Fisking the Israeli Defense

 The reviews I've seen of the Israel presentation at the ICJ aren't good. Even without considering the one lawyer who got his pages all mixed up and embarrassed himself in front of the world. The "arguments" Israel raised just showed a lack of understanding of what was happening.

Their primary issue - incidentally, the same one that the US relies on to justify vetoing calls for peace - is "well what about Hamas?" - The vast majority of the Israeli arguments were just this.  Screeching "HAMAS!" and pretending like this is somehow a full argument. Well, let's just pick apart some of the excuses they tried to pass off.

1. The case against Israel is bullshit because what about Hamas? If anyone is committing genocide, it's Hamas. - This is stupid. Hamas is not a state actor and therefore cannot be party to the Genocide Convention. Nor does the ICJ have any jurisdiction over them as that court only adjudicates disputes between nations. Moreover - this is literally the fucking thing that Israel is trying to avoid at all costs - Palestinian statehood. If Palestine was a state, with its own sovereignty, then it too would have that magical right "to defend itself" just like Israel does.

Also too - it's just staggeringly amazing gaslighting. There is this graph that just shows how much this attitude just ignores reality.

That's  not counting the current conflict where it's about 1,500 Israeli deaths (including soldiers who were killed in the hostilities) - maybe 1,600 if we assume none of the hostages survive - vs ~30,000 Gazans killed (including those buried under the rubble and presumed dead).

2. One of the non-Hamas! arguments - Israel is actually super careful with their air strikes. They attack only with surgical precision. This is just preposterous. Here's a report on how much damage Israel has caused on Gaza housing stock. For your convenience, I quote it below:

As of 7th January, it is estimated that about 69,000 housing units across Gaza Strip have been destroyed or rendered uninhabitable and over 290,000 housing units have been damaged ( Around 80% of the housing units' stock).

How is this "precision"? Even going by the delusionally generous estimate of 9,000 Hamas fighter killed, they have to complete destroy 7.5 homes and damage 30 odd more to get one gunman. And that 9,000 is just ludicrous. 2/3 of the people killed by Israel in this war are women and children. If we go by the official death toll of 23 K, there aren't 9,000 adult men that have been killed yet. If we go by ~30K by including those presumed dead, this implies that around 90% of the adult men killed by Israel are Hamas fighters - but their ratio of women and children vs non-Hamas men is 20 to 1. Which is just stupid. This is plainly not believable. Is it more than 1,000 Hamas fighters killed? Probably. More than 2,000? Probably not.  But even if we give them their bullshit number killed - it's still clearly indiscriminate bombing. The average Gaza household size is around 5 - so getting one Hamas fighter involves making around 200 people homeless. That's what they are calling being careful to only target Hamas.

Look. we've seen the satellite images. We heard the IDF spokesman say that their initial operations were about causing as much damage as possible and not about accuracy. Literally the opposite of what they are claiming now. And since then - the rate of killing of Gazans has only increased - so this bullshit about precision is just flatly not believable and frankly - this attempt to pass off these lies should have been enough to prove South Africa's case.

3. Leaflets! Safe Zones! Humanitarian corridors! All bullshit. Israel has bombed the so called safe zones. On multiple occasions. Including using 2,000 pound bombs. Also, this is not new. They've been doing this ever since they started designating safe zones.

4. The robust and independent Israeli courts is where violations should occur. BwAAHAHhaHhaHaHAHHAHHA!!!!  Come the fuck on. I cited the West Bank as evidence that this argument was just pure bullshit. Everybody acknowledges that Israeli settlers are committing terrorist acts in the West Bank. Biden actually imposed visa bans on them. Even Israel acknowledges that there's criminal behaviour from Israelis there. And yet - thousands of Palestinians arrested (many being held without charges) and AFAIK, zero settlers. Also the IDF soldiers who killed Israelis on October 7 - literally the crime they are using as an excuse to flatten Gaza? Investigating those incidents would be immoral. Even the soldiers who shot dead the escaped hostages waving a white flag - no charges. Israel doesn't go after Israelis who commit war crimes - not even when the victims are other Israelis. So this claim is just farcically absurd.

