A moral crossroads for the West

 

Is Benjamin Netanyahu about to cross his Rubicon?

Seven weeks have now passed since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague ruled that South Africa’s accusation that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza was “plausible.” A final verdict may take years. But on January 26, the ICJ imposed a number of “provisional measures” aimed at “preserving … the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide” (ICJ report, ¶59).

By a majority of 15 judges to two, the world’s highest court instructed Israel among other things to take “all measures within its power” to prevent:

(a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group (¶78).

Noting the “catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip” (¶72) in which “an unprecedented 93 percent of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger” (¶48), the judges further ordered Israel to:

take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip (¶80).

In this case, the majority was 16 to one, with even the judge Israel appointed as its representative for this case concurring.

As international human rights lawyer Akila Radhakrishnan observed, while the court did not mandate a ceasefire (it could hardly do so when it has no jurisdiction over Hamas as a non-state actor), it is difficult to see how these objectives could be achieved without Israel “halting or at least drastically curtailing its military operations.”

Responding to the ICJ judgment, Benjamin Netanyahu fumed that “the very claim that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians is not just false, it is outrageous, and the court’s willingness to discuss it at all is a mark of disgrace that will not be erased for generations.” Other senior Israeli politicians dismissed not only South Africa’s charge of genocide but even the court itself as “antisemitic”—a term that is now bandied about so prodigally that it is in danger of losing all purchase on reality.  (more...)

A moral crossroads for the West