Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza continues with the death toll nearing 23,000 about 70 percent women and children. The world seems powerless to stop the slaughter.
The Biden administration withdrew the resolution passed by the UN Security Council on December 22, rendering it merely symbolic. The final resolution called for humanitarian assistance but not for a ceasefire, which would allow aid to reach the people of Gaza. The US saved diplomatic face by not employing its customary veto just electing instead to abstain.
Special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Paula Gaviria Betancur on the same day warned that Israel seeks to change permanently the composition of Gaza’s population with additional evacuation orders, and systematic and widespread attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in areas of southern Gaza.
The Centre for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit on November 13, on behalf of Palestinian human rights organizations, Palestinians, and Palestinian Americans against President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, charging them with failure to prevent genocide and complicity in genocide.
It sought an emergency court order to halt US military and diplomatic support to the Israeli government. The suit documents how Israel is committing genocide as defined in the Genocide Convention. Yet, the carnage continues unabated.
The ICJ issued an advisory opinion against Israel in the case involving the barrier wall it built on Palestinian land in 2004,. There is another advisory opinion case pending in the ICJ about the legality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
The UK’s former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, attended a UN session in Geneva called by Palestine on December 12 represented by more than 120 countries. Murray spoke to several delegates about why no country has submitted the matter of Israel’s genocide to the ICJ.
The answer is now clear. It is not that people are worried that a claim of genocide will not be successful at the International Court of Justice. It is that everybody is quite sure it will succeed.
Once the ICJ has determined that this is a genocide, it follows that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hundreds of senior Israeli officials and military personnel become liable. It is plain that Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and members of their administrations are also criminally liable for complicity, having provided military support for the genocide.
The International Criminal Court cannot ignore a judgment of genocide from the International Court of Justice and will have no choice but to issue arrest warrants.
Former director of the New York Office of the UN’s High Commissioner of Human Rights Craig Mokhiber, who resigned in October to protest the UN’s failure to prevent Israel’s genocide, called it an unprecedented textbook case of genocide. There is no doubt that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Mokhiber speaking at a December 13 webinar sponsored by the Institute for Policy Studies, Friends Committee on National Legislation, and MPower Action, said that Israel has murdered entire bloodlines, multigenerational families, and whole neighborhoods in Gaza.
Tel Aviv has destroyed the civilian infrastructure and intentionally imposed disease, hunger, thirst, and a lack of medical care on the people in Gaza. This amounts to the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, Mokhiber said, which constitutes a genocidal act.
Mokhiber said the ICJ could infer genocidal intent from Israel’s conduct adding the court does not need to infer intent from conduct because Israel is openly declaring its genocidal intent through public statements uttered by Israeli government officials the intent to reduce Gaza to rubble, to bury Gazans, etc.