5. Humanitarian aid is getting into Gaza! What bullshit. Israel had to be forced into allow the trickle of aid trucks that made it in - and those are woefully inadequate. The total volume of trucks over the nearly 100 days of conflict is maybe the equivalent of 10 days volume before conflict. And that's when they didn;t have to truck in all of their clean water. Also, other than the one week truce period - none of these trucks made it to northern Gaza. This one is just fucking nuts - but I guess that doesn't make it any different from the other arguments. Israel says the only reason there's any starvation is that Hamas is taking all of the aid. This is unbelievably stupid. Israel's estimate was that there are 30K - 40K Hamas. So at least 60 Gazans per Hamas fighter. If Israel was allowing enough aid in but Hamas was intercepting it all (or let's say just 10% of it) - then Hamas would have stockpiled a 1.5 years of provisions already. I guess that's where the Hamas dates under Al Shifa came from! This is just stupid and not worth engaging with.

6. That provisional measures are not needed. This is bullshit too. Has Israel slowed down the rate at which it kills civilians? No it has not. Despite claiming to care about it. The US keeps saying that Israel has to do more to protect civilians - but has that happened? Adam Johnson has running tally that he tweets out occasionally that really nails this point.

So the most damning part of it all is that the Israeli defense actually proves the accusations. None of these arguments are viable if the people being killed were actually considered people. All of it rests on the idea that "it's only Palestinians, It doesn't matter if they get killed." This is the dehumanization part of genocide - shown in great detail from the mountains of quotes from Israeli political and military leaders. Israel's defense is itself evidence of genocidal intent - their arguments are literally denying the importance of protecting Palestinian lives. And at a time when they are dying violent deaths by the hundreds every day - denying that it is a travesty and not doing anything to prevent it - that's also genocide.

Want to get a better grasp of this take - that Israel's arguments are proof they don't see Palestinians as people? There was a Hamas terror attack on the western outskirts of Jerusalem at the end of November. This is the one where Yuval Castleman - the unicorn "good guy with a gun" - took out both Hamas gunmen and then threw down his weapons, dropped to his knees, and held his hands above his head. And then the IDF shot him dead.

Anyways - look, evidence that Hamas is hiding in West Jerusalem! The two civilians killed by the Hamas fighters actually represent a big chunk of Israeli civilians killed after the initial October 7 attack. Arguably, West Jerusalem represents more danger to Israelis from Hamas than anywhere in Gaza. But this is inside Israel and indiscriminate bombing here would result in Israeli civilian casualties.

You probably saw where I was going with that partway through reading it. "Why hasn't Israel bombed itself - Hamas is hiding there!" And you probably reacted like I was being crazy. The notion of bombing Israeli neighbourhoods is offensively antisemitic! this is stupid crazy!

Okay - I agree. It would be stupid to bomb West Jerusalem. But why does that suggestion get a different reaction than bombing Gaza? Because Israel and big media have been feeding us bullshit to desensitize us to Gazan suffering. Because we are being forced into accepting that Gazans aren't actually human and therefore it's okay that Israel is exterminating them. It's all a part of the genocide.

The ICJ Case

I appreciate that most people have not been following along - coverage of it is spotty at best. Note, this isn't a dig at media companies for trying to hide the news or something like that. It's an ICJ trial, one of those things that sound important and worthy of front page coverage - but is never treated like that. We have a recent example - there were provisional measures hearings over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and those barely got coverage as well. So it seems reasonable to me that most media isn't putting a lot of emphasis on the proceedings and that most people aren't aware of what's happened so far at the Hague.

