Denial - Preserving Hockey and Blogging

There's a reason why Trump crowing "FAKE NEWS" is so effective. The urge to deny things which make us uncomfortable is immense. Avoiding it and pretending like it's not real is a coping mechanism that everybody uses - even if we know that doing this only makes shit worse.

Let me tell you about the one example that I keeps rolling over and over in mind. Way back in 2018, Nora Loreto made the one tweet that got her blacklisted from mainstream media and painted a target on herself for angry white assholes to rage against non-stop. It was the Humboldt crash tweet.

For context - the Humboldt bus crash was an accident in Saskatchewan where a transport truck wiped out a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos, a junior A ice hockey team. 16 people were killed and 13 more were injured in the crash. It was a horrific and tragic accident.

But, Loreto was bang on in her assessment. Her comment was exactly right - the whiteness and maleness of the victims - the fact that this was a junior hockey team - absolutely 100% impacted the response, and it's mind boggling how people refuse to acknowledge this fact. But people are assholes, and will wallow in their own decrepitude basically forever if allowed. And often, if not allowed too.

Anyways - the reason why this is sticks out in my mind so much is that the deranged Humboldt bus tweet avengers have not let up after half a decade - despite what has happened in the intervening period. It was the same year of that tweet that Canada entered into a moment of introspection after the discovery of about 200 unmarked graves at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. The unmarked graves of children stolen from their families and communities to have the Indian forced out of them so they could become good God fearing cheap farm labour. 

That wasn't the only one. The Kamloops discovery was through the use of ground-penetrating radar, a non-invasive approach that allows a search to be made without disturbing the interred remains. This approach would be used on additional residential school sites and they started finding new batches of the unmarked graves of children every other month for a couple years.  Sometimes only a dozen or so, but one of them had several hundred.

These findings did not lead to the same sort of national mourning that the Humboldt bus crash did. In fact, there was a concerted effort to discredit the findings - to cast doubt on whether there were any bodies under the earth. Despite the fact that we knew these bodies were there - we had a Truth and Reconcilliation Committee review the records showing that thousands of Indigenous children died in these residential schools. There was just a nation-wide effort to "Fake News" it all - to flush away the uncomfortable fact of Canada's century long genocide.

Incidentally, some people say that this isn't "ancient history" since the residential schools were in operation into the 1990s. That's a flawed understanding of what happened. We phased out residential schools not because they were genocide factories, but they just didn't fit into the modern world. Training cheap farm labour in the 1990s? What happened instead is we just shifted where we were putting the children we stole from Indigenous communities.

In Canada, 53.8% of children in foster care are Indigenous, but account for only 7.7% of the child population according to Census 2021.

Those weren't the only relevant stories to break since 2018. In 2022, we found out about Hockey Canada's approach to dealing with sexual assault allegations. Apparently, Hockey Canada was taking part of the money they collected from hockey families across the country and putting millions of dollars away into multiple slush funds - which were mainly used to settle claims against junior hockey players of sexual assault. One specific case also happened in 2018 - where a group of championship junior hockey players gang raped a woman they got passing-put drunk. the assault was reported to the police, which closed the case - and were forced to re-open it after news that Hockey Canada paid out millions in hush money over it. Charges have only just been laid this week - five years after the fact.

Now to be clear - I am most certainly not trying to suggest that the Humboldt Broncos were rapists or villains of any sort. They were and are just a hockey team - and there is not even the barest suggestion that they were monsters of any sort. But the revelations from the fallout of the Hockey Canada scandal was that hockey itself as a sport in Canada has some very severe cultural problems. Whether it is the stubborn persistence of long since banned hazing rituals or just the deeply seated culture of misogyny and homophobia, the utterly garbage moral cesspit that is hockey culture was finally getting spoken about in public. And one of the key findings of this introspection was that Canadian culture treats young hockey players like little gods free to act upon their worst impulses with impunity.

But Hockey (with a capital H) is a core aspect of the identity of a lot of Canadians - so the denial was there and the moment of actually talking about it came and went and we're all now just hoping that things have all been fixed so we never have to think about it again.

