Link to the summary of findings submitted by South Africa: https://apnews.com/article/un-court-south-africa-israel-gaza-genocide-71be2ce7f09bfee05a7cae26689ee262
South Africa’s 84-page filing says Israel’s actions “are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part” of the Palestinians in Gaza.
It asks the ICJ, also known as the world court, for a series of legally binding rulings. It wants the court to declare that Israel “has breached and continues to breach its obligations under the Genocide Convention,” and to order Israel to cease hostilities in Gaza that could amount to breaches of the convention, to offer reparations, and to provide for reconstruction of what it’s destroyed in Gaza.
That’s an interesting prediction I’d like to see tested, honestly. What if, (hear me out here) the only thing keeping air in Hamas’s sails is the perceived need to resist the occupation? Hamas isn’t and never has been popular among Palestinians, in much the same way that Likud is really only politically relevant because someone needs to take a firm hand with Hamas.
Also, if Israel doesn’t stop, like it hasn’t for the last 70 years, then Hamas will regroup and go again, right?
Honestly this has all the same energy of the ‘defund the police/thin blue line’ rhetoric we’ve seen sail through our political spaces; if you listen to the law-and-order narrative the logic is that force must be escalated until those thugs learn their lesson, while that seems to drive up protest movements and that in turn gets the thin-blue-line crowd frothing for cops to use real bullets instead of rubber bullets and tear gas.
There was peace between Jews and Palestinians before the state of Israel began its occupation and settlements. The beef here isn’t religious or cultural, the issue is the occupation and the dispossession of Palestinians of their family homes. One thing Israel could try (that it hasn’t) is not doing that
I’m not ignoring you, and you sound very sincere, so I’ll draw up a reply when I get back home.
But spoilers alert: things were definitely not peaceful between the Palestian Jews and Palestinian Arabs pre-Israel or after. There’s a long history of violence on both sides, I’ll post a bunch when I get back for you to look at, should you wish. And there’s no innocent parties here pre or post Israel.