South Africa presented a pretty solid case - one that followed their written submission pretty closely. To me (and IANAL) it seemed like solid arguments. They addressed standing and jurisdiction (the Genocide Convention explicitly grants jurisdiction to the ICJ and standing to all signatories to act to prevent genocide). They addressed genocidal acts (the harms done to Gazans, and the generational harm inflicted on Gaza's children). They addressed genocidal intent (the repeated statements of many decision making Israeli leaders as well as these sentiments being expressed by soldiers on the ground in Gaza). And they focused on what they were asking - that the provisional measures are required to prevent further irreparable harm. Highlighted in the closing statement about how many Gazans and Gazan children were being killed by the ongoing military operation.

I couldn't have done this. My argument would probably have been - "FFS, just look at what's happening!"

That was yesterday. Israel is up today to address these accusations. Here's my understanding of what their position is.

Israel has a right to defend itself (from belligerents in a territory they are occupying with military force and violence).

HAMAS! We're fighting Hamas, therefore anything we do is proportional and justified. Are there civilian casualties? That's Hamas' fault. When criminals hide behind civilians, everybody knows that you're allowed to bomb the entire neighbourhood. And if you don't know which specific neighbourhood they are in, well you just gotta bomb them all.

Also, sure we've destroyed most of the housing stock in Gaza - but these were all very targeted and surgical strikes. It's only like, a third of a million homes that have been destroyed - and in that we managed to take out like 9,000 Hamas fighters! Can't you see how careful we're being to only hit military targets? Please don't think about how we got to 9,000 Hamas fighters killed when the death toll is 23,000 and 2/3 of these casualties are women and children (i.e. fewer than 9,000 of those acknowledged to have been killed are adult men).

Also, like - we've told them to move south. We dropped leaflets and everything! You stay in an area we say we're bombing - then it's your own fault if you get bombed. Also, we never bombed any hospitals - the damage you see is due to "hostilities" happening nearby to the hospitals.

Also, if you say that this campaign of bombing all these civilians is genocide - it cheapens the word genocide.

Also, South Africa is only doing this because they hate us and also because they are Hamas.

Also, Israel has of course never broken any rules of war - but if any such thing were to occur, the appropriate place to address them is in Israel's "robust and independent legal system". You can tell - look at the West Bank where Israeli settler terrorism has resulted in the arrests of several thousand (Palestinains and zero settlers).

Also, Israel is obviously not depriving Palestinians in Gaza of much needed food, water, and medical supplies. Many hundreds of trucks have made their way in! (for a population of over 2 million across the span of three months). This is evidence that the military operations aren't impeding the delivery of aid (despite the fact that a huge chunk of that aid was delivered during the week-long truce. I think at this point it's about half of it).

And apparently the closing was something like - South Africa has not shown that provisional measures are required. As if the ongoing deaths and other harms that Gazans are currently experiencing are no big deal. It's almost as if Israel wanted to make South Africa's argument for them in the closing statement - no one denies that Gazans are dying and suffering a lot of harm from the military operations, but not allowing it to continue is the wrong thing to do.

EDIT - re: aid trucks. 4,301 aid trucks entered Gaza between October 21 and December 16. During the truce, it was roughly 200 per day. So 1,400 in 7 days of truce vs 2,900 in 49 days of not-truce. Also - pre-October 7, Gaza got 500 trucks per day - and very few of them were needed for water as that came by pipes which Israel turned off weeks ago.

Overthinking Flash Fiction

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

I joked that this had much more impact if it were just "For sale: baby" - but this got me thinking about it way too much. The reason such a short bit of language is considered a whole story is that we fill in all the gaps - the words allude to a set of circumstances and conditions, and that's the story. It's more in the parts of the story that aren't being told. But of course, to fill in those blanks we need context - we need to be able to fill in those missing blanks and in a way that's at least somewhat consistent with the intended narrative.

"For sale: baby" as a standalone is just absurdist. A juxtaposition of conflicting or incompatible ideas - like a clockwork orange. It's close to meaningless because the implied meaning is outside the range of what we can accept (even though we're constantly freaked out about stories of baby abductions and trafficking). The only reason it has meaning is in relation to the original "for sale: baby shoes, never worn". It requires the context that it's a parody - that you're supposed to fill in the blanks, because that's what you did with the original. Also on a meta level - the fact that there is this meaning in an absurdist word combo gives it meaning too - like A Clockwork Orange. But, this really lessens the impact and only people who already know about six word stories can really get "for sale: baby".

