There could be no better applicant for these proceedings than this former apartheid and colonised state and one against whom Israeli accusations of libel and anti-Semitism are less likely to stick.

While some argue that it is a matter of shame that no Arab or Muslim state lodged the case, leaving the task to South Africa, I maintain that it is exactly this — that a non-Arab, non-Muslim nation and one which has overcome settler colonialism has brought this case — is what makes it so compelling.

Israel was a military ally of South Africa’s apartheid regime under some of the worst years of white rule. It even offered to sell nuclear weapons to the apartheid regime.

The head of South Africa’s legal team, John Dugard, was UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine in the 2000s and notably said: “I’m a South African who lived through apartheid and I have no hesitation in saying that Israel’s crimes are infinitely worse than those committed by the apartheid regime of South Africa.”

https://www.dawn.com/news/1805538/why-south-africa-is-leading-the-legal-and-moral-charge-against-israels-genocidal-actions-in-gaza

posted by f.sheikh

“The administration’s posture of indifference strains credulity. The 84-page case submitted to the court by South Africa is crammed with devastating evidence that Israel has breached its obligations under the 1948 international genocide convention, which defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” The document before the court is meticulously footnoted and sourced, and many experts say the legal argument is unusually strong.”

“Top Israeli political and military leaders have themselves helped to bolster the case against their government. The words of Israeli officials are being offered as evidence of intent: from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging Israelis to “remember” the Old Testament account of the carnage of Amalek (“Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings,” reads one passage); to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowing that “Gaza won’t return to what it was before — we will eliminate everything”; to the minister of energy and infrastructure pledging, “They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave this world.” By speaking openly about destroying Gaza and dispersing its residents, Israeli leaders have publicized what has, in other cases of genocide, been hidden or denied.”

“The proceedings are meaningful for the United States, too. The Biden administration has been the indispensable sponsor of this war — arming, funding and diplomatically shielding Israel despite increasingly dire reports of Palestinian death and displacement. If the violence in Gaza is found to be genocide, the United States could be charged with complicity in genocide, a crime in its own right. Given the sheer power of the United States and its track record of international impunity, the odds of any significant consequences may be small — but, nevertheless, Americans should understand that the case is both substantial and serious, and that their own government is implicated.”

( Michelle Goldberg of NYT writes that Israeli extremist Government wants the Gazans to be sent to neighboring countries. Israel is creating condition in Gaza that will make it inhabitable and relocating them may look line Humanitarian thing to do. There is every indication that Biden Administration Knows it. f. sheikh)

“Pro-Israel Democrats want to back a war to remove Hamas from Gaza. But increasingly, it looks as if America is underwriting a war to remove Gazans from Gaza. Experts in international law can debate whether the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza can be classified as genocidal, as South Africa is claiming at the International Court of Justice, or as some lesser type of war crime. But whatever you want to call attempts to “thin out” Gaza’s population — as the Hebrew newspaper Israel Hayom described an alleged Netanyahu proposal — the United States is implicated in them.

By acting as if Ben-Gvir and Smotrich can be hived off from the government in which they serve, U.S. policymakers are fostering denial about the character of Netanyahu’s rule. Joe Biden often speaks of his 1973 meeting with Golda Meir, then the prime minister, and like many American Zionists, his view of Israel sometimes seems stuck in that era.

If you grew up in a liberal Zionist household, as I did, you’ve probably heard this (possibly apocryphal) Meir quote: “When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.” There’s much to criticize in this sentiment — its self-regard, the way it positions Israel as the victim even when it’s doing the killing; still, it at least suggests a tortured ambivalence about meting out violence. But this attitude, which Israelis sometimes call “shooting and crying,” is now as obsolete as Meir’s Zionist socialism, at least among Israel’s leaders.”

Opinion | America Must Face Up to Israel’s Extremism – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

posted by f.sheikh