Why South Africa Is Blazing A Sensible Trail

As the world celebrated the new year amidst lingering old wars, the major item that brought hope about a probable quicker end to the human tragedy being unleashed in Gaza was the case filed against the State of Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), otherwise called the World Court, at the Hague.

Like the world did in Rwanda in 1994, it has been passively watching the unfolding mass killing of women and children in Palestine and making little motions of regret with no serious movement towards positive action to save the situation. But more of this shortly.

Of the two practically purposeless long-running conflicts going on in the world right now, one-sidedness is the predominant feature. The first is the Russia-Ukraine war which would enter its second anniversary in February; and the second is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which began in October and is becoming a brutal and genocidal bid by Israel to take Palestine and its people off the map for good.

In both cases, there is one dominant and overwhelming military force pounding away mercilessly at a vassal underdog. The sheer barbarism of the Israeli assault on Palestinians is inexpressibly inhuman for this time and age.

Western allies are supporting Ukraine, the underdog in their backyard, while in a hypocritical role reversal, they are supporting a formidable and overbearing aggressor in the Middle East. 1,200 Israelis were killed in the Hamas revolt of October 7, but the retaliation by Israel since then has gone way out of reason and proportion.

Framing the conflict along with its western backers as an Israel-Hamas war or Israeli self-defence against terror has been a deliberate façade to subdue the Palestinian historical reality. But even if it was a war on terror, Israel has failed to discriminate between terrorists, women, and children.

So far, 22,185 Palestinians have been killed, and 55,035 wounded – and counting – and this is excluding the colossal damage and destruction of infrastructure and habitations. No one can count how many of the dead are members of Hamas.

According to Aljazeera, “In Gaza, Israeli air raids and artillery fire have killed 18,000 people … including at least 7,700 children.”

Israel has not seen the reason it must stop the carnage, despite condemnations from the United Nations and appeals from individuals and organisations across the world. This is why the resort by South Africa to arraign Israel at the International Court of Justice may be late, but very welcome.

In an application to the court on December 29, 2023, South Africa is saying clearly to Israel what other nations are incoherently mumbling under breath: that Israel’s actions in Gaza are “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group.”

“The acts in question include killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, and inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction,” the application stated.

It will not be the first time South Africa is taking principled action against Israel over the current crisis. In November last year, South Africa recalled its ambassador to Israel and withdrew all diplomatic staff, calling on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue a warrant of arrest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

As a sequel on November 21, the South African Parliament had overwhelmingly voted in favour of a motion to close its embassy and severe diplomatic ties with Israel. The motion by the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters – a party ever in disagreement even if only for the sake – was supported by 248 as against 91 votes, signalling acceptance and moral justification.

Perhaps, if other countries had followed South Africa’s determined charge since the Israeli genocide began, Israel would have rolled back the tanks and ceased the aerial bombardments of residential buildings, hospitals, and other infrastructure in Gaza.

Even though bound by the decisions of the World Court as a member state of the UN, the Zionist state is hardly bothered by such decisions, not to mention compliance. Mostly a pariah of international conventions and protocols, Israel is seldom disturbed by UN resolutions or rulings of either the ICJ or ICC.

Unlike Nigeria which hastily surrendered and ceded its territory and people in Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon following a ruling by the ICJ, Israel has spurned the only permanent solution to the Palestinian question – a two-state solution – for as long as the idea has been proffered. In its scant regard for conventions, Israel is apparently backed by the United States.

This is not the first time Israel has been the subject of a case at the ICJ. In 2004, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of the construction of a wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which involved Israel.

Israel never heeded the advice, much less the opinion, giving a cause for why resistance groups like Hamas would keep working at self-help to demand an independent Palestinian homeland.

During the October 7 attack on Israel, Hamas said its attack was against Israel’s 16-year-old blockade of Gaza and expansion of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Settlement expansions pose the biggest hurdle in the realisation of a future Palestinian state comprising Gaza, occupied West Bank, and East Jerusalem.

But as long as it can push back with overwhelming military capability and savagery as it is currently doing in Gaza, Israel remains brazenly aloof.

Israel has rejected global calls for a ceasefire, saying the war would not stop until the Hamas group is destroyed. Israel should seek out Hamas and leave Palestinian noncombatants, women, and children in peace. Even if it takes them a hundred years.

But if history is anything to go by, Israel is only continually sowing the seed of future conflicts because it can never wipe out Palestinians and their resistance.