The International Court of Justice and South Africa’s Charge of Israel with Genocide with John Reynolds
As listeners doubtless are aware, the government of South Africa brought a detailed and painstakingly documented case against Israel, charging the settler state with genocide against the Palestinian people. While the case focused on the current atrocities in Gaza, it did what so many of us have been demanding since October and the rush by Zionist and sympathizers to condemn Hamas’s Al Aqsa Flood operation as if it were a terrorist act committed for no reason. It not only provided ample documentation of Israel’s current war crimes in Gaza and the numerous statements by highly placed Israeli officials, including President Herzog, Prime Minister Netanyahu and several cabinet ministers, signaling the intent to commit genocide in every fashion, from the targeting of civilians to the destruction of their means of life. It also traced the historical pattern of the Israeli state’s efforts to remove the Palestinian people from their homeland and to replace them with Jewish settlers, that is, the ongoing Nakba and the apartheid state that Israel maintains in varying forms across the whole of Palestine, from the West Bank to Gaza, and heartland Palestine.
Last week the ICJ broadly endorsed the validity of South Africa’s claims in an interim ruling, not merely admitting their plausibility, but actually demanding that Israel “refrain from acts under the Genocide convention, prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to genocide, and take immediate and effective measures to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza. Crucially, the Court also ordered Israel to preserve evidence of genocide and to submit a report to the Court, within one month.” While not directly demanding an immediate and enduring ceasefire, as South Africa requested, the ruling seems to accept that Israel is currently engaging in acts of and incitement to genocide. This may prove a more important immediate outcome than a demand for a ceasefire the court has no means of enforcing and that Israel will, as it has before, simply refuse to obey.
We discuss South Africa’s charge of genocide against Israel, the definition of genocide under international law and the limits of that legal framework for preventing atrocities and war crimes by powerful or powerfully backed states, the impact of the ruling, both legally and in terms of public opinion, the longer history of legal charges against Israel and of Palestine’s rarely successful efforts to hold the state accountable, and many other topics with Professor John Reynolds of Maynooth University, Ireland. An extended version of this interview will be available as a podcast on anchor.fm/swana and other podcast sites following our live show.
John Reynolds teaches at the School of Law & Criminology at Maynooth University in Ireland. He is the author of Empire, Emergency and International Law (Cambridge University Press) and an editor of the Third World Approaches to International Law Review journal and website. His recent article with Noura Erakat on South Africa's genocide case against Israel can be read on the Jacobin website. The article on the charge of genocide by Darryl Li that John Reynolds mentions can be found here: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-charge-of-genocide/
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