… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Tag: International Court of Justice

  • A Genocide Takes Place as the US President Stands in Support

    Spread the love

    Original article by AMY GOODMAN and DENIS MOYNIHAN republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

    U.S. President Joe Biden speaks to reporters before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C. on January 18, 2024.  (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

    If President Biden demanded an end to the bombardment of Gaza, it would stop. But he’s hasn’t demanded and the bombing and death and destruction continues.

    In 1948, the newly-formed United Nations marked the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The Genocide Convention was a response to WWII’s Holocaust, when six million European Jews where murdered by Nazi Germany. Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent, coined the term “genocide” during the war, as he developed legal arguments for prosecuting war criminals, leading to the Nuremberg Trials.

    1948 was also the year Israel was founded. While many celebrated Israel as a safe refuge for the world’s Jews after the Holocaust, Palestinians call that period the ‘Nakba,’ Arabic for ‘catastrophe.’ Over 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes and villages, their property confiscated, and 15,000 were killed.

    1948 was also when the white minority in South Africa imposed apartheid on the Black majority, creating an oppressive system of segregation that lasted close to half a century.

    In the intervening 75 years, despite the Genocide Convention, genocides have still occurred – and too few perpetrators of genocide have faced prosecution. Last week, the eyes of the world were on the Hague, as South Africa brought a case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

    The ICJ, also referred to as the “World Court,” convened on January 11th, first hearing South Africa’s case, followed the next day by Israel’s defense. South African lawyer Adila Hassim opened, saying,

    “For the past 96 days, Israel has subjected Gaza to what has been described as one of the heaviest conventional bombing campaigns in the history of modern warfare. Palestinians in Gaza are being killed by Israeli weaponry and bombs from air, land and sea. They are also at immediate risk of death by starvation, dehydration and disease as a result of the ongoing siege by Israel, the destruction of Palestinian towns, the insufficient aid being allowed through to the Palestinian population, and the impossibility of distributing this limited aid while bombs fall. This conduct renders essentials to life unobtainable.”

    Another of South Africa’s legal team, Irish lawyer Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh, said,

    “On average, 247 Palestinians are being killed and are at risk of being killed each day, many of them literally blown to pieces. They include 48 mothers each day. Two every hour. And over 117 children each day, leading Unicef to call Israel’s actions a war on children. Entire multigenerational families would be obliterated. And yet, more Palestinian children would become WCNSF. Wounded Child, No Surviving Family, the terrible new acronym born out of Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian population in Gaza.”

    Israel said its attack on Gaza was in self-defense, directed at Hamas’ military infrastructure, following its October 7th attack on Israel, in which over 1,000 people were killed and over 200 taken hostage.

    Renowned Jewish Israeli journalist Gideon Levy said on the Democracy Now! news hour, “Does this give us Israelis the right to do anything we want after the 7th forever, without any limits, no legal limits, no moral limits? We can just go and kill and destroy as much as we wish? That’s the main question right now.”

    Levy serves on the editorial board of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. He recently wrote a column headlined, “If It Isn’t a Genocide in Gaza, Then What Is It?” In it, he writes, “Let us assume that Israel’s position at The Hague is right and just and Israel committed no genocide or anything close to it. So what is this? What do you call the mass killing, which continues even as these lines are being written, without discrimination, without restraint, on a scale that is difficult to imagine?”

    Any measures ordered by the ICJ would have to be adopted by the United Nations Security Council, where the United States, Israel’s staunchest ally and weapons provider, regularly wields its veto to protect Israel.

    The United States is quick to accuse others of genocide, from Serbia in the 1990s, to Burma in the last decade for its atrocities against its Rohingya minority, to the mass imprisonment of Uyghurs in China, to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The United States even acknowledged Turkey’s 1915 genocide against Armenians, albeit in 2021, more than 100 years late.

    Yet, President Biden, in a statement marking the 100th day anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel, failed to even mention the more than 24,000 Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza, 70% of whom were women and children. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Davos, Switzerland said the situation is “gutwrenching” and asked “but what can be done?”

