{"id":110363,"date":"2024-01-29T18:05:55","date_gmt":"2024-01-29T16:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=110363"},"modified":"2024-01-28T11:15:55","modified_gmt":"2024-01-28T09:15:55","slug":"31-05-52","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=110363","title":{"rendered":"A Weak and Confused Case against Israel at the International Court"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>A Weak and Confused Case against Israel at the International Court<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

NOAH ROTHMAN<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Pro-Palestinian protesters gather near the International Court of Justice on the day judges hear a request for emergency measures by South Africa to order Israel to stop its military actions in Gaza, in The Hague, Netherlands January 12, 2024. (Thilo Schmuelgen\/Reuters)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Noah Rothman here, filling in for Jim Geraghty.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the menu today: The self-described \u201cInternational Court of Justice\u201d (ICJ) issued a preliminary verdict on Friday following its investigation into a claim brought by South Africa alleging that Israel had engaged in genocide while prosecuting its defensive war against Hamas in Gaza.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Worthless Verdict<\/span><\/p>\n

In what the\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a>\u00a0describes as a \u201cseries of near-unanimous votes\u201d \u2014 surely a consensus propelled only by the strength of the evidence presented rather than the preexisting conclusions of the presiding justices \u2014 the ICJ determined that some of Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza fall under what could constitute the definition of genocide (i.e., acting \u201cwith intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group\u201d). But if the court genuinely believed its own findings, the actions it recommended to address this supposedly horrible and ongoing criminal abuse of the human species don\u2019t convey that impression.<\/span><\/p>\n

The court ordered Israel to take actions to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza, preserve whatever evidence of genocidal activities it encounters, and report back to the institution one month from now. Additionally, it called on the Jewish state to prevent and punish incitement to genocide from its political officials, allow humanitarian aid to flow into the Strip, and take additional steps to protect Palestinian civilians. The court did not, however, go so far as to order Israel to cease its military operations against Hamas \u2014 not the sort of reserved response one might expect from an institution supposedly repulsed by incontrovertible evidence of ongoing crimes against humanity.<\/span><\/p>\n

The good news for Israel here is that it is, by all publicly available accounts, already in compliance with the ICJ\u2019s recommendations.\u00a0As we editorialized last week<\/a>, the case brought against Israel is \u201cincredibly weak and dishonest\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n

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It relies on civilian casualty figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, and the U.N. report cited in the complaint includes the following disclaimer: \u201cThe UN has so far not been able to produce independent, comprehensive, and verified casualty figures.\u201d South Africa describes deplorable humanitarian conditions in Gaza, while ignoring the humanitarian aid that Israel has allowed in; the fact that aid would be flowing more freely if Hamas didn\u2019t have a history of using humanitarian deliveries to smuggle weapons; and the reality that more aid would be getting to the intended civilian population if Hamas weren\u2019t stealing it and hoarding supplies for its terrorists.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

South Africa alleged that Israel engaged in the \u201cmass killing of Palestinians\u201d by using high-yield ordnance in crowded areas of Gaza \u2014 ordnance that is often necessary to penetrate the fortified underground positions Hamas locates beneath densely populated areas as a form of grotesque insurance against Israeli reprisals. Israel\u2019s efforts to establish and broadcast the existence of\u00a0evacuation routes and safe corridors<\/a>\u00a0for civilians could be reasonably interpreted as an effort to take all available measures to protect civilian life \u2014 a stark contrast with Israel\u2019s adversaries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s African critics further alleged that Israel has systematically degraded Gaza\u2019s health-care system and prevented Palestinian women from accessing natal care. That\u2019s not what most of us witnessed when, for example, Israel sought to dislodge Hamas from one of its strongholds\u00a0inside the infamous Shifa hospital<\/a>, all while attempting to\u00a0preserve the ongoing care<\/a>\u00a0the hospital was providing to Palestinians \u2014 an absurdly complex and dangerous operation that took place in a live-fire zone. South Africa insisted Israel provided no assistance to the injured and it did not help moving medical supplies when it ordered the medical facilities Hamas fighters use as cover to be evacuated. That claim\u00a0could only convince<\/a>\u00a0those who\u00a0reject the evidence<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0their own eyes<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s left of the court\u2019s case is that its justices were repulsed by some overheated talk from certain quarters of Israeli politics \u2014 speech policing in which Israel typically does not engage. The precise nature of \u201cdehumanizing\u201d rhetoric from Israeli politicians \u2014 rhetoric inspired by the historic slaughter, rape, mutilation, and kidnapping of a large number of Israeli Jews \u2014 is a subjective assessment. But subjectivity is not the basis upon which verdicts of genocide are handed out. That is, unless the objective is to water down the word\u2019s meaning only so that it can be at long last applied to the victims of history\u2019s worst eradication program, finally bludgeoning the Holocaust\u2019s victims with their own cudgel and denuding their\u00a0sui generis<\/em>\u00a0historical experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

None of this is to say that Israeli forces fighting in a brutal, existential conflict against Hamas\u00a0can do no wrong<\/a>. War is terrible. It makes men into brutes, and brutishness is a feature of war from time immemorial. But the case South Africa presented against Israel was not narrowly tailored so as to indict merely its conduct in the war inaugurated by Hamas\u2019s 10\/7 massacre. It was designed to indict the state going back to its founding.<\/span><\/p>\n