“South Africa is gravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants. Furthermore, there are ongoing reports of international crimes, such as crimes against humanity and war crimes, being committed as well as reports that acts meeting the threshold of genocide or related crimes as defined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, have been and may still be committed in the context of the ongoing massacres in Gaza.
“South Africa has repeatedly stated that it condemns all violence and attacks against all civilians, including Israelis. Moreover, South Africa has continuously called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and the resumption of talks that will end the violence arising from the continued belligerent occupation of Palestine.
“As a State Party to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, South Africa is under a treaty obligation to prevent genocide from occurring.
“Therefore, at a special meeting held on 8 December 2023, Cabinet directed that the International Court of Justice in The Hague be approached to obtain an order directing Israel, which is also a State Party, to refrain from any acts that may constitute genocide or related crimes under the Convention. An application in this regard was filed before the Court on 29 December 2023 in which the Court is requested to declare on an urgent basis that Israel is in breach of its obligations in terms of the Genocide Convention, should immediately cease all acts and measures in breach of those obligations and take a number of related actions.”
Needless to say, Israel strongly condemned the move. In an X (formerly known as Twitter) post, Lior Haiat, a spokesperson for the Israeli foreign ministry, argued that:
“Israel rejects with disgust the blood libel spread by South Africa in its application to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
“South Africa’s claim lacks both a factual and a legal basis, and constitutes a despicable and contemptuous exploitation of the Court.
“South Africa is cooperating with a terrorist organization that is calling for the destruction of the State of Israel.
“The Hamas terrorist organization – which is committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and sought to commit genocide on 7 October – is responsible for the suffering of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by using them as human shields and stealing humanitarian aid from them.
“Israel is committed to international law and acts in accordance with it, and directs its military efforts solely against the Hamas terrorist organization and the other terrorist organizations cooperating with Hamas.
“Israel has made it clear that the residents of the Gaza Strip are not the enemy, and is making every effort to limit harm to civilians and to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
“We call on the International Court of Justice and the international community to completely reject South Africa’s baseless claims.”
It is difficult to imagine a more incendiary claim to the Israelis than the charge of genocide. Moreover, the historical record of conflicts being labelled “genocide” by an International tribunal is thin despite a number of cases in which the word has been applied by observers in the 20th century: The Armenian case in 1915; the Holodomor of the Ukrainian people launched by the Soviet Union in 1932-33; the Holocaust against Jews in Europe during World War II; the war by Pakistan against the independence of Bangladesh in 1971; the Cambodian genocide prosecuted by the Khmer Rouge in 1975-79; the Bosnian conflict in 1992-95; the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda in 1994; and the ongoing genocide against the Royhingya in Myanmar. Only the Holocaust against the Jews in Europe during World War II has ever been judged genocide by an International tribunal.
Interestingly, as I write this post, major news outlets in the US, such as the New York TImes and the Washington Post, have yet to use a headline to announce this news. That delay (of about 4 hours) suggests that sensitivities in the US will require a very careful vetting of the news. Nonetheless, other outlets, such as the Hindustan Times and Reuters, have made the story quite prominent on their web pages.
I suspect that this case will move very slowly in the International Court of Justice so there is little immediate legal action likely (although a ceasefire is urgently needed and way overdue). But the pressure on Israel and the US will become even more intense. The Israelis try very hard to conform to the laws of war, but their rules of engagement are too relaxed. Using 2000 lb bombs near hospitals is a war crime, even if the enemy has tunnels near or under the buildings–the presumed benefit of killing a few of the enemy is far outweighed by the clear harms to people who are vulnerable and are not in the building by choice. The stunning estimate that 70% of the dead in the Gaza are women and children suggests that the distinction between combatants and non-combatants is not being rigorously enforced.
A major determinant of how this war will be judged is how the conflict finally ends. If it turns out that many Palestinians are permanently displaced and that some Israelis try to establish settlements in the Gaza, then the judgment will be harsh and unforgiving.
The Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, has published a study on the effects so far of the Israeli air campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip done by by Yagil Levy, a sociology professor at the Open University of Israel. Unfortunately, the newspaper is behind a subscription lock, so I am relying on the coverage of the study offered by The Guardian. The conclusions of the study are sobering:
“The aerial bombing campaign by Israel in Gaza is the most indiscriminate in terms of civilian casualties in recent years, a study published by an Israeli newspaper has found….
“In the first three weeks of the current operation, Swords of Iron, the civilian proportion of total deaths rose to 61%, in what Levy described as ‘unprecedented killing’ for Israeli forces in Gaza. The ratio is significantly higher than the average civilian toll in all the conflicts around the world during the 20th century, in which civilians accounted for about half the dead, according to Levy.
“’The broad conclusion is that extensive killing of civilians not only contributes nothing to Israel’s security, but that it also contains the foundations for further undermining it,’ Levy concluded. ‘The Gazans who will emerge from the ruins of their homes and the loss of their families will seek revenge that no security arrangements will be able to withstand.’”
Unfortunately, calls for a cease-fire were thwarted by a US veto at the UN Security Council. The US was the only dissenting vote against the resolution, much to the chagrin of important US allies as reported by the Washington Post:
“Washington’s allies, including from the Western and Arab worlds, largely reaffirmed their support for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in the Gaza Strip — distancing themselves from the Biden administration’s decision Friday to block a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire.
“The U.S.’s veto of the resolution, which also would have called for the release of hostages and for humanitarian access to Gaza, drew condemnation from some world leaders Saturday.
“Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the veto made the United States responsible for the bloodshed of Palestinians and complicit in ‘genocide, ethnic cleansing and war crimes committed by the Israeli occupation forces.’ Others, including Human Rights Watch and Doctors Without Borders, echoed the idea that U.S. has become complicit in the deaths in Gaza.
“U.S. allies, including France and Japan, also expressed disappointment that the resolution had not passed.”
The US has cast a veto on many occasions since 1954 and 34 of those vetoes were to support the Israeli position in the Israel-Arab dispute. According to the Associated Press. “U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood called the resolution ‘imbalanced’ and criticized the council after the vote for its failure to condemn Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel in which the militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, or to acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself. He declared that halting military action would allow Hamas to continue to rule Gaza and ‘only plant the seeds for the next war.’”
The US veto is indefensible. The Gaza Health Ministry only counts bodies and thus far it has collected over 17,000. The number of bodies buried in the rubble remains unknown and will likely never be known. The vast majority of the dead are women and children. And the Israeli objective of “eliminating” Hamas remains unattainable.
The New York Times has published an extraordinary article which indicates that information about the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas was available to the Israeli government more than a year ago. According to the article:
“Then, in July, just three months before the attacks, a veteran analyst with Unit 8200, Israel’s signals intelligence agency, warned that Hamas had conducted an intense, daylong training exercise that appeared similar to what was outlined in the blueprint.
“But a colonel in the Gaza division brushed off her concerns, according to encrypted emails viewed by The Times.
“’I utterly refute that the scenario is imaginary,’ the analyst wrote in the email exchanges. The Hamas training exercise, she said, fully matched ‘the content of Jericho Wall.’
“’It is a plan designed to start a war,’ she added. ‘It’s not just a raid on a village.’
“Officials privately concede that, had the military taken these warnings seriously and redirected significant reinforcements to the south, where Hamas attacked, Israel could have blunted the attacks or possibly even prevented them.”
If this report is true, it is distressing to know that the atrocities of 7 October could have been avoided by the simple placement of Israeli troops along the Gaza border. It likely would have been easy to target the bulldozers that tore down the fences, thereby preventing the invasion of the 2,000 odd members of Hamas that entered Israel. As of today, the Gaza Health Ministry is reporting that over 15,000 people have been killed so far and most experts regard the Ministry as a credible course. The numbers are unusually high according to the New York Times:
“Israel has cast the deaths of civilians in the Gaza Strip as a regrettable but unavoidable part of modern conflict, pointing to the heavy human toll from military campaigns the United States itself once waged in Iraq and Syria.
“But a review of past conflicts and interviews with casualty and weapons experts suggest that Israel’s assault is different.
