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At The Hague, Israel Mounted a Defense Based in an Alternate Reality
(theintercept.com)
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this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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That's a personal statement, not an official one. And not even of the foreign minister or chancellor, but of the one for economy and climate change.
The official position of Germany is that statements done by Ben-Gvir etc. regarding "depopulating Gaza" are unacceptable, which shouldn't be too surprising that's been the German position regarding Israeli settlements etc. for aeons. Say what you want about our foreign policy but it's darn consistent.
Regarding the state calling what Israel is doing genocide: In my estimation, they're waiting for the ICJ judgement as it's a juridical, not political, matter. What is political is Germany being the good cop in regards to Israel, someone else needs to be the bad cop, South Africa is perfectly willing to do that, so what exactly are you complaining about.
Official Statement by Germany:
Translation:
Also:
So, the official line is the same as what Habeck said in the clip. They're also not waiting for a judgement, but supporting Israel directly before the court.
There's a lot more in that statement if you know how to read diplomatic statements. They're most of all interested in opposing political instrumentation while simultaneously acknowledging that different states have different evaluations [as to the legal situation] but they're intervening on behalf of Israel [to oppose political instrumentalisation]. They're saying that they reject the accusations, but not that they're false, only that they're baseless. Which is par for the course for defence attorneys, they always say that: "Prosecution, you don't have evidence and your line of argument doesn't make sense, no I don't care where my client was Sunday 12:30pm".
And truth be told if you hope that the ICJ will flat-out say that Israel is genocidal, no that won't happen. Not because they're partisan, but because the legal situation doesn't allow it, it is not clear enough of a case. Best we'll get is the court ruling that Israel shall put certain measures into place: Insist that the humanitarian aid Israel is giving is not close to enough to be, by itself, an argument against genocide, do more, your army is undisciplined AF, make sure that they actually follow the orders you give them.
The alternative to that kind of judgement would be saying "Israel is deliberately putting into place fig-leaf measures to evade prosecution" which is even harder to prove that genocide itself. You might've noticed that South Africa didn't go for that line of reasoning, it'd indeed be a hail mary.
But if the ICJ says that Israel is genocidal, Germany will follow.
This case is so 100% crystal clear, you'd have to deliberately twist your brain into a pretzel to believe otherwise. And if you think the judges will not be pressured by the governments that sent them, your pretzel brain probably went soggy. Try putting it in the toaster for a minute.
Is it clear that Israel is killing a fuckton of people? Yes. Could that end with the complete eradication of Palestinians from Gaza? Also yes.
And if you ask me that's enough to call something a genocide. But my personal definition of the crime differs from that of the ICJ: In my mind, negligent genocide is genocide, while before the ICJ, you have to prove wilful intent, not mere negligence. And even if every Palestinian in Gaza gets killed and afterwards Israel sobers up, all Kahanites somehow emigrate to Mars or something and only mortally remorseful Labour Zionists are left -- they'd still argue self-defence excess, not intent, as it was the Hamas attacks which whipped the country into that kind of frenzy. Because yes the Kahanites are out for genocide, but that's not by far the majority of the Israeli population. That'd be even more wrong than claiming that Christo-Fascist Evangelicals are a majority in the US.
Attempting complete eradication is not necessary under UN definition, and in Srebrenica, 8000 people, far from all Bosnians, and not even the majority of people in Srebrenica, were killed, and that's still an official court-approved genocide. The convention says "in whole or in part", after all.
This is not negligence. This is obviously willful intent. They're starving two million people. They know what the result of that is. They repeatedly bomb civilians. And they know they're killing civilians. They know they're not bombing military targets. They do this over and over. Repeatedly doing genocidal acts implies genocidal intent, you don't have to go off of rhetoric.
The government of Israel are not liberal Zionists, so I don't know why you bring that up even. It's not genocide because not everyone in Israel wants genocide, just the far-right and the far-right government? What argument is that? That's pretzel-brain speaking.
Also, most Israelis know what's going on. Anyone who still supports this now after what has been going for over three months, while arguing self-defense, is either lying or completely delusional. Maybe they don't like to think of themselves as genocidal maniacs, but they're still supporting genocide and coming up with excuses why it's okay this time. Liberal Zionists that don't want this to stop immediately are still complicit. And again, that's irrelevant when the far-right is in power. That's still Israel, as a state, doing this and guilty of genocide.
The government of Israel is not its administration. There's plenty of people in charge all over the place which hate Bibi's guts and Ben-Gvir thrice over.