And yet - even while the Hockey Canada scandal was at its peak in the news cycle - there were assholes whining about the Humboldt crash tweet. Completely oblivious to the things they have denied so hard.

That denial is just core to how we as human beings behave. Of course we deny genocide when we're complicit in it. It's the crime of crimes - only monsters do it, and we're not monsters - therefore genocide cannot be happening and cannot have happened. Of course we deny wrongdoing by the people who represent out values and beliefs. If those people can engage in criminal behaviour, that would reflect negatively on the things we cherish and have incorporated into our identity. And it all just happens to us without our noticing. I've pointed out these examples because they are obvious to me - because I'm not in the group that's caught up in it. I have never ever liked hockey - even from before I knew about the types of people the sport attracts. Because it's easy to see this stuff from the outside - because the reflex to deny these things isn't there. I probably have a lot of things about which I am in denial myself. But that's the thing about denial this deep - you have denied it so much, sometimes you cannot even see it anymore.

As to the timing of this post - is it because the first charge in the 2018 gang rape was announced and this is relevant again? Or am I referencing something else - another bout of genocide denialism and the reflexive defense of the guys who wave the flag of Our Team?

Yes.

EDIT - to add: No word from Hockey Canada about the criminal sexual assault charges being laid on someone they protected with a secret slush fund payout. There's all that change and accountability we got promised in order to woo back sponsors and repair their image. But again - so much of the tastemakers in Canuckistan have hockey as a core part of their identity - so this is going to slide. Only to be noted by obscure and unread blogs like mine.

About the UNRWA Hamas Rwelve

EDIT - re: title. Sometimes I blog from my phone

All the assholes pulling support from the UNRWA had better hope to fucking hell that the “evidence” from Shin Bet and the IDF holds up. Because this is almost certainly going on the list of genocidal actions. And if that evidence isn’t fucking rock solid, and evidence that cutting this funding was necessary, then it will be another nail in the hopes that these western countries won’t be recorded as enablers of genocide. 

I’ve Changed my Mind About Provisional Blogging Orders

 In my previous post I said I didn’t buy it. That the ICJ is ordering a ceasefire without actually ordering one - I said this wasn’t likely. Obviously ceasefire is on everybody’s mind and the ICJ had to have intentionally chosen not to say anything about it. Well,  am wrong. For exactly the reason I gave in believing otherwise. 

I said I didn’t believe it because Israel and the US will interpret the order as they see fit - so they will completely dishonestly claim that they are already in compliance. That they have always acted in a way to avoid any risk of genocide. And while I still believe that the US and Israel will claim this I was entirely wrong to suggest that they would. 

You see, their interpretation is going to be influenced by public sentiment. Maybe not a lot - but if there is enough outrage at their blatantly dishonest bullshit - that might make them reconsider. It is an election year after all. 

So I was wrong to suggest that Biden is going to do what I actually expect him to do. This is a Green Lantern thing - and even though it’s probably not going to work, there is no harm in demanding better from these genocidal monsters.

The order literally requires Israel to stop killing Palestinians in Gaza. That is the first thing ordered. As much as the Islamophobic asswipes will wasn’t to twist this - the order literally says no more killing. Recognizing that these murderous psychopaths want to twist this to allow them to kill more is not useful. 

So I retract my previous position and am fully in the side of “the order doesn’t say ceasefire but it means it because how else can the killing stop?”

Provisional Blogging Court of Justice

The ICJ ruled almost exactly as the experts predicted - yes, genocide is a plausible accusation. Yes, provisional measures are warranted. No call for a ceasefire.

I've seen some takes on the ceasefire part that are very compelling. The ICJ did order that Israel "take all measures within its power to prevent" acts of genocide including "killing members of the group" - where "the group" is Palestinians in Gaza. That this is effectively an order for an immediate ceasefire. And that you do not order a "ceasefire" when one of the actors is a non-state actor - i.e. it's not a war, but a police action.

