October 7 Seen in Context
UPDATE
Well the decision of the ICJ is now out. It is better than I
had hoped for but my prediction that the Court would balk at taking the
decisive step of ordering Israel to desist by issuing an injunction has proven
correct.
The decisiveness of the 15-2 majorities surprised me. On one
vote even Israel’s Aharon Barak voted with the majority yet Uganda’s vile
Christian Judge Julia Sebutinde voted against anything that might relieve the present
catastrophic situation.
But at the end of the day Israel has said it doesn’t accept the vote and the United
States, its main backer has said nothing. Western talk of human rights is now
shown to be a sham.
In accepting that there is a ‘plausible’case for genocide
this is clearly a victory for South Africa and the Palestinians. It is just a
pity that they judges of the ICJ didn’t have the courage of their convictions.
Tony Greenstein
ICJ: Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh's powerful closing statement in South Africa case against Israel
Justice Sebutinde ruling at the International Court of Justice does not represent the Government of Uganda’s position on the situation in Palestine. She has previously voted against Uganda’s case on DRC. Uganda’s support for the plight of the Palestinian people has been expressed…
— Adonia Ayebare (@adoniaayebare) January 26, 2024
Today
is the day that the International Court of Justice makes its decision. I hesitate
to speculate as to what the decision might be. Will they issue an interim injunction
to Israel to desist from its genocidal activities or will it end up with a
fudge or compromise instructing Israel to protect the civilian population and
take more care. In which case Israel will proclaim that they are already doing
that.
I
hesitate to make a prediction but nonetheless I will. The Court has come under
an immense amount of political pressure.
The United States has already said
that the case that South Africa has brought to be ‘“meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in
fact whatsoever.”. The UK under Sunak has played its traditional role, which
is one of being America’s faithful lapdog and Keir Starmer has played his
normal role of follow my leader.
https://twitter.com/SaraYafi/status/1750506900163363049?s=20
<blockquote
class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en"
dir="ltr">Happy to report that this video garnered more than
100,000 views within the first couple of hours on IG. <br><br>Over
the last 111 days, since October 7, Isræl has consistently denied targeting
civilians. Well, in this video, I am going to show you that in the history of
its… <a
href="https://t.co/076QZ2QcYp">pic.twitter.com/076QZ2QcYp</a></p>—
Sara El-Yafi (@SaraYafi) <a
href="https://twitter.com/SaraYafi/status/1750506900163363049?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January
25, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async
src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"
charset="utf-8"></script>
Well the
decision of the ICJ is now out. It is better than I had hoped for but my
prediction that the Court would balk at taking the decisive step of ordering Israel
to desist by issuing an injunction has proven correct.
The
decisiveness of the 15-2 majorities surprised me. On one vote even Israel’s Aharon
Barak voted with the majority yet Uganda’s vile Christian Judge Julia Sebutinde
voted against anything that might relieve the present catastrophic situation.
But at the end
of the day Israel has said it doesn’t
accept the vote and the United States, its main backer has said nothing.
Western talk of human rights is now shown to be a sham.
In accepting
that there is a ‘plausible’case for genocide this is clearly a victory for South
Africa and the Palestinians. It is just a pity that they judges of the ICJ didn’t
have the courage of their convictions.
Tony
Greenstein
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttrJd2aWF-Y
ICJ:
Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh's powerful closing statement in South Africa case against
Israel
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Justice Sebutinde ruling at the International Court of Justice does not represent the Government of Uganda’s position on the situation in Palestine. She has previously voted against Uganda’s case on DRC. Uganda’s support for the plight of the Palestinian people has been expressed…</p>— Adonia Ayebare (@adoniaayebare) <a href="https://twitter.com/adoniaayebare/status/1750895305753850001?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 26, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Today
is the day that the International Court of Justice makes its decision. I hesitate
to speculate as to what the decision might be. Will they issue an interim injunction
to Israel to desist from its genocidal activities or will it end up with a
fudge or compromise instructing Israel to protect the civilian population and
take more care. In which case Israel will proclaim that they are already doing
that.
I
hesitate to make a prediction but nonetheless I will. The Court has come under
an immense amount of political pressure.
The United States has already said
that the case that South Africa has brought to be ‘“meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in
fact whatsoever.”. The UK under Sunak has played its traditional role, which
is one of being America’s faithful lapdog and Keir Starmer has played his
normal role of follow my leader.
https://twitter.com/SaraYafi/status/1750506900163363049?s=20
<blockquote
class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en"
dir="ltr">Happy to report that this video garnered more than
100,000 views within the first couple of hours on IG. <br><br>Over
the last 111 days, since October 7, Isræl has consistently denied targeting
civilians. Well, in this video, I am going to show you that in the history of
its… <a
href="https://t.co/076QZ2QcYp">pic.twitter.com/076QZ2QcYp</a></p>—
Sara El-Yafi (@SaraYafi) <a
href="https://twitter.com/SaraYafi/status/1750506900163363049?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January
25, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async
src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"
charset="utf-8"></script>
ICJ:
Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh's powerful closing statement in South Africa case against
Israel
Today
is the day that the International Court of Justice makes its decision. I hesitate
to speculate as to what the decision might be. Will they issue an interim injunction
to Israel to desist from its genocidal activities or will it end up with a
fudge or compromise instructing Israel to protect the civilian population and
take more care. In which case Israel will proclaim that they are already doing
that.
I hesitate to make a prediction but nonetheless I will. The Court has come under an immense amount of political pressure. The United States has already said that the case that South Africa has brought to be ‘“meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.”. The UK under Sunak has played its traditional role, which is one of being America’s faithful lapdog and Keir Starmer has played his normal role of follow my leader.