    If President Biden demanded an end to the bombardment of Gaza, it would stop. Now is the time to heed the global calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

    Original article by AMY GOODMAN and DENIS MOYNIHAN republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

    Sanders: If Netanyahu Says No to Palestinian State, US Must Say No to Netanyahu

    The Devastating Scale of Biden’s Thinking on Israel and Palestine

    Biden Admin Signals Arms Will Keep Flowing as Netanyahu Rejects Palestinian State

    Campaign Urges IOC to Ban Israel From Paris Olympics Over Gaza Genocide

  • Biden Admin Signals Arms Will Keep Flowing as Netanyahu Rejects Palestinian State

    Spread the love

    Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken talks with spokesperson Matthew Miller and others after he departed from Manama for Tel Aviv on January 10, 2024.  (Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

    “I don’t think we need to offer any kind of pressure” on the Israelis to accept a Palestinian state, said a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department.

    A U.S. State Department spokesperson signaled Thursday that American weaponry will continue to flow to the Israeli military even after the nation’s prime minister ruled out calls for a sovereign Palestinian state, openly defying the Biden administration’s push for a two-state solution to the crisis.

    “Our support for Israel remains ironclad,” the State Department’s Matthew Miller said during a press briefing on Thursday in response to a question about how the U.S. intends to react to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position.

    “I don’t think we need to offer any kind of pressure” on the Israelis to accept a Palestinian state, Miller said. “The pressure is reality. The pressure is the reality that I just laid out, that without a tangible path to the establishment of a Palestinian state, there are no other partners in the region who are going to step forward and help with the reconstruction of Gaza.”

    Asked whether the U.S. will “continue to supply weapons and other support to an ally that is not listening to the warnings that you’re giving,” Miller acknowledged “differences with all of our allies” but said that “this is not a question of the United States pressuring them to do anything.”

    “This is about the United States laying out for them the opportunity that they have,” Miller added. “There is a path for real security assurances—but again, we can’t make those choices for anyone. They have to make them for themselves.”

    In an indication of its unflagging support for Israel’s war assault on Gaza, the U.S. State Department has twice bypassed Congress to expedite weapons sales to the nation’s government since the Hamas-led attack on October 7. Earlier this week, the U.S. Senate rejected a resolution from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would have required the department to produce a report on Israel’s human rights practices in Gaza—which by virtually all accounts are atrocious.

    The Biden administration, which could soon be facing a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice over its complicity in Israeli war crimes, opposed the Sanders resolution and has refused to formally assess whether Israel is adhering to international humanitarian law.

    The Guardian reported Thursday that the State Department has “in effect been able to circumvent the U.S. law that is meant to prevent U.S. complicity in human rights violations by foreign military units—the 1990s-era Leahy law, named after the now retired Vermont senator Patrick Leahy—because, former officials say, extraordinary internal state department policies have been put in place that show extreme deference to the Israeli government.”

    “No such special arrangements exist for any other U.S. ally,” the newspaper added.

    The administration is currently working to exempt U.S. arms transfers to Israel from a “mandatory congressional notification process that applies to all other foreign arms sales,” The Washington Post reported last week.

    Overall, the Biden administration has sent more than 10,000 tons of weaponry to Israel over the past three and a half months, declining to place conditions on the arms even as the Israeli military openly flouts U.S. officials’ entreaties to protect Gaza civilians, attacking homes, schools, bakeries, hospitals, and refugee camps.

    “If Biden was truly as dissatisfied or impatient or whatever other terms are being fed to the media about his supposed handwringing over Bibi’s war, he could have acted. But he didn’t.”

    Israel’s unrelenting bombing campaign and ground invasion have killed nearly 25,000 people in Gaza since October, and much of the territory is in the grip of famine as the Netanyahu government restricts the amount of aid allowed to enter the besieged territory.

    Ajith Sunghay, head of the United Nations human rights office in the occupied Palestinian territory, expressed horror Friday at conditions on the ground in Gaza, calling the situation “a major, human-made, humanitarian disaster.”

    “People continue to arrive in Rafah from various places in their thousands, in desperate situations, setting up makeshift shelters with any material they can get their hands on,” said Sunghay. “I’ve seen men and children digging for bricks to be able to hold in place tents made with plastic bags.”