I don't buy it. The judges know that their ruling is going to be interpreted by the state actors. South Africa literally asked for a ceasefire as part of their request. That it was not addressed directly had to be intentional. Also, "ceasefire" has been used with relation to non-state actors before - this is not an uncommon formulation - although, maybe there's international law reasons why I'm wrong about that.  IANAL.

Regardless, if ICJ wanted a "ceasefire" but couldn't use that specific word because it has specific international law implications - they could have said so. And they didn't. They dodged the question - which to be fair is better than them explicitly saying that they are NOT ordering a ceasefire. But knowing that Israel and the US will interpret this in a manner that maximizes Palestinian casualties means that by not directly addressing it, they didn't call for it. 

Now if you're the US or Israel and your official position is that what's happening in Gaza is absolutely NOT genocide and that any such accusations are meritless and likely antisemitic - you can basically continue as you were. The US and Israel are going to claim that they have already and always been acting in accordance with this. That they currently are and have always done everything within their power to prevent genocide. That's their position. So unless the ICJ explicitly said - "no more military operations in Gaza" - then military operations will continue and those pushing for death and destruction will claim to be following the order.

Ideally, I would have liked the ICJ ruling to have used the literal exact language of the Leahy Laws. That "there is credible information implicating Israeli military units of gross violations of human rights." That would have been perfect - and possibly better than a call for a ceasefire. But what we got was pretty darned strong and it will cost the US and Israel a lot when they go against it. The reporting requirement is a doozy too - ensuring that we get a new news cycle on genocide a week before Super Tuesday has gotta be "suboptimal" for Biden.

UPDATE: Apparently noting that Israel's ad hoc judge saying that "1,200 innocent civilians" were killed on October 7 is misinformation is a touchy subject. Here's an article about the death toll from October 7. 373 people are identified as security forces - including 305 IDF soldiers. IDF soldiers are now "innocent civilians". That's not even the most galling part of this lie.

The original count was 1,400 - which they revised down to "around 1,200", which was later clarified to be 1,139. Meaning to get to 1,200 - you need to include 61 deaths that they excluded in the revision. Do you know why they revised the number down? Because some of the charred bodies they were counting were Hamas terrorist gunmen. IOW, the Israeli judge in an effort to "give a complete account of the immediate context" categorized 61 Hamas terrorists as "innocent civilians". And we're talking about Hamas gunmen that participated in the attack of October 7. 

Anyways, I got called an antisemite for pointing this out. To be fair, the guy who did it has called me an antisemite before - as part of the set-up for a joke about Yiddish or something - so wevs.

Provisional Blogging Day

Today, the International Court of Justice will either indicate that provisional measures are required to protect Gaza from genocide or the plausible risk of genocide - or they will not. 

In the short term, this is meaningless. Israel’s campaign in Gaza will not be stopped by an order from the ICJ. Netanyahu has explicitly stated “The Hague will not stop us.” Nonetheless, this decision is important. 

Now we don’t actually know how the ICJ will rule. There’s precedent to consider and most experts believe that there will be some sort of compromise ruling that does impose some provisional measures but does nor call for a ceasefire. This would be monumental and actually important. 

Why? Israel will ignore the order, and the US will veto any attempt to enforce the order through the Security Council. Well, true. But still important. 

“Never Again” is not merely a slogan. This is the core principle of the Genocide Convention. Preventing genocide is the main point - and any provisional measures indicated by the ICJ would be a statement that they see the risk of genocide as being plausible. That alone is enough to trigger all sorts of things. 

The Leahy Laws for example, prohibit the US from providing aid that might go to military units “credibly accused of gross human rights violations”.  If the US followed its own laws, an ICJ indication would put an end to Israel’s resupply of bombs and guns. 

To be clear, it’s already obvious that the Biden Administration is in violation of the Leahy Laws. The trigger is merely a credible allegation of gross human rights violations. Biden is just playing cute by saying there are no credible claims - because they aren’t assessing it and just ignoring the possibility. An ICJ finding means that for Biden to continue his act of willful ignorance - he does so by completely discrediting international law. The US has already lost a lot of moral authority since this began - so pretending that the ICJ (currently headed by an American btw) is delusional and antisemitic or whatever is going to be a pretty heavy price. 

