Israel shirked accountability for decades. Is the ICJ breaking its armor?
South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the ICJ, the Hague, 12 January 2024
Meron Rapoport writes in +972 on 5 February 2024:
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‘We dreamed of this kind of accountability’
In order to understand the political significance of the ICJ’s ruling, we have to go back a bit. For years, Israel sneered at international law, certain that the United States would always be ready to clean up its mess in any international forum. So when South Africa approached the Court with a request to open proceedings against Israel under the Genocide Convention, Israel initially treated the accusation with its usual blasé dismissiveness.
“South Africa’s claim lacks both a factual and a legal basis, and constitutes despicable and contemptuous exploitation of the Court,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. But the Hague thought otherwise.
Its chief judge, the American Joan Donoghue, stated at the beginning of her remarks that, contrary to Israel’s claims, the Court had the authority to rule in the case. Donoghue accepted South Africa’s presentation of the facts on the danger of genocide in Gaza almost in their entirety — from the number of civilian deaths and the extent of the destruction to the danger of hunger, the threat of diseases, and even worries about the fate of pregnant women in Gaza, a claim that was especially ridiculed in Israel. Israel’s claims that it makes a clear distinction between civilians and militants, and that Hamas uses civilians as “human shields,” were not mentioned in the decision.
“This is a dream come true for everyone who works in the field of human rights,” said Basel Sourani, a researcher at the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) and a resident of Gaza who managed to leave for Cairo after 50 days of Israeli bombardment. “It’s the first time that Israel is being held accountable. We dreamed of this kind of accountability. It gives us hope.”
Sourani says that Palestinians have been pushing countries around the world to turn to the ICJ for years, all in the hopes of stopping Israel’s brutal treatment of Palestinians — but “we needed the technical breakthrough” offered by South Africa, since only signatories to the international treaties over which the Court has jurisdiction can bring forward such a petition.
Sourani, who is active in the Palestinian human rights community, is painfully familiar with the frustration of writing and submitting reports that no one reads about Israel’s human rights abuses. But this time, he believes, is different. “When we approach Western countries with a report, they say, ‘Okay,’ and that’s it. It’s something completely different when you present an ICJ opinion to a European diplomat. This is no joke.”
Sourani also believes that the ICJ’s provisional ruling will have an inevitable impact on the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is located just across the street, and on the prosecutor Karim Khan. Until now, Sourani says, Khan has been dragging his feet in every case brought against Israel. “It’s a nightmare for him,” he explained.
And now, “instead of giving lectures on the importance of upholding international law, he’ll be forced to move from theory to practice. It will have enormous consequences,” Sourani concluded.