YESTERDAY, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) met to consider the lawsuit filed by South Africa condemning Israel for the crime of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
In an opening address to the court, South Africa’s lawyers emphasised the history and context of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said that this was very important to show that ‘what we are seeing today unravelling in front of our eyes – the genocide – did not start on October 7, that there is a long history of genocide and apartheid, discrimination, hate speech, war crimes and so on since 1948’.
The state of Israel was created to act as an outpost of world imperialism in 1948 through a campaign of terrorism to drive Palestinians from their land in the great Nakba (catastrophe) and has carried on as an occupying power using terror and oppression against Palestinians for more than half a century.
South Africa’s lawyers cited evidence that the specific genocidal intent of the Zionist regime is clear from statements made by Israeli government officials.
These include prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu citing a passage in the bible referring to the Amalek people, which calls on the faithful to ‘totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants,’ – an open call to genocide.
Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant’s comment that Israel was fighting ‘human animals’ and that there would be ‘no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel’ in Gaza and that there would be no restraints placed on Israeli troops and that ‘we will eliminate everything’, was cited in this damning opening.
The results of this genocidal outlook are clear for the world to see today.
Since the start of the murderous Israeli onslaught over 23,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children have been killed while nearly 59,000 Palestinians have been wounded.
Killed through a murderous campaign of bombings that has targeted hospitals, schools and residential housing in a campaign to wipe Palestinians out or drive them from Gaza completely.
The working class, youth and masses across the world are not waiting for the outcome of this ICJ’s deliberations, they have already made their minds up, that Israel is a racist, genocidal regime that has acted with complete impunity because it has the full support of the US and its imperialist allies.
Not surprisingly, the US opposes the genocide case with National Security spokesman John Kirby calling it ‘meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis’.
The UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron on Tuesday told MPs that he does not think the case is ‘right’, while all the other major capitalist countries in the West have maintained complete silence.
The state of Israel was created by world imperialism to be the guardian and protector of the oil-rich Middle East for exploitation of its resources by capitalism.
Not only has it been armed to the teeth with all the bombs and armaments that are being used to kill Palestinians, but the US, and its faithful lackey the UK, have blocked every motion at the UN for a halt to the genocide, conferring on Israel the impunity that has encouraged and enabled genocide.
The US and the UK stand as complicit in genocide and should stand in the dock alongside the Zionist regime.
Tens of millions of workers and young people are rising up demanding an end to genocide and for the victory of the Palestinian revolution.
They see in this struggle a reflection of the struggles of workers and youth against a capitalist ruling class that treats them also as expendable ‘human animals’, fit only to be exploited and then disposed of in the pursuit of profit.
Tomorrow, millions will march through London in support of Palestine.
This march must become the start of a general strike to bring down the Tories and put an end to all support for the Israeli regime by bringing in a workers government and socialism.
A workers government will not just end support for Israel but provide Palestinians with all the material and military support required to establish the independent state of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital.
