Dahlia Scheindlin argues why Israel can’t understand how they could be accused of Genocide. “Israel is my country and I do know that Israel has done terrible things to innocent people – 8,000 dead children in Gaza did not commit the slaughter of October 7. Let’s call it my “terrible things” theory, since I’ll wait for the court to decide on the [genocide] accusation.”
Is Israel’s treatment of Palestinians a form of apartheid? LA Times reports that “Experts said Israel will be left with only two ways to shed the apartheid label: allowing the creation of a Palestinian state or granting equal rights to all Palestinians under its control.:
In defending against charges of apartheid in occupied Palestinian territory, Israeli authorities cite “security,” but that doesn’t explain the seizure of Palestinian land and resources, the restrictions on Palestinian homes, or the demographic engineering.
“Israeli prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, and Ehud Olmert all warned that Israel was becoming an apartheid state. Indeed, it is already committing the crime of apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territory.” @KenRoth
Jewish groups & Israel have accused the ANC & South Africa of antisemitism, but ICJ case stems from party’s longstanding support for Palestinians. Chris McGrea, who writes for Guardian US and is a former Guardian correspondent in Washington, Johannesburg and Jerusalem argues that South Africa’s lawsuit seeking a halt to the Israeli assault on Gaza in response to the Hamas cross-border attack in October comes after years of deteriorating relations rooted in the ANC’s decades-long support for the Palestinian cause and the legacy of Israel’s close military alliance with the apartheid regime during some of the most oppressive years of white rule.
Hundreds of Israelis support South Africa’s ICJ case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza In a slap to the government of PM Benjamin Netanyahu, hundreds of Israelis have signalled that they’re backing the case at the International Court of Justice brought by South Africa accusing Israel of Genocide in Gaza. More than 600 Israelis have signed a petition calling on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to rule in favour of South Africa’s lawsuit against the state of Israel, calling for a decision that will bring an immediate end to the war.
John Pilger on Apartheid and Post-Apartheid Injustices: “South Africa is Where Much of My Political Education Took Place”
John Pilger, who died in his hometown of Sydney aged 84 on December 30, was a unique journalist, equipped with the combination of moral outrage, relentless sleuthing and unparalleled interviewing skills required to understand South Africa’s deep structural injustices. Setting aside all the scoops and awards elsewhere, no one else could have periodically parachuted into this country – first in 1967 when he was banned by apartheid, and lastly in 2017 – and then fit that half-century of dramatic turmoil into a hard-hitting film, Apartheid Did Not Die, and a dozen influential articles and book chapters.
Above all, John represented a chronicler of what can be considered the independent-left critique, one who connected the dots from imperialism to local power relations to suffering individuals with passion and eloquence. No one was spared his savage pen. He wrote in 2013,
The oral argument on behalf of South Africa in the genocide case against Israel which it has initiated at the International Court of Justice will take place from 0900 to 1100 GMT (1000 to 1200 Central European time) tomorrow, with the oral arguments on behalf of Israel following at the same times on Friday.
Those in a convenient time zone can watch the arguments live on the ICJ’s website (https://www.icj-cij.org/calendar) and on UN Web TV (https://webtv.un.org/en).
John Whitbeck, John V. Whitbeck is a Paris-based international lawyer writes “Prominently featured on the South African legal team is my distinguished recipient John Dugard, the highly distinguished South African jurist who has served as UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in occupied Palestine and who is author of the excellent book Confronting Apartheid: A Personal History of South Africa, Namibia and Palestine (2018).”
“John has advised me that he anticipates that the court will probably issue its decision in early February. Since Antony Blinken announced in Israel yesterday that, while too many Palestinians are being killed, the United States will stand with Israel until it achieves all of its objectives, which would necessarily require emptying the Gaza Strip of its entire Palestinian population, the “provisional measures” being sought by South Africa should still be relevant next month.”
Other excellent analyses of South Africa’s application, by David Hearst, MIDDLE EAST EYE’s co-founder and editor-in-chief, and by Craig Mokhiber, former Director of the New York Office of the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, and my distinguished recipient Phyllis Bennis, can be accessed at https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/war-gaza-fate-global-justice-hangs-south-africas-icj-case and https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/south-africa-genocide-case-against-israel. https://johnmenadue.com/the-us-the-icj-and-gaza
The US, the ICJ and Gaza
By John Whitbeck, John V. Whitbeck is a Paris-based international lawyer.
Jan 10, 2024
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called the South African application “meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.”
John Mearsheimer has considered the 84-page “application” that South Africa has filed with the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of of committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and requesting “that the Court indicate provisional measures to protect the rights invoked herein from imminent and irreparable loss” and “ensure Israel’s compliance with its obligations under the Genocide Convention not to engage in genocide, and to prevent and punish genocide.”
The South African application has so far been formally endorsed by Malaysia, Turkiye and the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
In light of the urgency of this matter, public hearings have been scheduled for January 11 and 12 and can be watched live on the ICJ’s website and on UN Web TV.
No doubt aware of the potential liability of President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken and other close collaborators for complicity in genocide, which could limit their ability to enjoy worry-free travel abroad for the rest of their lives if the ICJ were to recognize that the acts which they have been actively supporting do constitute genocide, U.S. government spokesmen have rudely dismissed this South African effort to restrain genocide through the application of international law. (https://www.youtube.com/
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called the South African application “meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever,” while State Department spokesman Matt Miller said that the United States is “not seeing any acts that constitute genocide” in Israel’s actions in Gaza.
In this context, it may be worth recalling that, several years ago, the U.S. government did see “acts that constitute genocide” in China’s anti-terrorism/de-radicalization/reeducation program in its Xinjiang province, even though this program was not even alleged to have involved any “cides” (intentional killings), and formally declared that China was committing genocide in Xinjiang.
As always with the U.S.-dictated “rules-based order“, which is the antithesis of the international law cited and appealed to by South Africa, it is not the nature of the act that matters but, rather, who is doing it to whom.