January 26, 2024

Analysis ICJ Fires Warning Shot at Israel Over Genocide Case at World Court. This Is Why Netanyahu Should Be Worried

Three key points emerged from the International Court of Justice's provisional ruling at the Hague on Friday, in response to South African allegations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

First, the court did not order Israel to cease fire and halt all military operations in the Gaza Strip in its war against Hamas – which began when the terror group killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel on October 7. This indicates that the court isn't convinced at this point that the charge of genocide is visibly founded.

Second, the court issued a series of provisional orders requiring preventive Israeli actions, which suggest it believes Israel is perilously close to violating the UN Genocide Convention to which it is a signatory.

Third, combined with advanced talks over a hostage deal that includes an extended cease-fire in Gaza, this could create major strife in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition where far-right ministers are vehemently opposed to any steps to reduce the intensity of the war.

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The United Nations' top court considers whether a state committed genocide under the Genocide Convention of 1948. It defines this as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group."

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However, that was not the issue being ruled upon on Friday.

"The court is not required to ascertain whether any violations of Israel's obligations under the Genocide Convention have occurred," court President Joan E. Donaghue said at the outset, after confirming South Africa's standing in the case despite not being a party to the conflict and against Israel's objection.

The allegations of violations, she said, will be dealt with at a later stage in the process.

Lots more in the article to read - but since many seem to think that the issue of violations under the Genocide Convention was what today's ruling was supposed to address - thought this article would explain what today's ruling set forth and what is still ongoing.

Haaretz Free Link: https://archive.is/OERS0#selection-1107.0-1215.92]
Haaretz for subscribers: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-26/ty-article/.premium/icj-fires-israel-a-warning-shot-over-genocide-case-this-is-why-netanyahu-should-worry/0000018d-4625-dc44-a5bf-ceb7d5cf0000]

January 26, 2024

Full Document of the ICJ Ruling - gift link from NYT

You can read for yourself the actual rulings and the explanations, etc. here:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/01/26/world/middleeast/icj-gaza-provisional-ruling.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Qk0.Ecee.P0mPS0TFW43D&smid=url-share]

Summarizing:

The Court deems it necessary to emphasize that all parties to the conflict in the Gaza Strip are bound by international humanitarian law. It is gravely concerned about the fate of the hostages abducted during the attack in Israel on 7 October 2023 and held since then by Hamas and other armed groups, andcalls for their immediate and unconditional release. * * *
Indicates the following provisional measures:

(1) By fifteen votes to two, The State of Israel shall, inaccordance with its obligations under the Conventionon the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of ArticleI I of this Convention, inparticular:-
(a) killing members of thegroup; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(2)By fifteen votes to two, The State of Israel shall ensure with immediate effect that its military does not commit any acts described in point 1 above

(3) By sixteen votes to one, The State of Israel shall take all measures within its power to prevent and punish thedirect and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip

(4)By sixteen votes to one, The State of Israel shall take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip

(5)By fifteen votes to two, The State of Israel shall take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of ArticleI I and Article III of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide against members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip

(6)By fifteen votes to two, The State of Israel shall submit a report to the Court on all measures taken to give effect to this Order within one monthas from the date of this Order. I

January 26, 2024

Raz Segal, Holocaust scholar on ICJ ruling

https://twitter.com/democracynow/status/1750873688574964193?s=46&t=LWCY8QyVBo0oSmui9Ib8cg]

When the whole segment is posted on DN recommend watching.

January 25, 2024

Update from Haaretz: Source familiar with cease-fire/hostage release talks: Israel, Hamas reached basic understandings

on most points of the deal

According to a source familiar with the cease-fire/hostage-release negotiations, Israel and Hamas have reached basic agreement on the majority of the deal's terms.

According to the apparent outline, the agreement will last 35 days, during which all Israeli hostages will be released. In exchange, Israel will release Palestinian prisoners and deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

The source added that the criteria for the release of prisoners have already been determined, but their identity is still being debated.

According to the source, the only issue that the parties are unable to bridge is whether a complete cease-fire will be declared as a part of the deal, a Hamas demand that Israel refuses.

They added that "there may be other minor changes in the outline, but the main problem that needs to be solved concerns that absolute cease-fire Hamas insists on."

