I can find no reference in the Order to the ICJ having jurisdiction over anyone other than the state parties to the Genocide Convention of whom South Africa and, incredibly, Israel are two.(There is lots of detail about jurisdiction with no mention of Hamas.) However, under ‘conclusion and measures to be adopted’, para 85 states
“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, and calls for their immediate and unconditional release.”
A ‘call for’ is not the same as an order of course but the scumfucks will make hay with this.
Sadly, before the above agonizing, the intro. starts;
"The Court begins by recalling the immediate context in which the present case came before it. On 7 October 2023, Hamas and other armed groups present in the Gaza Strip carried out an attack in Israel, killing more than 1,200 persons, injuring thousands and abducting some 240 people. . . "
Did they really have to adopt a false narrative as their own?
I notice that the Israeli judge, while dissenting from nearly everything of course, voted for the proposition that
“The State of Israel shall take all measures within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip”
Very odd that Netanyahu felt compelled to approve a known ‘liberal’ judge for the ICJ panel. I guess the Israelis will find themselves to be true advocates of free speech now, at least in one respect. I’d also guess that the Ugandan judge is a rabid Christian Zionist. Bless.
Hi @AlanG , we seem to have picked up the same points.
By the way has the text of the decision been issued yet?
I wonder if the Ugandan judge has been reading up on the history of the real Rwandan genocide per Herman and Peterson where they trace Kagami’s rise from his time in Uganda and conclude the Kagami Tutsi’s were the real genocidairs!
You are absolutely right - even the report shows that - para 14 says:
“The scope of the present case submitted to the Court, however, is limited, as South Africa has instituted these proceedings under the Genocide Convention”
some good points made - I liked b’s statement that the ICJ could not order a ceasefire as you need to be able to tell all sides to cease fire which is not possible with Hamas- although of course telling Hamas to give up the hostages under humanitarian law is a bit weak when the court claims its scope is only the genocide convention!
Having reviewed the text of the decision on these preliminary measures it seems to me that 78 and 79 require consideration of whether the acts of violence which may be committed by Israel from today onwards are done with intent to destroy the Gazans in whole or in a substantial part - here Israel may have some wriggle room if they can keep their mouths shut and show a complete change of modus operandi to show they are using guided weaponry that can distinguish civilians from combatants and that they have flooded Israel with the new deal - no intent to destroy Gazan civilians!
However, paras 80, 81 and 82 do not require evidence of the lack of genocidal intent - Israel is just being told what it has to do with the object of protecting Gazans from further deterioration in their position and ensuring that evidence doesn’t go walk about and asking Israel to report back in a month to show what they’ve done or not done! As the South African Minister said outside the ICJ yesterday - to enable humanitarian aid to get into the whole of Gaza in an effective way the indiscriminate bombing and shelling has to stop which is an effective ceasefire!
A very interesting analysis and I am leaning towards agreeing with him. Typical of an ex-UN official (even a whistleblower) to talk about the effects of the ICJ decision, which will maybe have impact on the Palestinians down the road, one year, two, or even further.
However, if I was in Gaza, I would be lost for words that the ICJ did not order an immediate ceasefire. In fact, that was my initial reaction. I was angry beyond belief. Hey; let’s not forget those poor hostages ‘kidnapped’ by Hamas.
Great spot @CJ1 of the State Department apparatchik looking up!
<<to enable humanitarian aid to get into the whole of Gaza in an effective way the indiscriminate bombing and shelling has to stop which is an effective ceasefire!>>
Undermined entirely by the sudden discovery that UNWRA were somehow part of the Hamas ‘attack’ but no one thought to mention this four months ago and the lockstep defunding and libel of the organisation in the last couple of days.
Wouldn’t it be true to say that the ICJ couldn’t ‘order a ceasefire’ because that would have implied that they were assuming jurisdiction over both parties? (I know they already overstepped the mark by referencing Hamas in connection with the outbreak of Israel’s genocide and in ‘calling for’ Hamas to do something they had not been asked about; but ‘ordering’ Hamas to partake of a ceasefire as if it was an equally guilty contender would have looked really too silly.)
Israel is signed up to the genocide convention as a state party: I don’t think non-state actors can qualify. South Africa’s case was against Israel alone and the ICJ ruling was therefore quite properly directed to Israel alone and was actually clear enough (eg. stop killing Palestinians. . .) for anyone with ears and half a brain cell. Oh, and a moral compass. And no intent on the final solution.