“While wartime death tolls will never be exact, experts say that even a conservative reading of the casualty figures reported from Gaza shows that the pace of death during Israel’s campaign has few precedents in this century.
“People are being killed in Gaza more quickly, they say, than in even the deadliest moments of U.S.-led attacks in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, which were themselves widely criticized by human rights groups.
“Precise comparisons of war dead are impossible, but conflict-casualty experts have been taken aback at just how many people have been reported killed in Gaza — most of them women and children — and how rapidly.”
It may be the case that the Netanyahu government believes that it is “eliminating” Hamas. It is more likely that Hamas will emerge stronger and more powerful over the long run. This conflict is rapidly becoming one of the worst atrocities in the 21st century.
The discourse over the conflict is tortured because analysts are not being careful about how the conflict is defined. I personally think about the conflict as one between the Netanyahu government and Hamas, not as a conflict between the Palestinians and Israel. I also encourage people to read more than just Western media. I recommend that those who wish to have a more complete understanding of the conflict read some alternative sources (just remember–there are no unbiased media sources):
The US media is focusing on the fighting near hospitals in the Gaza Strip. The Netanyahu government has decided that it is justified in conducting military operations near or against these hospitals because Hamas terrorists are using the hospitals as refuges. The US media has decided not to question this tactic; instead, the media seems to indicate that the attacks on hospitals are simply unfortunate acts of war. The acceptance of this definition of collateral damage is morally reprehnsible.
Collateral damage is defined as injuries suffered inadvertently by noncombatants in an attack on a legitimate military target. The idea of collateral damage was adopted in the 20th Century as violence in war became anonymous with the advent of missiles and bombs which are difficult to target precisely. The doctrine admits the legitimacy of that violence if the intention is only to attack clearly identified military targets.
The phrase should more properly be understood as a euphemism that gives priority to military necessity over the lives of the innocent.
I have no doubts that Hamas deliberately uses civilian facilities to find protection against attacks and that tactic is an abomination. The question is whether that technique automatically vitiates the protections against killing noncombatants. And that question is paramount when we are talking about the use of hospitals as refuges.
To its credit, the Netanyahu government has encouraged patients in hospitals to evacuate, but this exhortation is hollow. Patients go to a hospital to be cured of an injury or disease and it is difficult for people under those circumstances to flee through a war zone. Patients are hostages to their conditions and hospitals are special places designated to provide comfort and therapy. Actions which have the effect of denying that care–including the provision of food, water, medical supplies, and fuel–can never be acceptable. It is also important to remember that none of the patients had any control over how their vulnerability could be exploited by an immoral military tactic.
I also am not sure how much of a military advantage hiding in a hospital provides to a combatant. There are no military targets to attack in a hospital and a combatant would have to leave the hospital to join the fight. Weapons can be stored in a hospital, but, again, they must leave the hospital to be used. I understand that Hamas uses mines to shuttle from a hospital to other areas, but closing off those mines is a better military option since it addresses the tactical vulnerability without the loss of innocent lives. The option is more dangerous for the Israeli military, but it can be attained without noncombatant losses.
There are few actions that diminish the moral authority to wage war more than attacks on helpless people. Such attacks must be condemned in the strongest possible terms.
“Scipio, beholding this city, which had flourished 700 years from its foundation and had ruled over so many lands, islands, and seas, rich with arms and fleets, elephants and money, equal to the mightiest monarchies but far surpassing them in bravery and high spirit (since without ships or arms, and in the face of famine, it had sustained continuous war for three years), now come to its end in total destruction – Scipio, beholding this spectacle, is said to have shed tears and publicly lamented the fortune of the enemy.
“After meditating by himself a long time and reflecting on the rise and fall of cities, nations, and empires, as well as of individuals, upon the fate of Troy, that once proud city, upon that of the Assyrians, the Medes, and the Persians, greatest of all, and later the splendid Macedonian empire, either voluntarily or otherwise the words of the poet escaped his lips:
The day shall come in which our sacred Troy And Priam, and the people over whom Spear-bearing Priam rules, shall perish all. [Homer, Iliad, 6.448-449]
“Being asked by Polybius in familiar conversation (for Polybius had been his tutor) what he meant by using these words, he said that he did not hesitate frankly to name his own country, for whose fate he feared when he considered the mutability of human affairs. And Polybius wrote this down just as he heard it.”
