Link to the summary of findings submitted by South Africa: https://apnews.com/article/un-court-south-africa-israel-gaza-genocide-71be2ce7f09bfee05a7cae26689ee262

South Africa’s 84-page filing says Israel’s actions “are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part” of the Palestinians in Gaza.

It asks the ICJ, also known as the world court, for a series of legally binding rulings. It wants the court to declare that Israel “has breached and continues to breach its obligations under the Genocide Convention,” and to order Israel to cease hostilities in Gaza that could amount to breaches of the convention, to offer reparations, and to provide for reconstruction of what it’s destroyed in Gaza.

  • Silverseren@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    I would really advise everyone to read (or at least skim) South Africa’s application to the ICJ for the genocide charges. It goes incredibly hard with specifics on quotes, actions, and just generally everything that clearly showcases the purposeful and active results of Netanyahu’s government. They make it quite clear that nothing of what’s happening or has happened was an accident and is being done without thinking or consideration.

    And they bring all the references needed to back up their statements.

      • hglman@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        It says that no matter how horrible an act of war it cannot serve as justification for genocide. Can you detail how that’s cringe?

        • nyctre@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Don’t reply to rivermonster. Argues in bad faith and licks IDF boots super hard. Really don’t bother. Every Israel thread is filled with his apologism.

          • SoleInvictus@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            I think it’s important that people shoot him down using actual facts and reason, then otherwise ignore him. If it keeps just one ambivalent person from believing his lies, it’s worth it. Propagandists like him rely on a lack of pushback to spread their lies.

            • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              True. It’s important to respond not to him but to the people reading his propaganda. Also to educate them on how to refute other IDF propaganda.

              It’s pretty insane how many full on IDF trolls there are which are clearly not interested in changing their minds. Even Trump didn’t have this many trolls to defend him outside of conserve echo chambers.

        • rivermonster@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          TLDR:

          Condemns genocide, opening statement then disregards the attack (an act of genocide itself) by a group literally founded to commit genocide that caused the current conflict.

          Long answer:

          Sure, happy to: opening their genocide case by highlighting a genocidal attack by their allies (Hamas in this case), and then dismissing it. And only focusing on your allies’ enemy for your argument that is alledgedly based on principal ; it both undermines the credibility of the failed state of SA and their argument.

          This is a country that refused to arrest a criminal wanted for genocide.

          Excusing your allies is contrary to arguing principal (in that a principal based argument isn’t selective on whether you like Hamas and hate Israel). It’s all sorts of super cringe and transparent what they’re doing.

          Hamas, their buddy, and worldnews’ darling were literally founded on committing genocide. Their goal is to destroy Israel. Their foundation is a statement of genocidal intent. Their words.

          In the end, it’s all academic. The court can’t do shit to Israel anymore than the failed state of SA can. ICJ and the ICC are as impotent as all the alt-left kids crying. In reality, this is most likely just propaganda and distraction from SA helping a criminal escape genocide charges.

          Omar al-Bashir had warrants out for genocide, and SA refused to arrest him even though as signatories it was mandatory (back in 2015). They were fine with his crimes of genocide, but then again, he wasn’t Israeli. LOL, they do NOT care about the principal.

          To be fair, pretty much everything about the whole thing is cringe. It’s just bait for the stupids and the gullibles.

          Though it makes for a good laugh when you look at who the alt-left jumps into bed with.

        • rivermonster@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I think genocide is not acceptable. I think the misuse of it by you and others is reprehensible and diminishes the term. I think you don’t seem to know what genocide is or looks like. There are historical examples, and you could learn a lot.

          • BleatingZombie@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            There are lots of examples and I’ve studied them in university. They all look like what Isreal is preparing to do

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        11 months ago

        Before the Serbs started the genocide of Bosnians, they were the subject of atrocious attacks by Bosnians. Look up the Green Berets or Salon Mahmuljin. The Serbs were also carrying the memory of the Ustasha genocide against them during WW2. They had a victim mentality, they felt their national survival was at stake and they had been brutally attacked. They then committed genocide.

        The atrocities of October 7 have (tragically!) been eclipsed by the genocidal campaign that has followed them.

