Intent in the genocide case against Israel is not hard to prove

This week, the International Court of Justice held a hearing for South Africa’s formal request for provisional measures against Israel over its military assault on Gaza. The mass killing of more than 23,000 Palestinians, almost half of whom are children and youth, with thousands more missing; the forced displacement of almost two million Palestinians who make up 90 percent of Gaza’s population; Israel’s imposition of “total siege” that now threatens to kill through hunger and infectious diseases hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the coming months; the laying of waste to Gaza through indiscriminate mass bombardments and the razing of whole residential neighbourhoods; the targeting of hospitals, doctors and other healthcare professionals; the damage and destruction of cultural, educational and religious sites, including hundreds of schools, universities, mosques, churches and libraries – all this is the visible execution of genocide, and the South African legal team laid it out clearly during the hearing. In the case of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, however, as the Law for Palestine database shows, people with command authority have been making genocidal statements repeatedly over the past three months. Israeli President Isaac Herzog said a few weeks earlier, on December 5, that Israel’s attack on Gaza is “a war that is intended, really, truly, to save western civilisation… an empire of evil”. In view of this unashamed genocidal language by people with command authority in Israel, “the ICJ faces a stark choice”, as international law expert Moshen al Attar has recently put it: “Find in favour of South Africa and indicate provisional measures or damn international law into oblivion.” Whether the ICJ fulfils its duty and rules in favour of the South African request remains to be seen.