Happy to report that this video garnered more than 100,000 views within the first couple of hours on IG.
— Sara El-Yafi (@SaraYafi) January 25, 2024
Over the last 111 days, since October 7, Isræl has consistently denied targeting civilians. Well, in this video, I am going to show you that in the history of its… pic.twitter.com/076QZ2QcYp
There is no doubt that if the decision were made on purely legal grounds then South Africa would win hands down. That is the opinion of international law experts. However this is not a court that bases its decisions on legality. It is a political court and its judges are political appointees.
Therefore,
although I would love the court to come to a clear-cut decision instructing Israel
to stop its genocidal attacks my fear is that the court will fudge the decision
and engage in meaningless soundbites. It will criticize Israel without having
the courage to issue an injunction instructing it to stop the genocide that is
taking place.
Children About
To Be Shot
I
sincerely hope that I am wrong but I fear otherwise. Israel has already made it
crystal clear that it will defy an injunction to stop committing genocide. That
means a decision instructing it to desist from further military activities it
will go to the Security Council for enforcement.
The
United States will then veto the resolution and under the Uniting for Peace resolution
377 (V) it will then go to the General Assembly. It is anyone’s guess what
could happen then but theoretically the General Assembly could suspend Israel’s
membership of the United Nations. If Israel was suspended it is likely that the
United States would walk out and the British poodle could follow them.
This
scenario must be playing on the minds of the ICJ which is why I don’t believe
that they will deliver the verdict that most people want. No one doubts that
legally South Africa has clearly met the test of showing intent on Israel’s
part to commit genocide. Indeed it is already doing just that and its
spokespersons, from the President and Prime Minister down have made their
genocidal intentions clear to all.
No
one doubts that Irish lawyer Blinne Ni Ghralaigh made a devastating closing
speech. If it was simply about the case that South Africa made then it would
win hands down but my fear is that this court will allow political
considerations to intervene.
Murder of Man With White Flag
If however the ICJ does do
as I predict then that will be seen as the death of international human rights
law. If the highest court in the world cannot implement the law when there is
such an egregious example of genocide taking place under its very eyes, then
international law is meaningless.
The other question I have
posed is how October 7th will come to be seen in years to come.
Again I hesitate to make predictions but I am convinced that we are seeing the beginning
of the end of Zionism.
Zionism was always an
unnatural political creature and Israel even more so. Israel, even its Jewish part,
has never been able to decide what its identity was. Was it Jewish first or Israeli
first? This is a question on which Israeli Jews themselves are split.
International Court of Justice
October 7 has also made ‘normalisation’
between the treacherous and corrupt Arab regimes and Israel that much harder
though one cannot put it past creatures such as Saudi Arabia’s MBS to plough on
nonetheless.
However the rise of the
Houthis and Hezbollah coupled with the fierce resistance of Hamas and the other
militias in Gaza has destroyed the myth of invincibility that the Israeli state
likes to cloak itself with. Israel may be a nuclear power but despite the
wishes of certain far right Israeli ministers it is unlikely to want to create
a radioactive desert in the Middle East.
It is just possible that Israel
pre-1967 could have turned into a normal bourgeois state, albeit one with
repressive and authoritarian tendencies. After 1967 and the conquering of the
territories with the growth of what Yeshayahu Leibowitz called the Judeo-Nazis this became impossible.
Today we see the far right
settler parties driving Israel’s political agenda and we saw, pre-October 7 the
massive demonstrations in Israel over the judicial reforms. What October 7 postponed
will not go away. We are seeing the symptoms of those divisions in the growing
political crisis in Israel over the hostages as it becomes clear that Netanyahu,
Smotrich and Ben Gvir wish to pursue their war aims regardless of its effect on
the hostages.
Given the choice between
killing Palestinians and saving the hostages Netanyahu and co. unhesitatingly choose
the former.
The relatives of the
hostages though are becoming more and more desperate as they know that the
longer the war goes on, the more of them will die. These divisions roughly
correspond with the divisions over the judicial reforms.
The current government has effectively
declared war on the Palestinians, not only in Gaza but the West Bank. The Palestinian
Authority is barely able to survive as the Israeli government ignores this
Vichy style administration that the Oslo Accords gave birth to. It is doubtful
that this bastard child of Oslo will long survive.
Ever since July the war on
Jenin in particular, but also Nablus and Tulkarem has gone on. I am told that
there hasn’t been one peaceful night in Jenin since July. I know because I
fundraise for the Al Tafawk Children’s Centre there.
There is now a war between
the settlers, armed by Ben Gvir and the Palestinians. A war whose purpose is
ethnic cleansing.
I once asked myself if there
is anything that Israel could do which the United States would sanction it for.
The answer that I have drawn is no. Whatever protestations made by Biden and
Blinken they continue to arm Israel.
The key question that is
posed today is how to get rid of the ‘Jewish’ settler-colonial state, a state
of Jewish supremacy and Apartheid. War with Lebanon seems increasingly likely
and if that happens the conflagration is likely to spread to Iraq and Iran. The
whole region is slipping inexorably into war.
The Houthis have shown the
way but others in the region are not far behind. The Abraham Accords have been
show to be built on sand.
The reality is that if the
repressive and rotten Arab regimes had taken a leaf out of the Houthis book and
embargoed the oil, as they did in 1973, then the United States would have
stopped the genocide in its tracks.
Above all the question of Zionism
and its demise is integrally liked with the death of the Arab regimes, especially
Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Tony Greenstein
See also What will the ICJ announce on Israel’s Gaza war? The possible scenarios