Tanks for the Shells, Blogging the UNRWA Training Center

The UNRWA Training Center in Khan Younis was hit by tank shells, apparently for the second time in a week. The problem is this most recent attack caused a fire. The campus is apparently being used to shelter 30,000 displaced persons, and the specific burning buildings had something like 800 people on them. Initial reports were 9 dead and 75 wounded. The number of dead is now 13 - and considering the state of Gaza health care facilities right now, this is certain to increase. 

Here’s one facet of it that is pissing people off. That the NY Times is unable to identify the perpetrators even though these were tank shells. Does Hamas have tanks? Will the Times say anything about Israel’s denial of being involved with the shelling? Lol. Even when Israel leaders explicitly says they are doing something, like “flattening Gaza” - the Times often refuses to attribute it to Israel. Of course they won’t. 

Here’s the part that I picked up on. Tank shells. In early December, Biden pulled his first “emergency bypass of Congress” to supply Israel with bombs. Bombs and tank shells. Maybe it’s a moot point - we all recognized that Biden was using emergency measures to give Israel the weapons it is using to assault Gaza. But it’s just kind of so very explicit here that Biden used emergency powers in order to enable war crimes. 

Non-Blogging Blogging - It Wasn't an Emergency

I'm back on here because of Gaza - but since I'm here, might as well talk about whatever else that's bugging me. Almost as if this was my blog.  Probably not going to use this title gimmick for it after this post though, just thought it was fun to note how fixated I am on one specific topic.

So what's the thing that's so important I can ignore the ongoing crisis in Gaza to talk about? Well it's not that important. Literally, it's no emergency. Here's some background:

A couple years ago, a bunch of anti-vaxx nutjobs rolled into the capital of Canada with a bunch of big rig trucks and took over the streets around our parliament buildings.  They set-up bouncy castles and hot tubs and railed on about a host of different issues - causing massive disruption to the city. In response, Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act, which granted him a number of powers to override civil rights. One of the drawbacks of using the Emergencies Act is that the government is bound to hold public hearings into why they invoked it. These hearings were pretty embarassing for the government. 

We now have a court ruling that invoking the Emergencies Act was unconstitutional. Basically, that there was no emergency - at least none which required giving the government the power to override civil rights (in this case, freezing bank accounts). Now the declaration of emergency was lifted not that long after the emergency was called - so the case is moot in terms of things the court can do about it. This is really an argument about whether the government made the right choice or not - and the courts said that they didn't. The government of course, plans to appeal.

So why does this interest me? On which side of this am I even on? I mean, I'm pro civil rights but also strongly opposed to anti-vaxxers. The Ottawa occupation was basically non-violent with no one getting seriously injured and the one violent incident (attempted arson at an apartment building on Lisgar Avenue) has been determined to be unrelated to the convoy protest. OTOH, these assholes were blaring air horns into the middle of the night next to residential neighbourhoods for weeks.

It interests me because the Liberal government got totally played. There was an emergency -  a real and very serious one, but not something the government could recognize. The emergency was that law enforcement was so sympathetic to these assholes that policing the protests was not actually possible. In the public hearings, protest organizers were talking about how they had sources constantly feeding them the Ottawa Police Service's plans. The daily briefings went not just to Ottawa cops, but also to the demonstrators they were supposed to be keeping under control. Also, Ottawa Police claims they were massively overwhelmed by the turnout and the task of dealing with the convoy. BUT everyone involved knew how big the protest was well in advance. They had started their convoy in Alberta! It was dead easy to gauge what they would be dealing with as they approached Ottawa. The reason that they were overwhelmed is because our Premier, Doug Ford (brother of our late Crack Mayor) abandoned his post. He didn't want to be seen as doing anything to oppose a conservative fuelled protest movement.

