthodoxy, vetoing or blockingOpens in a new tab any and all efforts — often supported by the vast majority of the world’s nations — to hold Israel responsible for its crimes against the Palestinians.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, during his latest visit with the gangsters in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Tuesday, continued his monthslong kabuki performance, simultaneously playing the role of a dedicated propagandist and facilitator of Israel’s rampage and that of an observer who hopes that Israel might consider killing a few less civilians and letting in more humanitarian aid. “We’re working urgently to forge a path toward lasting peace and security in this region,” Blinken said as he stood alongside Israel’s president. “We believe the submission against Israel to the International Court of Justice distracts the world from all of these important efforts. And moreover, the charge of genocide is meritless.”
It has become a macabre ritual for Blinken to feign sorrow for the dead children of Gaza while simultaneously circumventing Congress to expediteOpens in a new tab the “emergency” shipment of weapons to a government whose public officials and lawmakers have spent the past three months openly declaring their intent to annihilate Gaza as a Palestinian territory.
As Israel’s war of annihilation against the people of Gaza enters its fourth month, the Biden administration has cemented its legacy as the mass-murder campaign’s chief political and military sponsor. No amount of empty platitudes offered by Blinken and other senior U.S. officials for the civilians of Gaza will wipe the blood from the administration’s hands.
Palestinian families run from the site of an Israeli airstrike on a residential building west of the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Jan. 11, 2024. Photo: Ahmad Salem/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A TRIAL OF Israel for genocide, if the judges at the ICJ decide the case has merit, could take years. But South Africa has also argued that the court should issue emergency provisional measures to protect the Palestinians of Gaza against ongoing attacks, citing voluminous evidence that Israel is engaged in ongoing violations of the Genocide Convention. “Israel has engaged in, is engaging in and risks further engaging in genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” South Africa argued in its suit. The ICJ should order Israel to “immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza.” Based on previous cases, such orders could be issued within weeks.
South African lawyer Adila Hassim charged that Israel has engaged in a “systematic pattern of conduct from which genocide can be inferred.” She said that Israel had subjected the people of Gaza to “one of the heaviest conventional bombing campaigns in the history of modern warfare” by sea, land, and air. “The level of Israel’s killing is so extensive that nowhere is safe in Gaza,” she added. “Israel has killed an unparalleled and unprecedented number of civilians with the full knowledge of how many lives each bomb will take. The devastation is intended to and has laid waste to Gaza.”