‘Ceasefire’ doesn’t describe what is needed anyway: as has been the case for 47, 76, 130, years it only requires the invader to stop stealing land and killing people for there to be an end to the violence. The word ‘ceasefire’ itself implies some sort of moral equivalence between warring parties. I won’t have it!
You are right to say that the ICJ does not have any jurisdiction over Hamas. However, put yourself in the shoes of a Gazan. You have been walking south for three days. Then they bombed the southern are you are in. Your home has been obliterated. Your kids are cold and hungry. Several of your relatives are dead and a few more are missing. I think you would want the ICJ to find a legal way to tell Israhell to stop immediately. They are legal experts after all. Telling Israhell to stop the genocide now I’m sure would not be beyond their legal minds even if it had no basis for enforcement.
It seem to me that what the ICJ have done (from the Gazan’s perspective) is to tell them to stop the genocide, perhaps in a month, or maybe another month or two after they have considered the fox’s report on who got into the chicken house?
Hi folks, I wonder if there will be a change of approach under the new president of the ICJ - appointed by secret ballot in the General Assembly of the UN:
The President is in fact a Lebanese judge, judge Nawaf Salam - seemingly anti-Israel
The Vice President is the Ugandan, judge Julia Sebutinde from Uganda
who was the pro-Israel judge voting alone against the other 15 or 16 judges
If I was Nawaf Salam I’d take a different route to & from work for the next couple of weeks at least, check under my car every time and not open the front door. . .
Hi @AlanG, that thought actually crossed my mind in view of the appointment of the new Vice-President - although I am not sure that the VP of the ICJ just slots in for long as President if he becomes “unavailable”.
Oh bugger, yes I think you’ve posted this info before and I forgot.
On another tack, I just found a brilliant piece of mind-fuckery quoted in this (otherwise) very perceptive Mondoweiss piece about the recent US sanctioning of 4 Israeli settlers:
Get this, from the preamble to the executive order;
“the situation in the West Bank — in particular high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages, and property destruction — has reached intolerable levels and constitutes a serious threat to the peace, security, and stability of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, and the broader Middle East region.”
Read that again carefully. We are being told that there are levels of extremist settler violence which are actually tolerable (but have now been exceeded).
Hang on, its only the high levels that can be problematic, not the normal ones presumably.
Wait a minute, these are only the levels of violence we see practised by extremist settlers, not the nice ones.
And you couldn’t call a settler violent just because they live on someone else’s land without permission, against international law, enabled by just the threat of lethal force by a protective army could you?
Recent evidence is abundant. e.g. settlers steal all of a West Bank farmers livestock while thugs in uniform restrain the farmer. Meantime, in Gaza, snipers are shooting stray sheep.
The Rule of Claw is always constructed with the appropriate loopholes which can reverse the sense of the rule in the first place.
One of the most fundamental points about the whole Israeli Palestine issue is the failure of almost everyone to take on board the fact that Israel has never established any borders and occupies all of its land illegally. UNSC resolutions usually just require Israel to revert to its pre 1967 borders without recognising that they had no pre-1967 borders. When Israel talks of attacks against Israel by Hamas no-one points out that Hamas is not attacking Israel within its recognised borders, Hamas is attacking illegal occupiers of land owned by Palestinians for which any occupier has no right to defend. The ICJ has consistently ruled that no State has the right to retain land obtained by violence and they have no right of self defence when their victims seek to reverse that illegal confiscation of land, even by force.
The ICJ has, I believe, suggested that Israel has the right to defend itself from attacks on its territory - but if the borders have never been settled where does Israel start or end? Is there even any land within the State of Israel that has not been obtained by illegal force? Does it therefore have any right of self defence against its victims at all?
It has been argued that the UN recognised the State of Israel in March 1949 when the GA admitted Israel into the UN but the borders don’t seem to have been identified. In earlier UN resolutions and British policy statements equal distribution of land and civil rights were proposed but the 1947 181 GA decision didn’t seem to get confirmed by the UNSC. Further, jewish terrorists in the 1948 Nakba massacred thousands of Palestinians and forcibly cleansed them from much of Palestine.
This created facts on the ground, as did the Israeli Stern gang assassination of Count Bernadotte the UN mediator on 17 09 1948, a day after he presented a settlement proposition to the UN hated by Israelis.
Despite the mafia tactics by Israelis in 1948 they were admitted to the UN 6 months after killing Bernadotte (who had laid the foundation for the UNRWA!) as a “peace-loving state” !
But where is the international law establishing Israel’s border? And, where does the UN charter grant the UN power to rubber stamp colonial land grabs and subsequent policies?