So there was an emergency - the utter and complete failure of law enforcement to do their jobs. But this is an unspeakable truth for those in power. And so, Trudeau had to invent some other reason to invoke the Emergencies Act - which has now been found to be pure bullshit. It's kind of funny - the court in its decision noted that there were existing laws that gave the government the tools it needed to deal with the situation, which is absolutely true. But that decision also ignores the actual emergency - that despite having the laws in place, you can' do shit if the cops side with the protestors. As far as I know - no cop has been disciplined for any of this. The Ottawa Police Chief did resign and he was criticized a lot during the inquiry - but holy shit this is sad. That chief was likely thrown under the bus so hard because he was a reformer who was pushing for progressive changes. Mind you - wholly inadequate changes - but still better than the usual. And the failure of police to do their jobs instead of being bigoted shitweasels lead to the firing of the most anti-shitweasel police Chief Ottawa has ever had.

Talking Pants Update - Still a Massive Piece of Shit

So there was a pro-Palestine demonstration at Columbia University on Friday where some students were attacked with a chemical spray. At least eight students were hospitalized. Turns out that it was Israeli students who were the attackers. Here's Josh's take on it.

So, the thing he spends most of his time worrying about is apparently the victims of a chemical attack are delusional about the IDF. Even though he acknowledges that the attackers were all former IDF soldiers - this is irrelevant because almost all Israelis are former IDF soldiers. This is literally his argument "there's a reason for them to have this association - therefore it is delusional to think any association exists". IOW, the Columbia victims are crazy conspiracists because they only believe something that is factually true.

Let me note again - I don't think he's an idiot. I do still - even now - respect the work he has and is currently putting in to independent journalism. But holy shit is the guy fucking deranged about Palestine.

UPDATE: Yeah, I usually don't update except in the short hours immediately after pushing Publish.  No relation to the IDF. Co-founder of Growing Wings - an organization that helps Lone Soldiers, Jews without families in Israel who have enlisted in the IDF. One of these guys runs an IDF recruitment organization. But sure - only mentally deranged people see any connection to the IDF.

How do we Stop Hamas from Making Every Day October 7 if not with Blogging?

There is an argument that Israel's right to self-defense is irrelevant with regards to Gaza. There's an ICJ ruling about the West Bank that notes that since Israel is an occupying force and has military control over the Palestinian territories - therefore it's not actually defending itself. Their actions are part of their occupation activities. IOW, putting down the "natives" so you can clear out space for your shopping malls is not "self-defense" even if the "natives" fight back. This post isn't about that argument. I do think it is entirely reasonable and actually part of Israel's duty to its citizens to try to protect them from terrorist attacks. Even if it isn't "self-defense" under international law, I think it is justified and expected for Israel to go to some measures in order to defend its population.

My argument about self-defense is that this is very blatantly and obviously NOT what Israel is doing. Looking at the damage unleashed upon Gaza and calling it "self-defense" is gross and disgusting. If someone threatens to kill you, destroying their entire neighbourhood with air strikes is not "self-defense". If a violent gang kills a member of your family, it's not self-defense to raze their entire city to the ground. I mean, come the fuck on.

But this post isn't really about that either. The point I'd like to get at here is about what would count as self-defense. About what Israel could do to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks. Now obviously, the answer is "End the Occupation". The generations of oppression and apartheid is why we have Hamas - that's the root cause - and the entirety of the Israeli apartheid regime isn't benefitting anyone other than arms manufacturers and the terrorist settler movement that's somehow become the controlling political force in Israel.

This is the question that the gross assholes with their throbbing war boners keep asking. "Hamas won't honour a ceasefire! Imposing a ceasefire means REAL genocide because non-Muslims will get killed in October 7 like attacks forever and ever!!!!"

It's a deeply offensive and stupid point. It is founded upon the racist assumption that Palestinians are inherently violent terrorists and that they will violently murder Jews by the thousands unless they are bombed to oblivion. You see, 30,000 Gazans had to die and many more also need to die because otherwise, they will violently attack Israel. Such a deeply stupid and idiotic position.

