SA misrepresents the meaning of genocide in charge against Israel

In the Gaza conflict, the actions of only one side — Hamas — fit the definition laid out in UN convention

If all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed — if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. ”— George Orwell, 1984 Words, meanings, intentions and actions are intrinsically connected. History has taught the Jews and other victims of genocide that when groups repeatedly make genocidal threats against them they are often sincere in their intentions. Given the capability, these groups are likely to act upon their threats. Mass and systematic murder of national, ethnic, racial or religious groups always begins with words of violence.

The UN Genocide Convention purposefully defines genocide as actions taken with the intent of partially or completely destroying a group based on their nationality, ethnicity, race or religion. There is only one side of the HamasIsrael conflict that squarely and decisively fulfils this definition, and that is Hamas.

Hamas is a genocidal organisation by definition. This fact was well established long before the October 7 genocide of Israeli babies, the elderly and infirm, children, parents and whoever else the terrorists could get their hands on.

Anyone who cares to read Hamas’ founding charter of 1988, a modern version of Mein Kampf littered with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and subsequent calls to murder Jews, will understand this.

Hamas leaders have since the organisation’s founding regularly and systematically repeated this theme in different ways. In 2008, Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum said: “Hamas will continue the resistance until the last drop of blood.” In 2009, Hamas leader Mahmoud a-Zahar stated that the proscribed terror group “must lay the foundation for a tomorrow without Zionists”. In 2019, Fathi Hammad, a member of Hamas’ politburo, called for attacks on “every Jew on the globe” during a demonstration in Gaza.

No meaning other than intention to commit genocide can be attributed to such words. On October 7 2023 Hamas launched a genocidal attack — the worst one-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas had the capacity to convert words into action, and did so in full force. Twelve hundred Israeli civilians were murdered in a pogrom imitating pre-World War 1 massacres of Jews, and 240 were taken hostage (130 of whom are still held in captivity in Gaza).

Israel is a sovereign state with the legal right and moral obligation under international law to protect its citizens from attack. It has no option but to eliminate the existential genocidal threat posed by Hamas. Israel does not exist because of the Holocaust, but her existence ensures there will never be another one. Yet SA’s complaint to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has the primary object of delegitimising the Jewish state’s right to protect herself and the Jewish people against a second Holocaust.

This is the crux of where SA’s pernicious argument not only fails but is a perverse reversal of reality. Hamas’ intent on October 7, and its ongoing intention, is to commit genocide against Jews, while Israel’s response aims to prevent genocide. It is undeniable that innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed in the process, and any decent human being would empathise with their tragedy. But Hamas is entirely to blame for deliberately putting Palestinians in harm’s way.

Palestinian civilians have been killed because Hamas intentionally hides behind its civilian population, operates its military infrastructure from places such as hospitals, and fires rockets from schools and kindergartens. Hamas wickedly uses its own Palestinian population as physical and moral weapons against Israel.

After the shocking atrocities of October 7, has Hamas renounced its genocidal intentions and thus ended Israel’s need to continue operations? On the contrary.

“We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it twice and three times,” said senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad in an interview on October 24. “The Al-Aqsa Deluge [the operational name of Hamas’ murderous onslaught on October 7] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth,” he continued.

In Bosnia v Serbia (2007), the ICJ decided that “for a pattern of conduct to be accepted as evidence of its existence, it would have to be such that it could only point to the existence of such intent”. It stated that genocidal intent must become “the only inference that could reasonably be drawn from the acts in question”. The court would require “persuasive and consistent evidence” to consider acts consistent with the serious crime of genocide.

This judgment speaks directly to the atrocities of Hamas. And yet the SA government mendaciously blames Israel not Hamas for genocide, and seeks an injunction to make Israel

not Hamas cease hostilities. We appear to be living in a bizarro universe where right is wrong, wrong is right, and those defending themselves from genocide while demonstrably doing everything possible to minimise civilian deaths are accused of perpetrating it.

When the word “genocide” is deliberately and systematically separated from its meaning, the real victims of genocide suffer a second time. SA has done a historical injustice to the memory of the Tutsis of Rwanda, the Darfuris of Sudan, the Bosniaks of Bosnia, the Yazidis of Iraq, the Rohingyas of Myanmar, the Jews of Europe and others who were all victims of actual genocide.

When the ANC government refers Israel to the ICJ for genocide and crimes against humanity, and mere days later President Cyril Ramaphosa warmly welcomes Hemedti, the perpetrator of the Darfur genocide, to Pretoria, it is clear that SA has no interest in the real meaning of the word “genocide” and its prevention. It is merely politicising the court by separating the word from its meaning.

The SA government will be judged by future generations for its Orwellian attempt to pass this big lie into history.