“The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire” Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1817
Over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu sat for an interview with ABC News. In that interview, he indicated that Israel would maintain a security presence in the Gaza Strip after the conflict dies down (presumably after Hamas is “eliminated”):
“I think Israel for an indefinite period will have the overall security responsibility because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have it. When we don’t have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale that we couldn’t imagine.”
The United States has indicated that it does not support an indefinite occupation of the territory, although it has waffled on whether it would support a temporary reoccupation. From the US State Department press briefing on 7 November:
QUESTION: Okay. And then if I could ask about some comments that Netanyahu made yesterday —
MR PATEL: Sure.
QUESTION: — about who should govern Gaza when fighting is over, he said he thinks Israel for an indefinite period will have overall security responsibility. What’s your take on those comments? Have you sought any clarification from the Israeli Government about what they meant by that? Do you have any concerns?
MR PATEL: So we, of course, engage with our partners in the Israeli Government about a numerous number of things, especially currently as this situation continues to be ongoing. I would refer you to the prime minister’s office for further elaboration on that particular quote. Our viewpoint is that Palestinians must be at the forefront of these decisions, and Gaza is Palestinian land and it will remain Palestinian land. And generally speaking, we do not support reoccupation of Gaza, and neither does Israel. Secretary Blinken was fairly clear about that during his travels as well.
But it’s important to note that, at the same time, we agree with Israel that there is no returning to the October 6th status quo. Israel and the region must be secure, and Gaza should and can no longer be a base from which to launch terror attacks against the people of Israel or anyone else. And so we’re working with partners on various scenarios – on interim governance, on security parameters, on security situations in Gaza – for once this crisis recedes. But I’m not going to get ahead of that process or get into it from here.
Netanyahu’s statement gives no inkling on whether Israel will honor international law which requires an occupying power to provide for the well-being of people held in the occupation. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human RIghts issued a summary of the obligations of an occupying power in 2017:
“The duties of an occupying power are spelled out primarily in the 1907 Hague Regulations (articles 42-56), the Fourth Geneva Convention, and Additional Protocol I to the Four Geneva Conventions. The overarching principle is that an occupant does not acquire sovereignty over an occupied territory and therefore any occupation must only be a temporary situation. The occupant has an obligation to ensure the well-being of the population, and is prohibited from making permanent changes to the territory in the judicial, economic, or social spheres. The main duties of the occupying power under international law can be summarised as follows:
The occupying power must respect the laws in force in the occupied territory, unless they constitute a threat to its security or an obstacle to the application of the international law of occupation. The occupying power must take measures to restore and ensure, as far as possible, civil life and public order and safety.
To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the occupying power must ensure sufficient hygiene and public health standards, as well as the provision of food and medical care to the population under occupation. The population in occupied territory cannot be forced to enlist in the occupier’s armed forces. Collective or individual forcible transfers of population from and within the occupied territory are prohibited. Transfers of the civilian population of the occupying power into the occupied territory, regardless whether forcible or voluntary, are prohibited. Collective punishment and measures of intimidation are prohibited.
The taking of hostages is prohibited. Reprisals against protected persons or their property are prohibited. The confiscation of private property by the occupant is prohibited.
The destruction or seizure of enemy property is prohibited, unless absolutely required by military necessity during the conduct of hostilities. Cultural property must be respected. People accused of criminal offences shall be provided with proceedings respecting internationally recognised judicial guarantees (for example, they must be informed of the reason for their arrest, charged with a specific offence and given a fair trial as quickly as possible). Food and medical supplies may be requisitioned exclusively for the use of the occupation forces and administration personnel themselves (i.e., not for purposes of export outside of the occupied territory and not for the benefit of anyone beyond the occupying personnel, unless necessary for the benefit of the population under occupation itself) and only if the needs of the civilian population have been taken into account.