BUT what makes it worse is that even if it were true, it's still not relevant. No seriously. It isn't.

Hamas has been working overtime since October 7 to demonstrate that they still have the capability to strike back. Even after the aerial bombardments over the past three months, Hamas rockets have been reaching further and further north, deeper into Israel than ever before. And yet how many Israelis have they killed with these rocket attacks? None. The only non-military casualties inflicted by Hamas since the initial attacks were three Israelis in West Jerusalem - and the IDF killed one of the three.

The fact is - the Iron Dome is actually very effective. The massive walls and machine gun equipped checkpoints - also effective. Hamas fighters actually do not have the ability to effectively attack inside Israel unless they catch Israel by complete surprise.

October 7th was a long time in the planning phase. It could not have happened without Israel being caught completely by surprise. And now that it has happened - it's not possible again. This type of surprise swarm attack is now a known threat and Israel, if they aren't being stupid motherfucking idiots, can prevent it from happening.

AND it shouldn't have happened in the first place! A reminder - Israel had the Hamas Battle Plan a full year in advance. They knew the strategy and tactics, they knew the crossing points that would be attacked. The IDF knew the plan was credible and that they should have paid attention to it because the plan contained accurate secret Israeli military information. They saw that Hamas knew where their Gaza fence military posts were and how many people staffed them. And they knew it was coming because they saw Hamas doing dry runs of the exact same tactics that were described in the Battle Plan. And they should have known the exact day of the operation - the 50th anniversary of the sneak attack that kicked off the Yom Kippur War. But what did Israel do despite having these clear and obvious warnings? They moved their forces AWAY from Gaza to support settler terrorism in the West Bank.

Just try to wrap your head around this. They knew the attack was coming. They should have known the date of the attack. And they had the full strategy guide to figure out counters and strategies to prevent damage and capture attackers. A full year they had to prepare - and they literally did their best to make it easier for Hamas. A number of the people killed in that attack were killed by the IDF - because the IDF was so flatfooted, their response included shooting hellfire missiles at random cars. Just a clusterfuck of deadly incompetence.

Even without ending the occupation - there is an answer to preventing October 7th from ever happening again. The resignations of most of the IDF senior officers and getting Netanyahu and his stupid ass cronies out of government. Giving people that aren't "mow the grass" pilled some positions of authority. It's not hard - October 7th wasn't prevented primarily because Israel just fucking dropped the ball in the worst way imaginable. Just moronic stupid assholes making the worst decisions imaginable. Israel can stop Hamas even without doing the right thing. They can prevent attacks on Israeli citizens merely by not falling into the trap of hubris and overconfident leaders who are dumber than a bag of rocks.

This is of course, a short term solution. Power looks after its own - so even if they did purge the incompetents and got some people other than ass-kissing bootlickers into important positions - time leads to complacency and the rot will set in again. Soon, a new batch of "but what can Hamas do really?" assholes will take over - convinced that they are invulnerable and that they've "solved" the problem of Palestinians being upset with the oppression, blockade, and apartheid. Hubris is a disease that can never be fully cured. Only ending the occupation and granting Palestinians self-determination will make the region safe in the long run. But that doesn't make the stupid racist "But Hamas!" argument any less stupid or racist.

Talking Pants Marshall vs Those Pesky Lefties

Let me start off by noting that I had a great deal of respect for Josh Marshall - indeed, I still do even if it is substantially reduced from before. He was a pioneer in independent subscriber powered news, TPM was and is an outlet that eschews most of the worst sins of mainstream media. It's an outlet where you won't find "both sides" takes or beat sweeteners and it usually has a perspective that's not twisted by Beltway Bubble or alt-right grifter mentality. And despite not hewing to the acceptable norms of what now passes for "journalism" (e.g. comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted) - TPM has garnered a great deal of success. That's very impressive. But Marshall's recent decent into unhinged hippie punching over Gaza and Israel is just completely crazy to me.

It seems to me that - even with current events as they are - his priorities are something like:

The worst - The threat of antisemitism from college kids

Almost as bad - Hamas

Just barely below that - Netanyahu and his fascist right-wing government

HUGE GAP

The fact that tens of thousands of Gazans have been violently killed.

