The genocide case which South Africa has just brought against Israel in the UN’s International Court of Justice is utterly meritless and groundless. (We hesitate to use the word laughable in this context, although it would be an accurate description.) But the ICJ is an agency of the UN where Israel never enjoys a level playing field. So, the case is a risky one for the Jewish state.
According to The New York Times, genocide is a term first used by a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent in 1944 to describe the Nazi’s systematic murder of millions of Jews based on their ethnicity. And in its submission to the court, South Africa, whose post-apartheid government has long supported the Palestinians, accused Israel of actions in Gaza against Hamas that are “genocidal in character.” It says Israel has killed Palestinian civilians, inflicted serious bodily and mental harm, and created for the residents of Gaza “conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.”
We don’t intend to go through the South African charges of genocidal intent at any length, but a reading of its presentation shows them to be based substantively on vague and taken out of context comments of Israeli officials. Comments of the kind made by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant who, said that Israel is “fighting human animals” and must “act accordingly.” Or Prime Minister Netanyahu’s references to the Amalekites, which the Bible commands the Israelites to destroy, and which the South Africans plainly misconstrued.
Also cited was the remark by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir who said, “Those who celebrate, those who support, and those who hand out candy – they’re all terrorists, and they should be destroyed” which the Times of Israel says was a reference to Gazans celebrating the October 7 attacks, including ordinary Palestinians.
But, as The Times of Israel notes, the claims of genocidal intent were not backed up by any evidence of actual genocidal acts. The South Africans certainly failed to demonstrate that the IDF had engaged in the systematic, deliberate slaughter of Palestinian civilians.
And astonishingly, the South Africans made it seem that there was no armed conflict in which Hamas was actively fighting against Israel and that Palestinians were simply victims of predatory Israelis not acting defensively.
We also found it incredible that the South Africans failed to acknowledge Hamas’s use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes, which made all the difference in the world in terms of genocidal intent to eliminate Palestinians civilians.
The case is only just beginning, but we’re expecting to see more of the same.
