GENOCIDE TRIAL SHOULD BE WAKE-UP CALL FOR JERUSALEM
The charge of “genocide” leveled at Israel before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, should be a wake-up call for Jerusalem, but not for the reasons you might think.
South Africa has accused Israel before the United Nations’ highest court of taking actions against Palestinian civilians in Gaza that are “genocidal in character” and “calculated to bring about their physical destruction.” The reference is to the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip caused by Israeli bombs in retaliation for Hamas’ mass murder of 1,200 Jews, mostly civilians, on Oct. 7.
As the world can see on cable and social media, 80% of Gaza’s 2.2 million people are now refugees living in squalor. Israel is permitting insufficient humanitarian aid into Gaza. Two-thirds of the strip’s housing has been pulverized, and 23,000 Palestinians have been killed — two-thirds of them women and children.
Yet the immediate issue is not whether the court ultimately rules for or against Israel. The case is likely to drag on for years, while South Africa must prove there was deliberate Israeli intent to destroy the Palestinian population in Gaza.
Rather, the International Court of Justice case shines a spotlight on Israel’s failure to recognize the immediate consequences of the kind of warfare it is conducting. There is increasing dismay among Israel’s closest allies, along with its Arab partners, at Jerusalem’s refusal to alleviate the widespread suffering in Gaza — even under heavy U.S. pressure to do so.
The moral and strategic blindness of the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing Israel toward global isolation while allowing Hamas to ensnare it in an endless Gaza trap.
Yet despite the massive civilian casualties, Israel has still been unable to locate and destroy much of Hamas’ tunnel structure or find its top leaders. IDF generals say that will take months to do.
About 1.8 million Gazans have been displaced. The strip and its infrastructure have been physically destroyed. No one knows who will run the place or distribute humanitarian aid once the heavy bombing stops, let alone rebuild, and Israel doesn’t want to.
Nor will the Arab Gulf States or the “international community” finance reconstruction or help run the Gaza Strip in lieu of Hamas officials — as Jerusalem is requesting — if IsraeliHamas fighting continues.
So, if you pay attention to what Israeli cabinet ministers are saying — and what Netanyahu is telling U.S. officials — the unannounced Israeli strategy seems to be to depopulate Gaza.
Egypt has made clear that any Israeli attempt to force Palestinians to cross into its Sinai Desert would jeopardize its peace treaty with Israel. The last thing Cairo wants, with its broken economy, is to take responsibility for a million impoverished and bitter Palestinians in tent camps, who will agitate for war with Israel.
Moreover, some key Israeli ministers want to resettle Gaza with Israelis and to effectively annex that territory along with the West Bank, from which they also seek to push out Palestinians by making their lives untenable.
This is called “ethnic cleansing.” It is a war crime, and the White House has warned Netanyahu not to try.
I get it. The country is still reeling from the rape, mutilation and murder of more than 1,000 civilians by Hamas. The Netanyahu government says Gazan civilians are suffering because Hamas embeds among and underneath them.
That’s true. But it doesn’t change the reality that Israel’s revenge on Gaza makes it responsible for a humanitarian disaster of immense proportions. It may not fit the definition of genocide, but it could get there if conditions deteriorate into an epidemic — or if Gazans are driven into the Egyptian desert.
The White House and Arab states are trying to persuade Netanyahu to consider alternative strategies to rebuild the strip, including a political vision for the Palestinians’ future. The Hague proceedings should (but probably will not) focus his mind.