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-25/ty-article-live/qatar-harshly-rebukes-netanyahu-for-allegedly-labeling-it-as-problematic/0000018d-3e9c-d02c-a79f-7f9f6f250000?liveBlogItemId=593807062#593807062]

January 18, 2024

Protesters March in Tel Aviv, Demanding a Cease-fire in Gaza

Thousands took part in the protest originally cancelled by police. Speaking to the crowd, Heli Mishael of the Standing Together organization, said, 'After 100 days of war, the hostages have not returned, innocent Palestinians are being killed, and we still don't have security… there is another way'

On Thursday night, some 30 Israeli civil society groups, led by Standing Together and Women Wage Peace, led a protest in Tel Aviv against the ongoing war in Gaza. According to organizers, citing the police, over 2,000 people took part in the protest.
The protest was initially scheduled for last week, but police did not give the organizers approval to hold it. Nadav Shofet, an activist from Standing Together, said public pressure was responsible for approval of the event.

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Protesters marched through the city, holding signs reading, "cease-fire now," "only peace will bring security" and "peace from the river to the sea." They chanted, "there will be no security here until there is peace," "Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies," "Not Ben-Gvir, not Hamas, we're sick of extremists," "end the occupation" in Arabic and calls of "Now!" which are ubiquitous at rallies to return the hostages.

Heli Mishael of Standing Together, addressed the crowd: "After 100 days of war, the hostages have not returned, innocent Palestinians are being killed, and we still don't have security… there is another way. We know that when we start marching in the direction of peace, we know that many Israelis and Palestinians will join us."

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A resident of Kibbutz Be'eri, Neta Peleg, said, "I survived the horror, too many people didn't. I am angry at the State of Israel who cheated us, abandoned us … It's time to stand up and demand [a deal], so that there will be no more deaths. We need to go to the Knesset and demand they bring back the hostages while they're still alive. To end the war and get rid of this government."

Sondos Saleh, former MK and member of the Ta'al party, also criticized the Israeli government. Before October 7 she said she had been optimistic about "a chance to build a real, strong united left of Arabs and Jews." Now, she said, "I turn to the Jews who ask, why haven't the Gazans overthrown Hamas? I ask, how have Israelis, which have a much stronger society, not overthrown their government?"
...

Read Entire News Story:
Haaretz Link https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-18/ty-article/.premium/protesters-march-through-tel-aviv-to-demand-cease-fire-in-gaza/0000018d-1de9-dd75-addd-ffe932740000]
Free Link https://archive.is/f2lWP#selection-1055.0-1065.397]

I'm so proud to support the Standing Together organization.

January 18, 2024

Benjamin Netanyahu Says He Opposes Palestinian State In Any Postwar Scenario

From AP via HuffPost https://www.huffpost.com/entry/benjamin-netanyahu-israel-palestinian-state_n_65a95efee4b076abd7aac36b]

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has informed the United States that he opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of any postwar scenario.

The announcement on Thursday exposed the deep divisions that have emerged between the close allies three months into Israel’s war against Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

The U.S. has called on Israel to scale back its offensive and said that the establishment of a Palestinian state should be part of the “day after.”

In a nationally broadcast news conference, Netanyahu vowed to press ahead with the offensive until Israel realizes a “decisive victory over Hamas.” He also rejected the idea of Palestinian statehood. He said he had relayed his positions to the Americans.

“In any future arrangement … Israel needs security control all territory west of the Jordan,” Netanyahu told a nationally broadcast news conference. “This collides with the idea of sovereignty. What can you do?”

“The prime minister needs to be capable of saying no to our friends,” he added.

This was an update to an earlier AP story about

An Israeli airstrike on a home killed 16 people, half of them children, in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, medics said early Thursday. The military continued to strike targets in areas of the besieged territory where it has told civilians to seek refuge.

Quelle surprise!

January 16, 2024

Education Ministry Withdraws Funding of Jewish Event Over Arab Israeli Host

Not a good look right now for Israel . . .

'A woman who represents mixed marriage cannot represent Jewish culture' said the ministry about journalist and host Lucy Aharish, who is married to Jewish Fauda star Tsahi Halevi; the Israeli council that hosts the annual event to 'promote a pluralistic, progressive and free Judaism' demands the ministry to retract its decision

...
"We host religious and secular, Ashkenazim and Mizrahi, right-wing and left-wing, settlement and city people. The flag of the event is the promotion of a pluralistic, progressive and free Judaism with great respect for the Jewish tradition," continued Virba.

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After Virba's request was denied, Itzik Holevsky, Head of the Megiddo Council submitted his own appeal. "Aharish's lecture was moving and fascinating, about marrying a Jew, about the Jewish holidays and the multicultural education of her children in Israel. It was a Jewish lecture in every sense of the word," Holevsky wrote in the notice of appeal.