But this is also true with "for sale: baby shoes, never worn". How much meaning does that story have in the current age? It's in the format of a print classified ad - something which hasn't existed in any meaningful form for maybe an entire generation now. And the replacements, the Craigslists and Kijijis (I'm Canadian) are losing prominence, at least for goods and not services. Even ebay - which is now down to the same number of employees it had in 2005. All have had their milkshakes drunk by Bezos and targeted ads through user profiling. Sure the basic idea is still there, but the idea of listing baby shoes, never worn as being for sale is weird. Where would you list them? The context is different now.

Twice as Long as Necessary

The Hemingway Six Word Story “For Sake: Baby Shirs, Necer Worn” is often praised for being so short and containing so much drama - but literally, much more interesting story if he stopped writing halfway through. 

Blogging Origin Story

 I was asked at Eschaton about why I was so shrill about Gaza and Biden, and I think my answer there was pretty complete. So, here's the background for why I call him Genocide Joe:

The quick and easy answer is "it's genocide" - and that should be more than enough. But that's not the entire truth to it. Surely you can accept that people can honestly have sympathy for the people of Gaza, right? Surely you can accept that when someone says they are fucking pissed off with the slaughter of an oppressed people, they aren't lying or making shit up? Being aghast at the US position on Israel-Palestine is not a mysterious position.

I could point to my avatar, one that I have had for over a decade and a half - and just say that I am reflexively opposed to war. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. And this is true too, but also not the whole story. Would you really like to know why I have such an obsession with this?

The questioning of the death toll was when I was broken, and it just gets more broken the longer it goes on. The denial of the deaths was disgusting enough on its own - but the reasoning for it was just so fucking gross. Over 55,000 wounded - this is like an additional 700-800 people being admitted to Gaza hospitals every day for three months straight. Half of whom were children. With full thickness burns and injuries requiring amputation. While being denied reliable electricity or medical supplies and while those facilities were being used by thousands of displaced people seeking sanctuary.

I remember during the early days of the pandemic when we used to bang pots to show support for health care professionals. Working ridiculous overtime. tending sometimes aggressively horrible patients, dealing with an unknown disease that was killing many people. They deserved our support. But what they went through is nothing compared to the medical staff in Gaza. Doctors and nurses and other hospital workers - knowing that Israel had some sort of obsession with destroying hospitals - chose to stay at their posts out of loyalty to their patients and community. Fucking goddamned heroes. And the ONLY thing Biden has said about them is that they are not worthy of trust.

This is what pushed me over. The obvious and blatant dehumanizing of a population being starved and tortured and slaughtered by some asshole wrapping himself up in moral superiority. The way the administration is just outright treating everybody as fucking idiots - sure, "no evidence of Israel breaking international law". It's gross and wrong. All bad - but after a pandemic's long campaign of justifiably being grateful to health care professionals while they were under attack by anti-vaxx nutjobs, to see the medical staff of the Gaza Health Ministry treated like fucking terrorist gunmen was too much for me to let slide. That's the thing which radicalized me most.

Deciderer 2 - Just a Prank Bro-galoo

This just blew my mind. Now the hearing isn't until Friday, so we won't know for sure before then - but holy moly. For reference, the list of people that South Africa has quoted to demonstrate Israel's genocidal intent are:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
President Isaac Herzog
Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant
Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir
Israeli Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Israel Katz
Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich
Israeli Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu
Israeli Minister of Agriculture Avi Dichter
the Deputy Speaker of the Knesset and Foreign Affairs Committee member Nissim Vaturi

In addition to that, they also cite Major General Ghassan Alian (the COGAT army coordinator in charge of many things including how humanitarian aid gets delivered into Gaza), Reserve Major General Giora Eiland (former Head of the Israeli National Security and advisor to the Defense Minister), a 94 year old reservist (and apparently active duty soldier), Lieutenant Colonel Gilad Kinan (Head of the IDF's Air Operations Group), and the commander of the 2908th Battalion.  Also cited are the Deputy head of COGAT and "Israeli army soldiers".