These are heavy responsibilities, particularly the requirement that “the occupying power must ensure sufficient hygiene and public health standards, as well as the provision of food and medical care to the population under occupation.” It is not clear that the Israeli population will be willing to pay for the needs of the 2.1 million people who lived in the Gaza prior to the war. Indeed, it is not clear that those who fled the war and fled to the southern part of the Gaza will be allowed to return to the northern part of the Strip.
Option A: The population remaining in Gaza and the import of Palestinian Authority (PA) rule.
Option B: The population remaining in Gaza along with the emergence of a local Arab authority.
Option C: The evacuation of the civilian population from Gaza to Sinai
The memo recommends Option C: “The option that will yield positive, long-term strategicoutcomes for Israel, and is an executable option. It requiresdetermination from the political echelon in the face of internationalpressure, with an emphasis on harnessing the support of the United Statesand additional pro-Israeli countries for the endeavor’
I sincerely doubt that the rest of the world will support Option C, but the critical determinant is whether the US will approve the option. The Biden Administration should make clear to Israel that it will not support Option C under any circumstances. If pressed on the matter, the US should end its support for Israel’s military operations. The Netanyahu government will then have to decide whether it accepts the end of the annual support the US gives Israel (around $3.5 billion a year).
The news is certainly dispiriting, and I don’t have any insights to share. My thoughts are with the people in the Gaza Strip who are desperately trying to seek shelter. I often turn to music when I’ve run out of ideas. The need to provide shelter to the innocent civilians, both Palestinian and Israeli, is overwhelming, and, curiously, the idea of shelter reminded me of an old Rolling Stones song, “Gimme Shelter” which was released in 1969. The Stones had a gift for hiding very good ideas within their raunchy songs and “Gimme Shelter” is a good example of how the group tried to send messages to those who listened carefully.
Wikipedia provides the context of the song which explains why I thought of it as the war in Gaza continues unabated:
“As released, the song begins with Richards performing a guitar intro, soon joined by Jagger’s lead vocal. Of Let It Bleed‘s bleak world view, Jagger said in a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone magazine:
‘Well, it’s a very rough, very violent era. The Vietnam War. Violence on the screens, pillage and burning. And Vietnam was not war as we knew it in the conventional sense. The thing about Vietnam was that it wasn’t like World War II, and it wasn’t like Korea, and it wasn’t like the Gulf War. It was a real nasty war, and people didn’t like it. People objected, and people didn’t want to fight it … That’s a kind of end-of-the-world song, really. It’s apocalypse; the whole record’s like that.’
‘It was a very moody piece about the world closing in on you a bit … When it was recorded, early ’69 or something, it was a time of war and tension, so that’s reflected in this tune. It’s still wheeled out when big storms happen, as they did the other week [during Hurricane Sandy]. It’s been used a lot to evoke natural disaster.'”
The lyrics are profoundly simple (not unusual for Rock and Roll), but the words match perfectly with the music (which is also primitive). The combination is, for me, powerful. But at around 2:39 minutes into the song there is a very dramatic vocal event which conveys intensity, desperation, and commitment and makes the song significantly more dramatic and human.
The backup vocal is performed by a woman named Merry Clayton (her name is misspelled “Mary” on the original album cover). Radio station KSAT in south Texas describes how she came to record with the Rolling Stones:
“One day, Merry Clayton was in her bed, pregnant, with hair curlers in and silk pajamas on, when she received a phone call at her Los Angeles home about midnight in the autumn of 1969, according to Far Out.
“At the time, Clayton was a 20-year-old with extensive singing experience, having sung at her father’s church as a child. She had started her recording career at age 14….
On the other line was producer Jack Nitzchke, who said there were some musicians in town from England who wanted a female vocalist to help with a song.
Those musicians happened to be the Rolling Stones, and the song was “Gimme Shelter,” but Clayton had no clue who the Rolling Stones were and initially resisted.
After all, she was pregnant, tired and almost in bed with her husband.
But after being convinced by her husband to go help out, Clayton put on a coat and went outside to a car waiting to take her to the studio.
Clayton was still in her hair rollers and her pajamas when she arrived to meet the band.”
