South Africa Initiates Case Against Israel at International Court of Justice

By Julia Conley

The African country, one journalist noted, "fought for its own liberation against an apartheid regime supported for decades by the U.S."

"No one knows apartheid like those who fought it before," said one Palestinian rights advocate on Friday in response to the news that South Africa has taken a "historic" new step to hold Israel accountable for its relentless bombardment and violent yearslong occupation of Gaza—calling on the International Court of Justice to declare that Israel has breached its obligations under the Genocide Convention.

The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) in South Africa said it is "gravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants" and called on the ICJ to take action to force Israel to "immediately cease" its current attacks on Gaza's 2.3 million residents.

The motion was filed as the death toll in Gaza surpassed 21,500 people and tens of thousands of displaced residents fled an Israeli ground offensive, as airstrikes continued in southern Gaza.

Noting that South Africa has consistently condemned all attacks on civilians, including the assault by Hamas on southern Israel on October7, the country's representatives at hte ICJ said Israel's bombardment of Gaza is "genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and [ethnic] 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," reads the application filed at the ICJ.

South Africa took its latest action regarding Israel less than two weeks after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the government had submitted documents to the International Criminal Court (ICC) supporting its demand, made in November with several other countries, that the court investigate Israel for war crimes.

While the ICC prosecutes individuals and governments for committing war crimes, the ICJ operates under the United Nations to rule on disputes between countries. The ICJ's orders are binding for Israel, as the country is a U.N. member state.

South Africa has joined international human rights experts—including the U.N.'s top expert on human rights in occupied Palestine—in saying Israel's blockade of Gaza and violent treatment of those in the enclave and the West Bank is a form of apartheid, comparing Israeli policies to the racial segregation that was imposed for nearly five decades by the white minority that controlled South Africa.

Last month, the government voted to suspend diplomatic ties with Israel until Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government agrees to a permanent humanitarian cease-fire.

"South Africa has continuously called for an immediate and permanent cease-fire and the resumption of talks that will end the violence arising from the continued belligerent occupation of Palestine," the government said Friday.

Journalist Jeremy Scahill was among those who recognized the significance of South Africa's application at the ICJ, noting that the country "fought for its own liberation against an apartheid regime supported for decades by the U.S.," which is backing Israel's assault on Gaza despite international outcry and protests within the United States.

"The U.N. Genocide Convention must be upheld. Israel must be held accountable," said former U.N. human rights official Craig Mokhiber, who resigned from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in October in protest of the U.N.'s failure to stop Israel's massacre of civilians. "International law must be preserved."

At the ICJ, South Africa called for an expedited hearing on Israel's actions and asked the court to indicate provisional measures under the Genocide Convention to "protect against further, severe, and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people."

Article 2 of the Genocide Convention, adopted in 1948, states that genocide includes acts committed with the "intent to destroy, either in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group."

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, pointed out Friday that "the three leading Israeli officials have declared the intent" to wipe out Gaza's population.

Bishara noted that Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in October that all civilians in Gaza are "responsible" for Hamas' attack on southern Israel, days after Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the military would collectively punish the enclave's population, who he called "human animals."

Netanyahu also said this week that so-called "voluntary migration" of Gaza residents is the ultimate objective of Israel's assault.

On Friday, the spokesperson for Israel's Foreign Affairs Ministry, Lior Haiat, dismissed South Africa's motion as "baseless" and a "despicable and contemptuous exploitation of the court."

Despite top officials' recent statements, Haiat said the government has "made it clear that the residents of the Gaza Strip are not the enemy."

Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director for Human Rights Watch, called South Africa's move "a vital step to propel greater support for impartial justice." 

This article originally appeared in Common Dreams on December 29th, 2023.  

Read the post below related to this topic

'No One Is Spared': South Africa Presents Genocide Case Against Israel at ICJ, Common Dreams

Please support the news you can use and visit The Brooks Blackboard's website for more news!   Take a look at my brief bio about my writing life and on social media:

Facebook page: The Brooks Blackboard

Twitter: @_charlesbrooks

What did we miss in Tennesseee?

 words by charles brooks

A few months back, two Black state representatives, Rep. Justin Jones, (D-Nashville), and Rep. Justin Pearson, (D-Memphis)  protested gun violence in Nashville, and was briefly expelled from Tennessee’s House of Representatives. They did return to office days later but they were forced to win “special” elections, months later to serve out their original terms.

Their brief expulsion drew nationwide attention to Tennessee’s racial and partisan politics, amplifying the ongoing tensions between Black Democrats and White Republicans there.  The brief expulsion triggered a very public display of party loyalty amongst Black Democrats that quickly turned this show of racial politics into a political spectacle.  

The bright lights and camera flashes surrounding this spectacle managed to dim attention or urgency around the Republican supermajority in Tennessee’s state legislature that enabled the expulsion.  Taking advantage of the low hanging fruit in electoral politics – race and partisan politics, there was a massive marketing campaign catapulting the “Justin’s” into the limelight. 

Minimum Wage Hikes Will Boost Pay of Nearly 10 Million US Workers in 2024

 "These raises are the outcome of over a decade of workers organizing with Fight for $15," said the National Employment Law Project.

Tireless campaigning by economic justice advocates helped to secure minimum wage hikes for nearly 10 million U.S. workers starting in 2024, and one think tank noted on Wednesday that further successes at the state and local levels are expected in the coming year—but experts said the federal government must catch up with state legislators to deliver fair wages to all workers.

Louisiana’s low voter turnout attributed to apathy, mistrust

 

In an important election year — featuring races for governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer, secretary of state, attorney general and several local government seats — Louisiana saw historically low voter turnout. Experts are still looking at why.

Only about 36% of registered voters cast ballots in October’s primary election, marking the lowest turnout in a Louisiana gubernatorial primary since 2011. The general election in November saw even lower turnout, when only about 23% of registered voters made it to the polls.

“This entire state didn’t show up,” said Ashley Shelton, president and CEO of the Power Coalition, a nonpartisan civic engagement group.

Celebrating Working-Class Victories in 2023

By Sarah Anderson

From the picket lines to state houses to the White House, champions in the fight against inequality landed huge wins.

Looking for something positive to celebrate on New Year’s Eve? Consider lifting a glass to the hardworking people behind these inspiring victories of 2023.

1. The ‘Year of the Strike’

More than half a million American workers walked off the job this year. In October, companies lost more workdays to strikes than in any month during the past 40 years.

Big 3 auto workers, Hollywood writers and actors, Las Vegas and Los Angeles hotel staff, and Kaiser Permanente health care employees were among those who used strikes to score big bargaining table wins. For UPS drivers, the mere threat of a Teamsters strike was enough to secure historic wage hikes and safety protections.

After renewing contracts with Ford, GM, Stellantis, and UPS, the UAW and the Teamsters doubled down on efforts to organize the unorganized. The Teamsters picketed outside 25 Amazon warehouses, demanding a fair contract for unionized drivers at a California-based delivery service for the notoriously anti-union retailer. The UAW set their sights on non-unionized car companies, causing so much indigestion among Nissan, Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai executives that they immediately hiked wages for their U.S. employees.