Now technically, yes - the 94 year old soldier is likely not making policy level decisions. So not all of the people cited are decision makers. But this is just a willful misinterpretation of the evidence - which requires that you ignore 95% of it. Which they do with the "It's just a prank bro" defense. Breathtaking in its audaciousness - I have to give them that.

This isn't remotely credible. In fact, they almost certainly won't be able to get a single one of the people quoted to say that their statements don't mean that they want Gazans punished. Moreover - even after the suit was filed (and after a group of Israelis wrote to the Attorney General highlighting the language) - Knesset members make the argument for the case of genocidal intent.

A member of the Israeli Knesset (parliament) from Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party said on Tuesday that it is becoming increasingly clear to Israelis that “all Gazans must be destroyed,” it has been reported.

“My friends at the prosecutor’s office, who fought with me on political matters, in debates, tell me, ‘Moshe, it is clear that all the Gazans need to be destroyed,’ and these are statements I have never heard,” Moshe Saada told Channel 14. He claimed that the rise in calls to destroy all Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip proves that the right-wing was correct “all along”.

Today, he added, the matter is simple. “Everywhere I go, they [Israelis] tell me that all the residents of Gaza must be destroyed.”

The ICJ Case - South Africa vs Israel

On December 29, South Africa filed suit against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Here is a link to the suit. South Africa is invoking the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. I'm going to assemble some of my thoughts about it here.

Firstly, I don't think we should prejudge the case. To be clear, I absolutely think that what Israel is doing constitutes genocide. But, my faith in international institutions to do what's right is deeply shaken. And as I've learned more and more about the situation in Israel-Palestine and the compete and total lack of actual action from the International Criminal Court, I've learned to temper my expectations. In the end, these institutions are made up of people and are, at least in part, political institutions.

The president of the ICJ is an American lawyer and the second woman to hold this post. The Wikipedia page on her only mentions one case, where she was the lone dissenting vote siding with the UK over Mauritius. Technically, she didn't side with the UK, but rather she said that the ICJ should not have ruled at all. On the minus side, being the willing to be a dissenting voice in support of the colonizing nation makes me skeptical of how she'll treat this case - but on the plus side, the case did go forward and resolved in favour of Mauritius. For reference, the case was about the US military base at Diego Garcia - and seems to centre around the UK claiming that the islands of the Chagos Archipelago were uninhabited, before forcibly relocating some 2,000 people to make way for the naval base. IOW, your usual colonial bullshit where the big powers insist on being the good guys and spin fanciful lies to keep this belief viable. The ICJ ruling in this case was an "advisory opinion" and not binding, so the UK has thus far ignored it. As I said, the usual colonial bullshit.

Also, the final verdict on whether Israel is officially committing genocide isn't the important thing at the moment. It will be important in the future when we look back on the Gaza War as a historical event, but it won't affect what's currently happening - because the ruling is going to take time to get to. The Chagos Archipelago ruling was pretty fast - hearings began September 2018 and the court ruled in February 2019 - 5 months. On the other hand, hearings for Ukraine v Russia started on February 26, 2022 and there is no final ruling yet.

That said, there is a very important component of the suit that's relevant right now. South Africa is requesting provisional measures to protect the people of Gaza, including an immediate ceasefire. This case is not an "advisory" one, so any order from the ICJ on the provisional measures would be legally binding. In the Ukraine-Russia case, the decision on provisional measures was issued on March 16, 2022. 18 days after the first hearing. For Gaza, the hearings will begin on January 11, so it is theoretically possible for a ceasefire order to be issued this month.