    “It is a pressure cooker environment here, in the midst of utter chaos, given the terrible humanitarian situation, shortages, and pervasive fear and anger,” he added. “The communications blackout has continued for a sixth consecutive day, adding to the confusion and fear, and preventing Gazans from accessing services and information on areas to evacuate.”

    In a column on Thursday, The Intercept‘s Jeremy Scahill noted that “over the course of the past 100 days of Israel’s bloody rampage in Gaza, Biden has had an infinite series of events that each could have justified ceasing U.S. political and military support for Israel’s explicitly offensive war.”

    “There is no nation on Earth that wields more influence over Israel and no politician who holds more sway than Biden. The U.S. is the arms dealer and defender of this entire enterprise,” Scahill wrote. “If Biden was truly as dissatisfied or impatient or whatever other terms are being fed to the media about his supposed handwringing over Bibi’s war, he could have acted. But he didn’t.”

    “Instead, the White House made sure no cease-fire took hold, offered a public defense of Israel’s conduct in the face of clear evidence of its genocidal intent submitted before the world court, circumvented Congress to keep the arms flowing, and then publicly opposed a resolution that sought to uphold U.S. law aimed at ensuring U.S. weapons and other aid are not used to commit human rights abuses. Those are the relevant facts,” he continued. “There is no need for media outlets to serve as conveyor belts for the administration’s disingenuous posturing. Biden’s actions are the only evidence that matters. And that evidence is damning.”

    Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

    Guterres: Refusing a Palestinian State Is ‘Totally Unacceptable’

    Sanders: If Netanyahu Says No to Palestinian State, US Must Say No to Netanyahu

    Pressley, Raskin Lead Call for Biden to Oppose ‘Forced Expulsion’ of Gazans

    Thousands of Babies Being Born Into ‘Hell’ in Gaza, Says UNICEF

  • Jeremy Corbyn: South Africa’s Case Was a Display of International Solidarity — We Should Support It

    Spread the love

    https://tribunemag.co.uk/2024/01/south-africas-case-was-a-display-of-international-solidarity-we-should-support-it

    Palestinians gather at Nelson Mandela Square in Ramallah to demonstrate appreciation to South Africa. (Credit: ramallahmunicipality)

    At the International Court of Justice, South Africa spoke on behalf of the billions of people who oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza — and put Western governments to shame for their deplorable complicity.

    ‘There is no safe space in Gaza and the world should be ashamed.’

    Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh’s closing speech at the International Court of Justice will stay with me forever. Devastating and forensic in equal measure, Ní Ghrálaigh spoke for millions of people around the world who have been utterly appalled by the horrors unfolding live on our screens. ‘This is the first genocide in history where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time,’ she said, ‘in the desperate and so far vain hope that the world might do something.’

    Here was an Irish lawyer — who had previously worked on the Bloody Sunday Inquiry — speaking on behalf of South Africa, in support of the Palestinian people. For the Irish and the South Africans, the plight of occupied peoples is only too familiar. It should not come as any surprise, then, that South Africa’s case opened by placing Israel’s latest activity ‘within the broader context of Israel’s 25-year apartheid, 56-year occupation and 16-year siege imposed on the Gaza Strip.’ It was remarkably refreshing to hear South Africa articulate something so obvious yet routinely ignored by politicians in this country. Exposing the shallow state of our own political system, the hearing will go down in history as a momentous display of international solidarity from a people who know what it’s like to endure — and dismantle — apartheid.

    This solidarity has grown and grown; South Africa’s case eventually gained the support of many countries, including Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia, as well as interstate actors like The Arab League. Politicians in this country can deny it all they want: millions of people around the world are desperate to see an end to the massacre of human beings, and will continue to support efforts to build a just and lasting peace.

    We were required to be at the Court before 6am to gain entry, queuing in desperately cold weather. The International Court of Justice in the Hague is a beautiful building. It was built after the First World War, when there was real hope that the League of Nations and its judicial system would bring about peace. There was something poignant about Palestinian people who had lost relatives in Gaza and the West Bank, who were outside the Court to bear witness in search of justice.

