World Court Set to Decide in Genocide Case Against Israel
The International Court of Justice is set to announce Friday a preliminary decision on a charge of genocide filed against Israel for its military operations in Gaza, a case fraught with symbolism for a country founded in the aftermath of Nazi Germany’s extermination of six million Jews.
South Africa, backed by the Palestinian Authority, filed the charge earlier this month before the world court, a judicial arm of the United Nations. It seeks a preliminary order requiring Israel to cease military operations in Gaza while proceedings over the genocide claim play out.
Israel, in response, said it was acting in self-defense to free hostages and eliminate a terrorist threat following the Oct. 7 massacre of some 1,200 people that Hamas launched from Gaza.
A win for South Africa would be unlikely to change facts on the ground soon; the world court has no police force, and Israel would be unlikely to comply with a cease-fire order benefiting Hamas. But international reprobation of Israel’s conduct, implicitly likening its conduct today to that of Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, could accelerate the Jewish state’s isolation while elevating the Palestinian cause.
Should the ICJ stop short of ordering a cease-fire, Israel would claim not only a rare victory before a U.N. body but a valuable diplomatic counterweight to the pro-Palestinian activists who have gained momentum as the death toll in Gaza has grown. Local authorities say it tops 25,000, the majority women and children. That figure doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.
South Africa, at arguments two weeks ago at The Hague, portrayed Israel’s military response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel as furtherance of a campaign against Palestinians that started with the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948.
To demonstrate Israel’s intent to wipe out Gaza’s Palestinians, lawyers for South Africa cited furious remarks from Israeli leaders following the Hamas attacks, among them Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s remarks to troops on Oct. 9 that Israel was “fighting human animals” and must “eliminate everything.”
In rebuttal, Tal Becker, legal adviser in Israel’s Foreign Ministry, called the genocide charge “a libel, designed to deny Israel the right to defend itself according to the law from the unprecedented terrorist onslaught it continues to face.” He said that while Israel obeys the laws of war, those very laws contemplate that war necessarily involves civilian casualties. Hamas, he said, exacerbated such suffering by placing its fighters and supplies in civilian areas and facilities, converting them to legitimate targets.
To bolster its case, Israel declassified war-cabinet decisions as evidence that it was working to ensure humanitarian aid reached Palestinians inside the Gaza Strip and suggested promoting the construction of field hospitals. Israel’s legal team also released daily directives by its military to soldiers that attacks “will be solely directed toward military targets.”
The world court includes 17 members; 15 permanent members, including its American president, Joan Donoghue, and two temporary judges, one each appointed by South Africa and Israel. Apart from ordering a cease-fire or dismissing the case, the ICJ could take other steps, such as requiring specific actions short of a cease-fire or issuing a general directive reiterating the warring parties’ obligation to comply with humanitarian law.
The Israeli government could choose to abide by some of the court’s decisions, but would likely reject any requirement to adjust its military campaign.
Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the U.S. and the European Union, isn’t a party to the case. But Osama Hamdan, a Hamas representative in Lebanon, said at a press briefing Thursday that the Islamist group would obey the ICJ.
If “that court at The Hague decides a cease-fire, Hamas will abide by it,” Hamdan said, so long as “the enemy [does] the same.”
Housed in the ornate Peace Palace, built under the patronage of Andrew Carnegie, the world court represents an aspiration to resolve international disputes through law rather than violence. But the tribunal reflects the realities of the postwar system. Its judges are elected from countries with different legal systems and varying commitments to the rule of law, and it lacks any mechanism to enforce its judgments, even though they are considered legally binding.
The bench includes judges from Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Jamaica, Japan, Lebanon, Morocco, Russia, Slovakia, Somalia and Uganda. Two years ago, in a Genocide Convention case Ukraine brought against Russia, the ICJ was strikingly unified in ordering Moscow to cease military operations in Ukraine; only the Chinese and Russian judges dissented.
The Gaza case might prove more divisive. Countries such as the U.S. and Germany have strong commitments to Israel’s security; Arab and Muslim countries including Lebanon, Morocco and Somalia have for generations identified with the Palestinian cause; and the superpowers China and Russia might well view a defeat for Israel as a proxy win over Washington.
The U.S. and other Western nations have dismissed the genocide charge as unwarranted. Speaking earlier this month in Tel Aviv, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the accusation against Israel “particularly galling, given that those who are attacking Israel—Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, as well as their supporter, Iran—continue to openly call for the annihilation of Israel and the mass murder of Jews.”
But in the developing world, South Africa’s case has gained support from countries ranging from Brazil to Bangladesh and multilateral groups such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a group of Muslim-majority countries.
South Africa’s support for the Palestinians’ quest for statehood has been consistent since the ruling African National Congress party came to power in 1994. The Palestinian cause is widely seen as analogous to the ANC’s struggle against apartheid.
“South Africa really has a moral responsibility to always stand with the oppressed because we come from a history of struggle, a history of striving for freedom, a history of believing that everybody deserves human dignity, justice and freedom,” Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s foreign minister, said earlier this month. “This is the only reason that we have taken this major step as South Africa.”
The broad enthusiasm around the government’s stance on the conflict, especially among urban South Africans, has been a rare boost for the ANC, which risks losing its absolute majority during elections later this year for the first time since Nelson Mandela was voted in as the country’s first Black president.
Alexandra Wexler, Fatima AbdulKarim and Shayndi Raice contributed to this article.
WSJ via www.msn.com