        See also this: https://youtu.be/T8qGubNO_c0?si=qeZTSxx5WhqPr1vp

  • BeautifulMind ♾️@lemmy.worldOP
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    11 months ago

    I’ve been watching the media and our politicians both-sides the issue in ways that seem contrived to ensure that the occupation and genocide will continue without interference by anyone in a position to do anything about it, especially my own elected representatives and officials.

    Reading South Africa’s Application instituting proceedings in the World Court document myself reminded me how thirsty I’ve been to hear from anyone serious about the matter. It’s very human-readable, cogent even- well worth the read.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Biden has literally spent 50 years telling Israels government he’ll always support them no matter what, but they need to be careful before normal citizens call them out for their actions.

      Israel has never listened to Biden, but this is one promise I don’t think he’ll ever break.

      Dude openly calls himself a zionist, he’s with them 100%.

    • lad@programming.dev
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      11 months ago

      For some reason the download fails for me every time 🤔

      Edit: but sure enough it worked in Chrome 👿

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    11 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — South Africa has launched a case at the United Nations’ top court alleging that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide.

    Eylon Levy, an official in the Israeli prime minister’s office, on Tuesday accused South Africa of “giving political and legal cover” to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that triggered Israel’s campaign.

    Among them are Israel’s role in promoting the original genocide convention after the Holocaust and its belief that “we have a strong case.” He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing behind-the-scenes deliberations.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead with the war until Hamas is crushed and the more than 100 hostages still held by the militant group in Gaza are freed.

    South Africa’s filing includes a request for the court to urgently issue legally binding interim orders for Israel to “immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza.”

    The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda convicted a string of leaders involved in the African nation’s 1994 genocide when some 800,000 people, mainly ethnic Tutsis, were slaughtered.


    The original article contains 1,067 words, the summary contains 182 words. Saved 83%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      There has never been anything on the scale of Israel’s apartheid. There have been things like it that are absolutely abhorrent, like South African Apartheid and it’s inspiration, Jim Crow. But there has never been such a widespread, indiscriminate, long term genocidal apartheid.

      • 100_percent_a_bot@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        To be clear, you’re saying south Africas Apartheid which codified a racial hierarchy into law and nazi Germanys Apartheid if you want to call it that which put people in camps and slaughtering them industrially is less bad than Israel’s military occupation of Gaza? Jesus, of all the takes one could have, that’s definitely one of them…

        • jochem@lemmy.ml
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          11 months ago

          Really amazing how all nuance is lost when you discuss Israel online.

    • lad@programming.dev
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      11 months ago

      Isn’t that a good thing though? You almost sound like you despise people learning from their mistakes

  • rivermonster@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    It’s one thing to do the trendy Israel bashing with alt-left anti-Israel kids on a forum to shout genocide and be sloppy with the term while they rage nonsensically over propaganda for which they’ve fallen.

    It’s an entirely different thing for a failed state like South Africa to try to prove a factual and meaningful case based on actual law and legal definitions. Not a chance in hell this will amount to anything.

    They’ll even have to establish that Gaza residents are “Palestinians”. The world had to make a special definition of refugee, just to call everyone in Gaza and the West Bank a refugee. If you used the UNHRC standard (which is applied to EVERYONE else worldwide, then there’d be a few hundred thousand at best, and millions lose their status as refugees.

    The whole identification of Palestinians as a nationality could be explored in the courts, if this were taken seriously. Since pre-1908 the Ottoman empire and people in Palestine were more about tribal and family identity. Plus, for genocide, mabey you have to write off the Palestinan Jews then and say they don’t count, b/c really we mean just the Arab Palestinans…. blah blah. I’m not litigating it, I’m pointing out this is stuff easy to ignore in a hate frenzy on Lemmy, but that doesn’t get it ignored in courts.

    At an even lower level, there is no Palestine. It’s not a state, in a legal sense, that causes legal problems. I mean, I guess it’s why you have what reads like the start of a bad joke “South Africa brings a genocide case to the ICJ”… with them as proxy for the people who want a state and believe they have standing? Who knows?

    I’m curious who would even represent the Palestinians in court at this point? Hamas, their elected terrorist government? Or Abbas who has over 90% that wants him to resign? And then you have the issue that Abbas doesn’t run jack shit in Gaza, Hamas does, and he is barely holding onto his power even in the West Bank, since most Palestinians favor Hamas.

