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.
1 comment:
Well said!
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