Now I personally find it unbelievably unlikely that this is how he actually sees things. He's not an idiot. But based on his commentary - almost the only times he mentions the harm in Gaza is as part of an attack on pro-Palestine activists. It's more often than not along the lines of "what's happened in Gaza is bad enough that you shouldn't lie about it - and lying about it makes you an antisemite" with the implication that antisemitism (from protestors who are being ignored by their governments) is an unforgivable sin that's way worse than using mass starvation of civilians as a weapon of war.

It's really fucking bonkers actually. He clearly recognizes and acknowledges the harm Israel has inflicted on Gaza. He also has possibly a lower opinion of the Israeli War Cabinet than even I do. But the mere suggestion that Israel might possibly be engaged in genocide breaks him and he immediately categorizes you as human filth, and he will ignore your arguments because you're being mad and need to wipe the spittle from your mouth.

It's like he has vested a ton of his identity into upholding the basic axiom - Israel CANNOT EVER be guilty of genocide. Period. No matter what.

Does he think that the current batch of Israeli leaders are not capable of genocide? I doubt it. He despises Netanyahu and recognizes that the fringe assholes in the war cabinet are worse. Does he deny the harm that's happening in Gaza? No - I think he has acknowledged that it is ethnic cleansing. Perhaps he might think the degree of harm hasn't risen to the level of "genocide" yet - but if this were the case, the way he reacts at the suggestion indicates that sees the gap between what's happening in Gaza and the minimum harm to count as "genocide" is so big that you could see it from space.

So what's the deal here? He's so adamantly opposed to the idea that genocide is happening in Gaza that anyone who says it's possible is unquestionably antisemitic. Despite the fact that he acknowledges that a massive amount of harm has befallen Gaza at the hands of Israel, and that Israel's leaders are fucking shitweasels of the worst kind.

The only answer I have is that it's existential for him. Israel CANNOT EVER be guilty of genocide is a core tenet of his worldview. It's a fundamental truth that is immune to observable facts.

A few days ago he promoted a ludicrous assertion as to why the blatant and clear statements of genocidal intent from Israeli leaders do not qualify as genocidal intent. It's was a little more thought out than "it's just a prank, bro" - but not by much. Essentially it's this - Jews just talk that way. They make outrageous statements without meaning them. Part of how they decide shit is by articulating these extreme conditions so they can weigh even the unthinkable options when making important decisions.

Just fucking bonkers. Look - even if you buy into this excuse, which is some really extreme special pleading - you still have to accept that maybe there's a chance that it's not just academic speculation. That there is a possibility that these statements are serious and honest expressions of intent. Isn't that fair - when someone says something, you have to accept that there's at least a possibility that they are saying what they mean. Otherwise it's like MSM talking heads handwaving Trump's declarations of being a dictator who intends on abusing the office for petty revenge - "because reasons".

And the facts just bear it out. There's video evidence of IDF soldiers repeating the same statements the leaders have made. That language IS filtering down to the troops. Netanyahu's invocation of Amalek was directed at soldiers and the soldiers have been rallying around it as they blow up entire neighbourhoods. AND on top of that - not preventing genocide from happening is also considered genocide - and Israel is doing sweet fuck all to clamp down on the open calls for the complete destruction of Gaza. Does this not count as reasonable argument? Apparently, no - it does not. As per Talking Pants - accusations of genocide are pure antisemitism. In his view - there is no credible or reasonable argument for it, and it can only be motivated by Jew hatred.

Wider Regional Blogging

Iran has retaliated for the Christmas killing of Sayyed Razi Mousavi. This was the Israeli airstrike that hit an apartment in Syria. His role was apparently to co-ordinate between Iran and Syria - so we're going pretty far afield from "Israel has a right to defend itself". Still, the blob will say that this escalation in the regional hostilities is entirely the fault of Iran and Hamas.