Now, one might note that Israel has nothing but a burning sense of sheer contempt for international law, so "legally binding" in this case is meaningless. Perhaps this framing of Israel's attitude towards the UN and and the international system of order seems a bit harsh, but if we go by words of Israel's ambassador to the UN, who has accused the international body of being Hamas, I might be understating the animosity here. Or one can point to other "legally binding" decisions like UNSC 2334 which declared Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank illegal and which Israel is openly ignoring.

That's true. I've said it before - Israel is a rogue state. They do not consider themselves subject to international law. It's quite clear from their bombing of hospitals and the massive amount of destruction they have unleashed on Gaza's civilian infrastructure that they believe the rules of war do not apply to the IDF. "Legally binding" is meaningless with no means of enforcement. BUT - here's where things are different. This would be a ruling under the genocide conventions. And I'm not just noting this as quite obviously Israel would be particularly mindful of the genocide conventions (hopefully, any such ruling would make many more Israelis reconsider their positions on Palestine) - but because a genocide ruling would impact other countries.

The provisional measures do not require a finding of genocide to be implemented - that's the point of them. So that protective orders can be made while the case takes it time to be argued and decided. What they do require is three things - that the court finds that the case is appropriate (i.e. within the ICJ's mandate and that South Africa has standing to bring the suit), that there is a plausible case to be heard (i.e. that the allegations that Israel is committing genocide are credible), and that the provisional measures are required to protect Gaza from a real and imminent threat of irreparable harm. 

The first and last items are pretty much given. On jurisdiction and standing - The Genocide Convention explicitly names the ICJ as having jurisdiction and also mandates that all signatories act to prevent it from happening. As for needing protection, clearly Gaza is at risk of (further) irreparable harm. Here's the Ukraine-Russia order, and here is paragraph 30:

In this regard, Ukraine contends that thousands of people have already been killed in the conflict and that, with every day that passes, more lives will be lost and probably at an accelerating rate. It argues that the refugee crisis is another example of irreparable harm, pointing to the uncertainty that these displaced individuals will ever be able to return to their homes and the lasting psychological trauma the conflict will cause them even if they are resettled. It emphasizes that the population is extremely vulnerable, with many lacking food, electricity and water; that the overall situation is extremely fragile; and that the risk of aggravation of the crisis is acute. Ukraine further asserts that the Russian Federation’s military action poses grave environmental risks, not only to Ukraine but also for the wider region, referring in particular to the dangers posed to Ukraine’s civil nuclear industry and toxic smoke released by attacks on fuel depots.

Maybe the last sentence isn't relevant as Gaza has no nuclear power plants, but the rest of it is at least as true, if not more so, for Palestinians than for Ukrainians.

So it is number two that's the kicker. Is there a credible case for accusing Israel of genocide. Obviously there is - but much more importantly - if there is, then this triggers all sorts of measures in a lot of different countries. One item of particular relevance is the US Leahy law, which prohibits US aid from going to countries where that aid might be used for gross human rights violations. Note that these don't have to be proven gross human rights violations - but that there is credible information that such violations are happening. A finding that Israel is credibly being accused of genocide fits this pretty much exactly. This should cut off Israel's supply of American weapons and bombs.

Such a ruling would paint Biden as an enabler of genocide in the run up to his re-election campaign. I've noted before that I absolutely think of Biden as an enabler of genocide. I call him Genocide Joe - because - from all available evidence - it absolutely 100% fits. But this isn't the mainstream view. OTOH, if the ICJ says that there is a credible case of genocide here - at the minimum, Genocide Joe will be faced with question on it. He can try to dodge, as he has so many times already - but surely being evasive about genocide isn't going to help him out at all.

And yes. It is indeed pretty sad that all of this has to be assessed on such cynical grounds. That the hope that a genocide is stopped rests on how it effects election chances. That I feel the need to put scare quotes around "legally binding" when discussing rulings about genocide. These are broken things that should not be true in a civilized society - and it is very sad. An indictment of humanity that this is the case.