The argument will be that Hamas is stopping them from delivering more aid -- and that's not even false, Hamas is impeding aid. If Hamas wants Israel to get convicted of genocide they should not be the utter bastards to the civilian population that they are. OTOH, the argument "Then don't fight that war you'll just have to accept Hamas doing such stuff" doesn't fly because that would go against the right of nations to defend themselves which is not negotiable, it's a core pillar of international law.
Juridically this will all end in a headache of "what is proportional, what is not, and is us talking about proportionality even proportional to what Israel is doing". The ICJ won't be able solve this case for humanity, we gotta find that very thing on our own.
So some part of the government is genocidal and some other part isn't? So you can just ignore what the prime minister and other people in charge are saying, because they are not really in charge? This is the stupidest argument I've ever heard, and Israel didn't even make that argument in their defense. Instead they said: These are not the official orders, so that's just talk basically. Despite the actual fucking evidence of what their troops are doing confirming it isn't just talk.
Hamas is doing this all themselves! They're stopping the aid! They blew up Gaza themselves (they said that in the courtroom)! They probably also turned off the water and electricity!? It's easy to prove that Israel did all that stuff, and they said so. Here's the Israeli defense minister:
Must be one of those people not really in charge of anything and I must have imagined when they did that.
You're living in some alternate reality. Are you deliberately trying to mount the worst defense in order to make Israel look bad?
And there are some people in the ranks which don't care that they're told not to commit genocide. That constitutes genocidal intent of those individuals, but not of the state, which is what the ICJ is asked to judge. Now if Israel fails to prosecute those individuals then that could indeed would strengthen the case against Israel quite a bit, but that's not what the case the ICJ is currently hearing is about.
Not everything, no, but they're taking cover behind civilians to a ridiculous degree. Which then allows Israel, or aforementioned individuals, to write memos "we can't drop stuff there that's too risky".
Wasn't there something about Israel not allowing aid organisations to buy food for Gaza in Israel? That's quite a bit more damning but I don't think SA put it forth as evidence. And as said with such things the ICJ would likely just say "yeah don't do that" not "that's genocidal".
As said: I believe Israel is committing a genocide. Separately from that, I also believe that what they're doing is not enough for the ICJ to convict them of genocide because the ICJ and me have different standards.
Don't shoot the messenger.
The leadership is putting out genocidal statements, and then, to cover their asses, they put "do this in accordance with international law" is some official order, probably on the recommendation of some lawyer. The soldiers all through the ranks repeat the genocidal language, and commit genocidal acts,over and over, nobody stopping them, and almost all of them defended and rationalized by Israeli spokespeople. Your assessment: Just individuals doing individual war crimes. Are you joking?
Can you prove that in court. Do you have recorded conversations or such that would back that up.
At least some are being dragged before disciplinary tribunals. Are they fall guys? It's a possibility but again you'd have to prove it. In dubio pro reo also applies to states.
That's not what my assessment is. One of my assessments is that there's at the very least a group of ideologically connected individuals right-out enjoying committing those war crimes. I've been saying that the Kahanites are out for a genocide before the military operation even began. But the ICJ is there to convict states, not ideological minorities within a state that's Israel's responsibility and prerogative.
The other is that that the ICJ won't convict because even if the stuff can be proven, including all the fall-guy kind of stuff SA isn't even putting forth evidence towards that end.
Yes. They say that shit, and the lower ranks repeat it, and it gets done. Clearly the orders get relayed and implemented. What more proof do you need? It is nothing new that people lie when committing crimes to cover their asses. But you can actually look at what they're doing to figure which of these statements is actually true: "We do everything in accordance with international law!" or "We will starve and bomb them until they leave or die!".
Israel almost never punishes any of their own soldiers, or even admits any wrongdoing, even in pretty clear-cut cases. Arguing that Israeli courts are going to stop the genocide is completely delusional. They haven't done shit so far, and they have no track record of doing anything. That's because this is not about individual war crimes, this is a systemic policy implemented and supported throughout all institutions of the Israeli state, coming from the very top. You just do not want to see it.
You don't have to prove it to me, but the ICJ. You'll have to prove that all that behaviour is intentional, and not negligent. You have to prove that they're evil as opposed to merely incompetent.
If you want to complain about the ICJ complain about the ICJ. Complain about the very nature of legal philosophy if you want. But keep me out of it, this has been the gazillionth time you shot the messenger.