"We were surprised by the division's decision to deny the proportional part of the annual support, due to the participation of Lucy Aharish at the event and due to the fact that she is not Jewish," Holevsky continued.

"We at the Megiddo Regional Council do not know of a regulation or law that prohibits receiving support for a non-Jewish participant. Moreover, Lucy Aharish was deemed worthy of lighting a torch on the Independence Day of the State of Israel," said Holevsky.

"Lucy Aharish saved dozens of Jews on October 7. Lucy Aharish sends her husband to fight with the Duvdevan [special forces] unit in Gaza. We think she is worthy enough to receive the support of the Division for Jewish Culture. We would appreciate it if you would reconsider the decision and give Megiddo your full support," wrote Holevsky in his appeal.

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Bar Levi's statement to the council goes on to say, "We live in a 'Jewish State' and as the Wing of Jewish Culture, it makes sense that a woman who represents mixed marriage cannot represent Jewish culture." The letter bore the symbol of the Ministry of Education.

Read the full Haaretz report here: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-16/ty-article/israeli-education-ministry-withdraws-funding-of-jewish-event-over-arab-israeli-host/0000018d-1216-d94e-abcf-3bf65cd70000]

The words I have for the signal this sends would probably get me banned.

January 16, 2024

Memorandum of Shin Bet Law Will Enable Israel's Security Agency to Spy on Journalists

The law grants the intelligence agency authority to conduct covert searches of computers, mobile phones without their owners' knowledge. While some professions are protected in the memorandum, journalists are not. Civil rights groups say memorandum 'ignores dangers of political influence'

The memorandum of the Shin Bet law, which aims to grant the domestic intelligence agency the authority to conduct covert searches of computers and mobile phones without the knowledge of their owners, does not exclude journalists from surveillance.

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The comprehensive memorandum concerning amendment of the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) Law, which is being updated for the first time since 2002, is intended to grant the organization additional powers, including sweeping access to databases of state authorities such as the Israel Police, the National Insurance Institute, and government ministries.

Among other things, the amendment proposes allowing the Shin Bet to search computers and phones using spyware – as was the case in the Pegasus affair – subject to the approval of the prime minister's approval, but with minimal Knesset supervision and without any supervision by the courts.
Continued . . . read at link

Democracy at work!

Free Link to Haaretz: https://archive.is/A8tQN#selection-911.0-1011.289]

January 13, 2024

How Israel's Inspection Process Is Obstructing Aid Delivery. Senator Chris Van Hollen describes what he witnessed on the

Egypt-Gaza Border.

From The New Yorker:

Q&A

Last week, the Democratic senators Jeff Merkley and Chris Van Hollen travelled to the Rafah border crossing in Egypt, the entry point for many of the aid trucks into the Gaza Strip. The humanitarian situation in Gaza, where more than twenty-three thousand people are estimated to have been killed in Israel’s military campaign, is extremely dire, and the number of trucks full of food and medicine and other vital goods is insufficient. As recently as Thursday, the United Nations reported that only a hundred and forty-five trucks entered Gaza through Rafah and Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing, which is close to Rafah, but on the Israeli side; human-rights groups have stated that more than three times that many are required. Israel contends that aid trucks have to be closely scrutinized to insure that weapons are not being smuggled into Gaza, but after watching the inspection process at Rafah, Merkley and Van Hollen called the Israeli approach “arbitrary.”

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Why is it getting worse?

Well, it’s getting worse in terms of the level of hunger, and that is the result of people who’ve been denied access to the food they need for too long, and are not getting adequate levels of humanitarian supplies, as well as a dramatic reduction—it went down to zero in early December—of commercial trucks going through the crossings, and of course those trucks used to supply goods to the people of Gaza.

You also said that the inspection process was “arbitrary.” What does that mean in practice?

One of the things we witnessed personally was a large warehouse filled with humanitarian goods that had been rejected at Israeli inspection points. Goods like medical kits used to deliver babies, water-testing kits, water filters, solar-powered desalinization units, tents that people said might’ve been returned because they had metal poles.

So a whole collection of rejected items that seemed purely arbitrary. And I will also say that when one item on a truck is rejected, the entire truck is turned back, and in talking to a truck driver and others we learned that some of these trucks take twenty days to go from the starting point to delivering assistance. So when I say, “a whole truck is turned back,” it goes all the way back to the beginning of the process.