Unfortunately, Clayton suffered a miscarriage after the recording. But her voice made an otherwise good song into one which stands as one of the most powerful antiwar songs ever recorded.
My heart breaks when I hear Clayton’s voice crack. We all seek shelter at times but the idea of shepherding children and elderly people through a war zone is impossible to comprehend except through experience. The same is true for all refugees who endure horrific travails as they seek some place which offers safety.
Today, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, when asked about a cease-fire in the conflict in Gaza, said: ““That will not happen. The Bible says that there is a time for peace and a time for war. This is a time for war.”
It is not war; it is slaughter.
There really is no comparison between the military arsenals of Israel and Hamas. The chart below is from 2009, but the military balance now is even more heavily weighted toward Israel.
In addition, Israel has the Iron Dome air defense system to defend itself against rocket attacks. Hamas has no similar defense.
The overwhelming military superiority of Israel allows it to conduct its operations at arms-length. Nonetheless, Israel has mounted a ground invasion of Gaza which will require even more attacks from the air to protect Israeli soldiers on the ground. The Palestinians have no place to go to avoid these attacks–Egypt has kept the southern crossing closed and the Israeli army and navy keeps the other possible exits closed.
Today, the asymmetry was obvious as the Israelis bombed the Jabaliya refugee camp to kill Ibrahim Biari, a Hamas commander who the Israelis called one of the ringleaders to the 7 October attack.
Jabaliya Refugee Camp after the Bombing
We do not know how many innocents were killed by the air strike. The calculation made by Israel that the death of one commander justified the deaths of these innocents is depraved. I am certain that Israel takes every necessary step to avoid civilian deaths, but Hamas is not using civilians as shields. The Gaza Strip has a population of over 2 million people and spans only 140 square miles. There is probably no way to conduct large-scale aerial attacks against Hamas without jeopardizing civilian lives.
Israel unquestionably has the right of self-defense but the ground invasion does not offer any defense unless the Gaza Strip is depopulated. Depopulation may be an unstated objective of the Netanyahu government because if any Palestinians remain in Gaza, they will be implacably opposed to the state of Israel after this conflict. The Netanyahu government is simply sowing the seeds of another war.
The international community should demand an immediate cease-fire. The UN General Assembly approved such a resolution on 27 October:
“The U.N. General Assembly approved a nonbinding resolution Friday calling for a “humanitarian truce” in Gaza leading to a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers, the first United Nations response to the war.
“The 193-member world body adopted the resolution by a vote of 120-14 with 45 abstentions after rejecting a Canadian amendment backed by the United States. It would have unequivocally condemned the Oct. 7 ‘terrorist attacks’ by Hamas and demanded the immediate release of hostages taken by Hamas, which is not mentioned in the Arab-drafted resolution.”
But the General Assembly does not have the authority to order a cease-fire, only the UN Security Council can compel action on sovereign signatories. The Russian Federation introduced a cease-fire resolution which ” would have strongly condemned all violence and hostilities directed against civilians and all acts of terrorism. By its further terms, it would also have called for the secure release of all hostages and unimpeded provision and distribution of humanitarian assistance, including of food, fuel and medical treatment.” Of the five members of the Security Council with the power of veto, only Russia and China voted for the resolution. The US, France, and Great Britain voted against the resolution.
The United States should itself introduce another resolution to the Security Council calling for an immediate cease-fire–not some bootless “humanitarian pause”. And the US should announce that it would not offer Israel any further assistance except for defensive weaponry such as missiles for the Iron Dome until hostilities have subsided. That decision would have enormous implications for US-Israeli relations, but the US should not be an accomplice to violence against civilians.
The proposed action is unquestionably drastic and unfortunate. Israel has been a good ally of the US, but the Netanyahu government has been pursuing policies that do not serve US interests. Indeed, the continued slaughter of civilians will only force Hezbollah in Lebanon to join the battle, likely bringing Iran into the conflict. The last thing we would want is for an Israeli attack on Iran–long an objective of the Netanyahu government–because that escalation would be very difficult to control.
World Politics News 