Genocide? Yes. But Not by Israel

Israel at International Court of Justice in the Hague (Forward)

What the  government of South Africa just did sickens me. They have brought charges of genocide against Israel at the UN’s international Court of Justice (ICJ). 

If there was ever a more absurd accusation than this, I’d sure like to know what it is.  Let us see who it is that will determine the legitimacy of that claim. The majority of states that comprise  UN membership are dictatorships that deny their populations fundament human rights. This is the pool from which judges for the ICJ are drawn. Am I supposed to believe that Israel will get a fair hearing from judges whose countries show their animosity towards the Jewish state at every opportunity?  

To understand just how absurd these accusations are let us look at what genocide actually is - and apply it to Israel’s war with Hamas:

Genocide is the the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.

If Israel was guilty of genocide against the Palestinian people, they would be targeting all of Gaza and the West Bank. They would be rounding up Palestinian and placing them in death camps. 

Israel has done nothing of the sort. They have done – and are doing the opposite. Which is whatever they can to spare the lives of Palestinians in Gaza as they continue to hunt down Hamas terrorists that are actually guilty of planning genocide against the Jewish population of Israel. The barbaric attack in October was their first volley toward that goal.  They have promised to keep doing it until they succeed. What Israel has done (and still doing) is trying to prevent that from happening by obliterating  the 21^st century version of Nazi Germany. Proceeding with as much caution as possible in order to limit civilian casualties. Even warning civilians to vacate their target areas where Hamas terrorists are hiding or where their infrastructure is located.

How, one may ask, can anyone not conclude that Israel is targeting civilians, when 22,000 civilians die as ‘collateral damage’. That's a lot of people.

But even someone who lacks a moral compass should know the difference between deliberately killing civilians and their being killing because Hamas uses them as human shields. They openly glorify their civilian casualties and consider them martyrs for the cause of liberating Palestine. It would not surprise me in the least if some of the civilians deliberately martyred themselves for that purpose. 

It should also not be ignored that many of the so-called ‘innocent civilians’ are actaully Hamas terrorists.  They do not wear uniforms. They dress in civilian clothing, and hide in plain sight in the midst of the civilian population. Most of the actual civilians celebrate every Israeli solider or civilian killed by their beloved Hamas leadership. As they did the massacre of Ooctober 7.

The cold hard truth is that the 22,000 figure of civilian casulaities (if you even believe those numbers which are supplied by the Hamas Health Ministry) are clearly not all civilians. But Hamas counts them that way. Thereby bolstering the claim of genocide.

Israel has no intent whatsoever to commit genocide against anyone. Never has. Not even against people that support Israel’s own demise and would  even celebrate it if - God forbid - Hamas would ever succeed.

Not only has Israel not committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, the opposite has happened. The population of Gaza since 2005 when then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon disengaged from Gaza has nearly doubled! That is a strange way to commit genocide.

The people really  responsible for civilian casualties is Hamas. If anyone is guilty of genocide, it is them. In two separate ways. One in their stated genocidal mission to annihilate Israeli Jews. Which began on October 7^th. And two, the death of 22,000 of their own ‘civilians’ many of whom were Hamas terrorists. And many of whom were used as human shields against Israel’s defensive actions required for their own survival. Had Hamas not attacked Israel those 22,000 people would still be alive.

If any government should be brought to the ICJ for genocide it is Hamas, which governs Gaza.

These were my thoughts last night as I watched Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), endorse South Africa’s accusation of genocide.  Listing a whole litany of Israeli ‘war crimes’  he claimed indicated Israel’s guilt.  Each of which can easily be refuted by the facts that he deliberately ignored or ‘explained’ away.

That he believes Israel is deliberately killing Palestinians just because they are Palestinian is a lie of gargantuan proportion. And yet he said it with a straight face insisting that 22,000 dead Gaza ‘civilians’ is pretty much all you need to make that accusation.

That interview, conducted on PBS last night, sickened me. Where was his outrage at the 1200 brutal murders and over 240 hostages Hamas took – over 100 of which are still in captivity? Hostages that include elderly Holocaust survivors, women, and very young children? Where is his concern for them? 

Human Rights? Not if you’re Jewish.

That HRW gets any respect from the mainstream media is undeserved. And frankly quite disgusting.

Why South Africa? It is in their DNA to support the Palestinian cause ever since Nelson Mandela equated the Palestinian struggle for self determination to the struggle of black South Africans during Apartheid. Mandela equated the Israel’s control over the West Bank and Gaza to control over blacks by the all white South African government during the brutal Apartheid era.

In solidarity with Yassir Afrafat whom he befriended Mandela declared that – just like the blacks in South Africa during Apartheid had the right to fight for self determination, so too do the Palestinians have the right to fight for their self determination. By any means necessary. Including violence!  (Such comparisons are objectively false - the reasons for which are beyond the scope of this post.)

South Africa’s inherent bias was also demonstrated by the following comment made to the ICJ justices:

 The South African lawyers also asked the court to put Israel’s actions in the context of its alleged “systematic oppression” of Palestinians since its founding… 

Mandela’s views have apparently been the policy of South Africa ever since he uttered them. So it should not be a surprise that they are the ones that brought these accusations to the ICJ. 

Will the ICJ find Israel guilty of genocide? Well, when you consider the UN’s long  history of antipathy toward Israel you can pretty much guess what their verdict will be. Which in my view should be utterly ignored by the civilized world. Sadly it probably won’t be.