Thursday, December 12, 2024
Elder of Ziyon
By legally intervening in South Africa’s case, Ireland will be asking the ICJ to broaden its interpretation of what constitutes the commission of genocide by a State.We are concerned that a very narrow interpretation of what constitutes genocide leads to a culture of impunity in which the protection of civilians is minimised.Ireland’s view of the Convention is broader and prioritises the protection of civilian life – as a committed supporter of the Convention, the government will promote that interpretation in its intervention in this case.
Just like Amnesty, Ireland knows how the ICJ has interpreted genocide in the past - and it knows that Israel isn't guilty based on legal precedent.
Specifically, the ICJ said in its 2015 judgment of Croatia v. Serbia:
148. The Court recalls that, in the passage in question in its 2007 Judgment, it accepted the possibility of genocidal intent being established indirectly by inference. The notion of “reasonableness” must necessarily be regarded as implicit in the reasoning of the Court. Thus, to state that, “for a pattern of conduct to be accepted as evidence of . . . existence [of genocidal intent], it [must] be such that it could only point to the existence of such intent” amounts to saying that, in order to infer the existence of dolus specialis from a pattern of conduct, it is necessary and sufficient that this is the only inference that could reasonably be drawn from the acts in question. To interpret paragraph 373 of the 2007 Judgment in any other way would make it impossible to reach conclusions by way of inference.
Since Israel's actions in Gaza can easily be explained in the context of urban warfare and Hamas' use of human shields, that in itself disqualifies the case. The only way that intent to genocide could be the "only inference that could reasonably be drawn" is if the people making that inference are antisemites who assume Jews are evil at the outset of their interpretation.
By the way, the evidence in the Serbia v. Croatia case for intent of genocide was far more overwhelming against Serbia than anything in the South African case against Israel. There were concentration camps just for Croats, Croats were specifically targeted while their neighbors weren't, there was a history and pattern of insults and racist statements against Croats.
The counter-argument by Serbia is amazing. The Serbs freely admit that they discriminated against the Croats and treated them badly based on their ethnicity. But said that their intent was merely ethnic cleansing, not genocide.
According to the ICTY, the leadership of Serbia and that of the Serbs in Croatia, inter alia, shared the objective of creating an ethnically homogeneous Serb State. That was the context in which acts were committed that constitute the actus reus of genocide within the meaning of Article II (a) and (b) of the Convention. However, the conclusion of the ICTY indicates that those acts were not committed with intent to destroy the Croats, but rather with that of forcing them to leave the regions concerned so that an ethnically homogeneous Serb State could be created. The Court agrees with this conclusion.
The case against Israel doesn't come close to the amount of evidence that Croatia brought to establish intent. And those decisions from the ICTY and ICJ are the closest thing to international law we have.
No wonder Ireland wants the court to change its own criteria for determining intent for genocide. There is no way that a reasonably unbiased court can apply consistent standards and find Israel guilty.
Of course, when it comes to Israel, the international community often comes up with new and novel interpretations (or formulations!) of the law just for the Jewish state.
According to Amnesty and apparently Ireland, even if there is a reasonable explanation for actions in a war - like, you know, it being a war - that is not enough to show it is not genocide. Amnesty suggests:
[T]he requisite specific intent to destroy a group as such, in whole or in part, may coexist with an additional, yet complementary, aim. From this perspective, in the context of an armed conflict, the destruction of a group as such with specific intent, that is, the commission of genocide, may be instrumental to achieve a certain military result, or it may be pursued in parallel to particular military aims, for instance defeating enemy forces.
Amnesty is saying that no matter how much Israel can show that every single act it does it meant to defeat Hamas, as long as Netanyahu invokes Amalek then judges can decide that Israel really, or also, intends to commit genocide. That logic would make every single war potentially genocide. But it is only to applied to the Jewish state.
In short, Amnesty (and probably Ireland) are trying to set up a definition of intent to genocide that can never be refuted as long as some antisemite decides to twist the words of Jews.
|
"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
 |
Buy
