South Africa emerges as ethical large on Gaza

— Consortium Information

THE collective West will perpetually stand disgraced and uncovered attributable to its blind assist of Israel’s genocidal slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza since October 7.

What passes for governance in Washington, Berlin, Paris, London et al. has pressured us all to bear witness to infanticide, excessive crimes and struggle crimes with out finish these previous few months. Stated crimes have been dedicated not within the identify of self-defence however fairly within the identify of ethno-nationalism, settler-colonialism and white supremacy.

Israel’s capacity to behave with impunity is a characteristic of the innocence it has claimed to take pleasure in because the nationwide house of a Jewish folks whom Hitler marked out for extermination in a European Judeocide that ranks as against the law of the ages.

The tragic side to this horrific episode in ‘European historical past’ is the cynical trend during which a Zionist motion, rooted within the ethnic cleaning of a folks deemed to belong on a decrease rung of a malign cultural ladder, manipulated it to be able to obtain its goals.

The mantra of ‘by no means once more!’ has, ever since, been deployed as a sword in opposition to a folks and area fully harmless of the try to wipe European Jewry off the map, fairly than a defend to make sure that the crime of genocide by no means re-occurs in opposition to any folks, wherever, and at any time once more in human affairs.

Which brings us to the present authorities of the Republic of South Africa’s fairly gorgeous intervention in bringing authorized proceedings in opposition to the state of Israel to the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, underneath the auspice of The Genocide Conference, introduced into worldwide legislation by a nascent United Nations in 1948.

Israel, predictably, has come out swinging in opposition to what it views because the temerity of any authorities to dare accuse it of genocide. The accusation of blood libel has been levelled at Pretoria, in different phrases anti-Jewish racism, together with a litany of baseless slurs.

Right here, once more, we’re invited to stick to a rendering of the Holocaust which holds that violence unleashed by the state of Israel is completed so within the identify of the useless of Auschwitz, and subsequently comes anointed with the halo of impunity.

Crashing into this mythos was Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s brazen and chilling biblical injunction, included in a speech he gave to his folks initially of Israel’s army operation in and in opposition to Gaza in October.

To wit:

‘Keep in mind what Amalek did to you (Deuteronomy 25:17).’

This explicit Previous Testomony injunction sanctions the extermination of the traditional tribe, Amalek, by God within the identify of his chosen folks, the Jews, after they emerge from bondage in Egypt.

That Netanyahu, chief of a twenty first century state, noticed match to incorporate it in mentioned speech on the outset of Israel’s floor invasion constitutes, does it not, a de facto case of genocidal intent?

Landmark proceedings within the Hague

THIS, inter alia, varieties the spine of what is going to be landmark proceedings in entrance of the ICJ within the Hague, scheduled to happen on January 11 and 12.

Black South Africa has lengthy supported the Palestinian wrestle. Famously, it’s most illustrious son, Nelson Mandela, as soon as declared the next throughout a 1997 speech marking that yr’s Worldwide Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian folks:

‘However we all know too effectively that our freedom is incomplete with out the liberty of the Palestinians.’

Simply on the straightforward chorus that ‘it takes one to know one,’ post-apartheid South Africa has by no means been in any doubt that Israel is an apartheid state. On this it has now been joined by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty Worldwide and all folks of conscience and consciousness around the globe.

That post-apartheid South Africa, with this authorized case, now accuses Israel of being a genocidal state breaks new floor. Once more, on an ethical and historic stage, it challenges the State of Israel’s declare to the innocence which for a lot too lengthy has allowed it to behave with impunity in opposition to the long-suffering Palestinians.

On this respect, it bears emphasising that Hamas is a symptom fairly than a trigger. It’s the product of structural oppression, apartheid, ethnic cleaning and the numerous October 7s endured and suffered by the Palestinians since 1948. It isn’t the trigger.

Within the final evaluation, both worldwide legislation applies in every single place or it applies nowhere. In bringing ahead this case in opposition to the state of Israel, the Republic of South Africa stands tall. The place she goes others will hopefully now observe. [Turkey and Malaysia have expressed support for South Africa’s genocide case against Israel.]

Consortiumnews.com, January 5. John Wight, creator of Gaza Weeps, 2021, writes on politics, tradition, sport and no matter else.