    Things like that are going to matter, in a real court, it’s not just a Lemmy Israel bashing circle jerk.

    And all of that is before you get into actually debating the genuine issues, which will be things like do the war-crimes of Hamas such as co-location make normally prohibited targets legal? Because a huge part of the whole genocide claim relies on the court agreeing that if you hide in hospitals and schools you shouldn’t be attacked, no matter what actions you took outside of those or coordinate from within them. And since co-location is already a war crime, that will be an interesting thing to watch argued.

    And all of that is before you get into actually trying to prove the war crimes. At the ICJ, “I saw this on a white nationalist blog!” won’t cut it, not like here in Lemmy World News.

    The whole thing just seems mostly like propaganda stunt designed to get Isreal’s haters excited and circle jerking. Which as a propaganda move—is, I think, rock solid. Almost as good as getting people to watch Hamas’ official television and publications… er… I mean Al Jazeera.

    • Quokka@quokk.au
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      11 months ago

      That’s a lot of words to say you blindly support Israel.

      • rivermonster@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I’d love to see Bibi and numerous members of Likud prosecuted for war crimes. Just as I’d love to see Hamas and it’s many war criminals prosecuted for their crimes as well. I think you’re confusing the fact that I believe Israel has a right to exist and to defend itself with blind support. It’s not the same thing.

        I do not approve of pre-Oct Israeli war crimes like the endless collective punishment. Even when there were tens of thousands of war crimes… er… rockets being shot at their citizens by the government of Gaza.

        But I’m definitely hard pressed to find the answer on what to do among all the anti-israel frenzy on Lemmy. All anyone here has is to say “oh it,s okay, just ignore the oct attack, let Israel take it on the chin, they’re stronger and richer.”

        I’d love to see a solution, do you know of one? B/c if Israel just stops like it’s trendy to demand, then Hamas will regroup and go again as they have for decades.

        October 7th has been their greatest marketing of all time. They’re at like 75% support for the Oct 7th attacks, have majority support in Gaza and West Bank. They’re so popular with all the bloodshed they’ve caused that Abbas is going to lose his office. There’s no reason for Hamas to do anything other than continue to seek their publicly stated goal of the destruction of Israel, ever.

        EDIT: Also yes, the charge of genocide is fucking stupid. It belittles and demeans the term and the lose nature with which it’s thrown about around here is extremely offensive.

        • BeautifulMind ♾️@lemmy.worldOP
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          11 months ago

          B/c if Israel just stops like it’s trendy to demand, then Hamas will regroup and go again

          That’s an interesting prediction I’d like to see tested, honestly. What if, (hear me out here) the only thing keeping air in Hamas’s sails is the perceived need to resist the occupation? Hamas isn’t and never has been popular among Palestinians, in much the same way that Likud is really only politically relevant because someone needs to take a firm hand with Hamas.

          Also, if Israel doesn’t stop, like it hasn’t for the last 70 years, then Hamas will regroup and go again, right?

          Honestly this has all the same energy of the ‘defund the police/thin blue line’ rhetoric we’ve seen sail through our political spaces; if you listen to the law-and-order narrative the logic is that force must be escalated until those thugs learn their lesson, while that seems to drive up protest movements and that in turn gets the thin-blue-line crowd frothing for cops to use real bullets instead of rubber bullets and tear gas.

          There was peace between Jews and Palestinians before the state of Israel began its occupation and settlements. The beef here isn’t religious or cultural, the issue is the occupation and the dispossession of Palestinians of their family homes. One thing Israel could try (that it hasn’t) is not doing that

          • rivermonster@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            I’m not ignoring you, and you sound very sincere, so I’ll draw up a reply when I get back home.

            But spoilers alert: things were definitely not peaceful between the Palestian Jews and Palestinian Arabs pre-Israel or after. There’s a long history of violence on both sides, I’ll post a bunch when I get back for you to look at, should you wish. And there’s no innocent parties here pre or post Israel.

            • TserriednichThe4th@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              When ISIS attacked iran, a lot of people blamed iran and america, despite that conflict being driven by hundreds of years of sectarian conflict. They justified their reasoning with the most anti semitic shit possible. I think the left is having a very hard time recognizing anti semitism, and it is going to cast doubt on future leftists efforts. Shame:

              • rivermonster@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                Agree with you 100%.