Anyways, I found Iran's missile strike quite interesting. Most of the coverage is about the strike on Erbil, the main city of the Kurdish region of Iraq. I'll get to that second because it's much more confusing. The other missile strike was supposedly targeting an ISIS base in Idlib in Syria. The interesting part of this is how far away the target was from Iran. This strike hit a target over 1,200 km away. IOW, the message that Iran is sending with this is "Tel Aviv is within the range of our missiles." Which is a pretty interesting message.

About Erbil. Iran claims that the target they hit was a Mossad base. The Iraqi Foreign Minister has denied that there was any Israeli presence here. This is actually the second time that Iran has attacked Erbil with missiles, the previous time being March, 2022. This is the one I can't unravel. If this was a Mossad base, it's entirely reasonable that Iraq would not know about it. That's the point of the Mossad - they just go wherever they want and do whatever they want, almost as if they were the covert operations arm of a rogue state that has zero respect for international law. OTOH, why would Iran hit the same region twice? If this was a Mossad base, it seems wildly unlikely that they would continue operations in the same city after they had been found out the first time.

One piece of speculation I've seen about it is that this strike hit very close to the US consulate. The Iran backers are citing this as evidence that it was Mossad - as it makes sense for Mossad to locate near the US consulate. Which is a pretty spurious argument. Anyways, they claim that the strike was also a message - that their missiles are accurate enough at this range that hiding next to US facilities will not deter missile attacks. It's a message to both Israel and the US - that they aren't afraid to risk hitting US facilities either because they have enough confidence in their accuracy or they are just ballsy enough not to care. This second part seems more believable - this is a message that Iran would want to send. But it's still weird that they hit the same area they hit two years ago.

Is any of this speculation important? Yes and no. No, because obviously I don't have anywhere near enough information to make good guesses and even if I did, it's extremely unlikely that we'll ever know the actual reasoning. It's just pointless guessing. But also yes - because that's how the human brain works. When we're facing really dangerous shit, we just don't want to think about it at all and will cling to any distraction that comes along. And this is a serious escalation. Iran launched missiles at two targets - one showing that they have the range to hit anywhere in Israel and the other showing that they can accurately drop a missile where they want. And the US-Israel have done absolutely nothing to slow down the escalation and in fact have been constantly piling more fuel on the fire. So yeah, this post is really to say that I'm quite anxious about the way things are headed.

100 Days of Genocide Denial

Here is Biden's statement about the 100 days since October 7.

Just fucking staggeringly bad. If you had just woke up from a coma and read this, you'd be confused as to why they needed to surge humanitarian aid. Did Hamas really take so many hostages that they needed supplies shipped in from other countries just to feed them?

Holy shit this statement is fucking bad.

Spitting Images of Apartheid

While doomscrolling, I came across this video clip. It's presented as "haha funny, Israelis are blind to their own acts violating human rights - in 1989, and still relevant today". But the thing that gets me about it is the numbers. This clip is about the First Intifada - and the "widespread" human rights abuses committed by Israel legitimized the PLO and brought international condemnation. How "widespread" - what was the scope of the casualties in 1989 that lead to international action? Here are the points from 1989 and a comparison with today.

1989 - According to Amnesty International, Israel imprisoned more than 5000 people without trial in three years.

2023 - Israel imprisoned 5000 Palestinians between October 7 and October 21. What took them 3 years during the First Intifada, they accomplished in 2 weeks in October.

Between 1987 and 1989, Israel killed 540 unarmed demonstrators.

2023 - Since October 7, the official death toll has averaged about 250 per day. Even if you accept Israel's ludicrous assertion of only a 2:1 ratio of civilians to Hamas killed (and this ratio is absolutely pure bullshit) - Israel will still only need about half a week to kill 540 civilians.

Between 1987 and 1989, there were 110 children killed by Israel.

2023 - It's about 10,000 children in 100 days. So that shocking number from 1989 of children killed in two years - that's now the average daily death toll. Daily.

Edit: apparently a string of numbers separated by dashes get auto converted to phone number hyperlinks on ios mobile devices. 

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.