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I want to return to your trip to the Rafah border crossing. You’ve laid out what you thought the facts were, but what is your analysis of what is going on? Why was this inspection process like this?

Well, if I look at the totality of issues, it was clear that there was not sufficient will by Israeli authorities to address the scope and severity of the crisis, and you saw that in many different ways. I would just start on some major data points here, which is, it shouldn’t have taken so long to open the Kerem Shalom crossing. And we know that it wasn’t open because of a political decision by the Netanyahu government, that they did not want to see humanitarian goods transiting through Israeli territory to get to Palestinians in Gaza.

How do we know that?

I know that from conversations I’ve had with multiple people in the [Biden] Administration. And, of course, even today we’re trying to get the Erez crossing open. [The Erez crossing connects northern Gaza with Israel.] So those are some of the big data points when it comes to humanitarian assistance, and then there are all these other facts along the way: the fact that you have a broken deconfliction system within Gaza—I think we need a humanitarian timeout, but absent that you could still have a much better deconfliction process that reflects the way they’ve done it in other conflicts around the world—and again, all these obstacles that have been put in the way of getting goods into Gaza, including the arbitrary rejection of things like medical kits and water-testing kits.

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Highly recommend reading the whole very interesting article.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-israels-inspection-process-is-obstructing-aid-delivery]

January 10, 2024

Analysis Gaza Genocide Case Against Israel: The Key Legal Questions Facing the International Court of Justice

From Haaretz:

By Ayel Gross - a member of the Faculty in Tel Aviv University's Faculty of Law where he teaches International Law and Constitutional Law.

This is a really well outlined analysis of what the ICJ will be reviewing, how the case will or will not be made, etc. I recommend reading the whole article to learn more. There is also an explanation about the difference with proving genocide and proving war crimes and the difference in the ICJ and ICC and what kinds of crimes they review and process for bringing cases before them (important as some DUers seem interested in that)

South Africa's case against Israel is not the first time the world court is being asked to rule on potential genocide. Previous decisions will give hope to both the Palestinians and Israel, but may ultimately highlight the limitations of international law

Under international law, in order to prove genocide is being committed, it is necessary to show both a physical and a mental element: one or more acts have to be done with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

The acts that can fulfill the physical element include killing members of the group, causing serious bodily harm or mental harm to members of the group, and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

As there is no doubt that Israel has killed many Palestinians in Gaza, and caused bodily harm to many others, the issue on which South Africa's claims before the International Court of Justice that Israel commits genocide against Palestinians in Gaza will rise or fall is the question of intent.

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At the same time, given the statements by Israeli officials and the harsh reality in Gaza, the United Nations' top court may end up accepting South Africa's claim. But it is important to recall that because of the special intent required in genocide, it is much harder to prove it than to prove war crimes – where, for example, it would be enough to show an attack was launched intentionally knowing it will cause incidental loss of life to civilians in a way excessive to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated from the attack.

However, while alleged war crimes committed by both Hamas and Israel are now under investigation in the other international court located in the Hague – the International Criminal Court – the International Court of Justice would not have jurisdiction regarding claims on "merely" war crimes.

This is because the world court – unlike the International Criminal Court, which deals with criminal prosecution against individuals – deals only with claims against states, only has jurisdiction based on the consent of states. In this case, such consent exists because both South Africa and Israel are members of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which determines that disputes relating to the convention shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute.

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However, direct compliance is not the whole story. While a U.S. veto may protect Israel from enforcement decisions in the Security Council, an order by the world court may lead to different forms of international pressure upon Israel: diplomatic and political, economic and legal.

Whether the court proceedings will help alleviate the huge suffering caused to civilians during this war remains to be seen. Ending the horror afflicting so many, both Israelis and Palestinians, is a noble goal. The question of whether international law, with all its limitations – be it ones of jurisdiction, merit or compliance – can assist in reaching this goal is one we will be attuned to in the next few months.

There is so much information in this analysis which I can't post in this thread due to copyright policies on DU. But for anyone sincerely interested in learning how it works - I highly recommend taking the time to read Prof. Gross' analysis.

Haaretz link for subscribers: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-10/ty-article/.premium/gaza-genocide-case-against-israel-the-questions-the-international-court-of-justice-faces/0000018c-f3b7-d6ce-abcc-fbbfe7680000]

Free Link https://archive.is/Ja02r#selection-1551.0-1559.417]