                It’s been a terrible wakeup call as I’m left on most things and have no place in almost any left group at the moment with their rabid mindless hate frenzy. I’m anti-capitalist, atheist, pro bodily autonomy, an ally of lgbtq+…

                But in general, all the bulk of these people can do is read whatever Hamas has Al Jazeera publish and knee-jerk, or learn one fact about 100+ years of conflict and think they know the score. Literally 99% of their historical claims are disprovable quickly and easily–super low effort. When it comes to history, they’re Dunning-Kruger masters.

                I think it’s also that the bulk of the nutters are kids 18-24 and this is the first time they’ve really paid attention to war and how fucking awful it is in every way. These horrors are going on everywhere, and they’re just too dumb or ignorant and are way past their ability to comprehend.

                There are a lot of wars and war crimes and more going on. But when I look at their post and comment history, this the only thing they cry about, not Haiti, not DRC, not Ukraine, etc. This one is just really shiney for them because Jews, because it’s DEFINITELY not based on principals.

                Honestly, they look like Hamas MAGA to me these days. Just mindless hate machines.

                • TserriednichThe4th@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  Hamas maga is the best way to describe it.

                  Honestly going to get off lemmy soon because the issue is worse here than any other social media. It is kinda insane.

                  Houthis are being terrorists and people cheer them lmao

    • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      Saying there are no Palestinians is up there with Putin saying there are no Ukrainians. This is genocidal hate speech. Fuck you. Fuck you, profoundly.

      • rivermonster@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        There was a Palestine. It no longer exists.

        There were Palestinian Jews, Palestinian Christians, and Palestinian Arabs. Now, they live in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Chile, Saudi Arabia, and so on. There is no country called Palestine anymore.

        Facts offending you are funny, though, as is your profanity laden tantrum.

        If you want a bigger breakdown, here is a list of where the Palestinian Arabs went. I assume you only care about the Palestinian Arabs?

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians

        • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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          11 months ago

          Just because there were all sorts of people living in historic Palestine that used the word “Palestinian” to mean a geographic origin does not mean that the people that are known today as Palestinians do not exist as a people with the right to its own self determination and nationhood. Saying that kind of thing because Palestinian Jews existed (who today in their vast majority clearly identify as blue-passport Israeli, and no longer as Palestinian) is at best as ludicrous as the stupid claim that “Arabs cannot possibly be anti-Semitic as they are themselves Semites”. At worst the denial of the existence of Palestinians as a people is Putin style genocidal language.

          I don’t know of any Jewish people genuinely identifying themselves with that people. When Golda Meir was saying she is a Palestinian she was not identifying the Arabs, Muslims and Christians as her compatriots, she was doing it to deny them peoplehood. And again, no, the existence of the Mizrahim, the Arab Jews does not imply that the term Arab does not today have a specific meaning in the Israeli-Palestinian context. When Israeli fascists chant “death to Arabs” the don’t mean the Mizrahim…

          On the other hand I know plenty Muslims, Christians and atheists who do identify as Palestinian. The Israeli state does the same thing giving these people green passports and prohibiting their descendants from entering.

          I’m Greek. My country made a huge stupid stink about the Macedonians. The fact that historic Macedon was Greek does not mean that Macedonians as a people don’t exist. The fact that Macedonia the region contains Macedonian Greeks, Macedonian Albanians, Macedonian Bulgarians does not mean that the Macedonian people don’t exist. I’m an anti-nationalist from the Balkans, buddy, not some naive amerikanaki, ready to swallow national ideologies and mythologies with wide eyes.

    • lad@programming.dev
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      11 months ago

      It’s one thing to do […] Israel bashing […] on a forum […]

      It’s an entirely different thing […] to try to prove a factual and meaningful case based on actual law and legal definitions.

      And that’s exactly why I think what SAR does is an important thing to do. Besides, what does the condition of SAR’s state have to do with the legitimacy of this?

      • rivermonster@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        It doesn’t do that. What you see is a giant dopamine hit to your confirmation bias. And the motivation of a bad actor attempting to abuse the courbts for political reasons is important.

        Like I said, you’re the target audience, it’s just to rial up all the alt-left and get em circlejerking the upvotes on Lemmy and radicalized further the gullible.