    South Africa presented its case against Israel under the Genocide Convention. The hearing was devastating — horror after horror, laid out in plain sight for all to see. The arguments were brilliantly marshalled by South Africa, and they should be commended for doing so. It is regrettable that most of our media did not deem these arguments important enough to broadcast. The BBC did not provide a live stream of South Africa’s case, choosing instead only to show Israel’s response the next day. It is to the credit of Al Jazeera that they not only live-streamed the hearing, but provided continuous and accurate coverage of the conflict, despite witnessing the deaths of their colleagues in the process. 

    South Africa pointed out that the Genocide Convention existed to protect all people, and that the Israeli action met the requirements of the convention in its deliberate and systematic destruction of civilian life in Gaza. South Africa also cited several statements from Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians pledging to diminish the population of Gaza by at least 90 percent. South Africa demonstrated what Palestinians have been trying to tell us all along: this was not a war of equals, but the systemic slaughter of the Palestinian people. 

    South Africa is determined not only to be on the right side of history, but change the course of it — and if the International Court of Justice was true to its name, it would give due consideration to South Africa’s case. It would find that the bombardment is wrong, the bombardment is illegal, and the bombardment represents the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. And it would rule that acts of genocide have been committed by the Israeli Government.

    In the meantime, the South African case asked for interim relief, which would require a rapid call for an immediate ceasefire. It is a call that should be made by any political representative anywhere in the world committed to the protection of civilian life. It is to the great shame of the British and American political systems that relatively few elected representatives in either country have supported this call for an end to the loss of human life.

    There is no way forward other than a ceasefire observed by all sides, which would present the opportunity then to map out a just and peaceful future. This is a decision to be made by the Palestinian people, not by those of us who support them. Acts of solidarity cannot entail telling others what to do.

    Outside, after the hearing finished, the fantastic team of lawyers took questions from a huge group of journalists on the steps of the ICJ, in utterly freezing conditions. I was there on behalf of the Progressive International. We held a media event in the street in front of us, and made the case that the popular voice of ordinary people around the world is one of peace, and that we would campaign for as long as it takes to bring about justice for the Palestinian people.

    ‘We did what we could. Remember us.’ Ní Ghrálaigh finished her address by showing two photos of a whiteboard at a hospital in Gaza. The first showed a handwritten message on it by a doctor. The second photo was of the same whiteboard after an Israeli strike on the hospital. It showed the board completely destroyed. The author of the message had been killed. 

    Millions are appalled, watching in real time the destruction of human life in Gaza. History will not forget those who refused to treat Palestinian and Israeli lives with equal worth. But neither will it forget those who are determined to campaign for a more peaceful world.

    About the Author

    Image of Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
    Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party

    Jeremy Corbyn is the member of parliament for Islington North.

    https://tribunemag.co.uk/2024/01/south-africas-case-was-a-display-of-international-solidarity-we-should-support-it

    I’ve quoted all Jeremy Corbyn’s article, hope that nobody objects. Authors: It’s likely that you are able to use a Creative Commons licence despite being published by others.

  • South African lawyer’s speech accusing Israel of genocide at ICJ

    Spread the love

    https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-genocidal-statements-2666930604

    South African attorney Tembeka Ngcukaitobi on Thursday used the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other high-ranking officials to make the case to the International Court of Justice—and to the world—that Israel’s military is acting with clear genocidal intent in the Gaza Strip.

    “Let the prime minister’s words speak for themselves,” said Ngcukaitobi, pointing to Netanyahu’s November remarks urging Israelis to “remember what Amalek has done to you. Netanyahu has repeatedly likened Gazans to the Amalekites, whom the Old Testament God orders King Saul to massacre.

    Ngcukaitobi went on to cite the deputy speaker of the Israeli Knesset, who called on Israel’s military to “burn Gaza” to the ground—a statement he reiterated ahead of Thursday’s hearing at the United Nations’ highest court.

    “There is an extraordinary feature in this case: that Israel’s political leaders, military commanders, and persons holding official positions have systematically and in explicit terms declared their genocidal intent,” said Ngcukaitobi. “And these statements are then repeated by soldiers on the ground in Gaza as they engage in the destruction of Palestinians and the physical infrastructure of Gaza.”

    The South African attorney played video footage of Israeli soldiers dancing and chanting that there are “no uninvolved civilians” in Gaza—a precursor to the war crime of collective punishment.

    …

    https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-genocidal-statements-2666930604

  • South Africa’s Genocide Presentation Against Israel Called ‘Overwhelming and Devastating’

    Spread the love

    Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

    South African Justice Minister Ronald Lamola speaks at a press conference outside the International Court of Justice in The Hague on January 11, 2024.  (Photo: Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    “Whatever the outcome, we are witnessing an amazing moment of rule of international law history,” said Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard.

    Human rights defenders and legal experts on Thursday lauded what many called South Africa’s “compelling” opening presentation at the International Court of Justice in The Hague in a case accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians in the embattled Gaza Strip.

    In a bid to obtain an ICJ emergency order for the suspension of Israel’s relentless 97-day assault on Gaza, South African jurists including Justice Minister Ronald Lamola argued that Israel is violating four articles of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, commonly called the Genocide Convention. The landmark 1948 treaty—enacted, ironically, the same year as the modern state of Israel was born, largely through the ethnic cleansing of Palestine’s Arabs—defines genocide as acts intended “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.”

    South African lawyers detailed Israel’s conduct in the war, including the killing and wounding of more than 80,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, forcibly displacing over 85% of the besieged enclave’s 2.3 million people, and inflicting conditions leading to widespread starvation and disease. They also cited at length statements by Israeli officials calling for the destruction and even nuclear annihilation of Gaza in their presentations, which eschewed graphic imagery in favor of arguing “clear legal rights.”

    “In its opening argument thus far, South Africa has made a compelling case showing how the genocidal statements by [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and other senior officials were interpreted as official orders by Israeli forces in their attacks against Gaza,” U.S. investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill said on social media.

    “Beyond the citations of the vast civilian deaths and injuries caused by Israel in Gaza, [South Africa’s] lawyers argued effectively that Israel’s ‘evacuation’ orders were in and of themselves genocidal, demanding the immediate flight of a million people, including patients in hospitals,” Scahill continued.

    “What becomes crystal clear listening to the openly genocidal words of Netanyahu and other Israeli officials is that they know exactly what they are saying,” he added. “And they are comfortable saying these things publicly because they know the U.S. will shield them from accountability.”

    Left-wing author and activist and former South African parliamentarian Andrew Feinstein said that “South Africa’s presentation to the ICJ thus far has been exceptional, overwhelming, and devastating,” opining that “the only way the ICJ doesn’t impose interim measures is if the judges are open to pressure from ‘the West.’”

    “South Africa’s lawyers have done the nonracial, post-apartheid country proud,” he added.

    Legal scholar Nimer Sultany, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, called South Africa’s presentation “compellingly argued and powerfully presented.”

    “Given the court’s case law, and given the lower threshold required for issuing provisional measures, it will be very surprising if the court does not issue provisional measures against Israel,” Sultany asserted.

    “This also should prompt reflection amongst all those governments and media outlets who supported [Israel’s war,] because they have been supporting a genocide,” he added.

    Sultany and numerous other observers said the most powerful presentation of the day was made by Irish lawyer and case adviser Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh, who delivered South Africa’s closing statement.

    Israel—some of whose officials have condemned South Africa’s case as a meritless “blood libel”—is scheduled to present its defense on Friday. Israeli jurists are expected to focus heavily on the atrocities committed by Hamas-led attackers who killed more than 1,100 Israelis and took around 240 others hostage on October 7. They will likely argue that the country has a right to defend itself, and that it is seeking to eliminate Hamas, not the Palestinian people.

    While an emergency order from the World Court would not be enforceable, it would represent a major international embarrassment for Israel, which is increasingly isolated on the world stage. A growing number of nations including Brazil, Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia, Venezuela, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Bolivia, Jordan, and Bangladesh are supporting South Africa’s case, as are the Arab League, more than 1,250 international human rights and civil society group, and progressive U.S. Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.).

    “Whatever the outcome, we are witnessing an amazing moment of rule of international law history,” said Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard.

    Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).