Hamas attacks southern Israel

[Lord Thesaurian]

https://www.foxnews.com/media/public...rying-end-yall

Public funds are used to turn American children into anti semitic terrorists, and we wonder why Osama bin Laden is popular on Tik Tok.

[Ludicus]

David Ben-Gurion and the Palestinians
A lot of falsehoods in here.

nhytgbvfeco2, denialism is a person's choice to deny facts to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth.

A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion_-Amazon

No one dares to claim that a 2019 National Jewish Book Award Finalist, “is full of falsehoods”.
Some book reviews,
"A fascinating biography . . . a masterly portrait of a titanic yet unfulfilled man . . . this is a gripping study of power, and the loneliness of power." —The Economist
Book review of A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben Gurion -Washington Post ...
A State at Any Cost-Jewish Book Council.
A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion-Goodreads
Book Review | A State At Any Cost: The Life of David Ben- ...
Etc.
---
The choice to settle in Palestine included Zionists who considered themselves socialists but who, in contrast with the Bund, decided not to take on the fight for a socialist society in Europe. Ben Gurion told members of his MAPAI party in1938 that he opposed the evacuation of Jewish children from Nazi Germany. Zionist project was about building a state, not about helping refugees flee:
“If I knew that it was possible to save all the Jewish children in Germany by transporting them to England, but only half by transporting them to Palestine, I would choose the second.”
(Quoted on pp 855-56 in Shabtai Teveth’s Ben-Gurion in a slightly different translation).

The kind of morally bankrupted statement that could only come from the lips of a nationalist bigot, not a socialist, in my opinion.

A Zionist State at Any Cost-Jacobin

For Ben-Gurion, as it had been for Herzl, antisemitism was a great ally to Zionism, with every manifestation of antisemitism becoming a “boost” to Zionism. (personal note- like I said before)
At the 1937 Zionist congress in Zurich, he declared that “our right to Palestine, all of it, is unassailable and eternal” and that he was “an enthusiastic advocate of a Jewish state within the historical boundaries of the Land of Israel.”

Ben-Gurion not only regarded as foreign and alien the poor, uneducated, immigrant Jews from the Arab world, but also the destitute and brutalized Holocaust survivors arriving in Israel. They were Jews, Ben-Gurion affirmed, “only in the sense that they were not non-Jews”.

Ben-Gurion had a Social Darwinist approach to European Jews, only a minority of whom were Zionists during the years preceding the Holocaust.

Ben-Gurion made it clear that if it came to choosing between ten thousand Jews who would be beneficial to Palestine and the “rebirth” of Israel and a million Jews who would be a burden, the ten thousand should be saved.

What (more) did David Ben-Gurion say? some quotes. The first has already been mentioned above,

“If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.”
Ben-Gurion (Quoted on pp 855-56 in Shabtai Teveth’s Ben-Gurion in a slightly different translation).

“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”
David Ben-Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.

“Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country. … Behind the terrorism [by the Arabs] is a movement, which though primitive is not devoid of idealism and self sacrifice.”
David Ben Gurion. Quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s “Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.

“We must do everything to insure they (the Palestinians) never do return.”
David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, 18 July 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar’s Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet, Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.

Ben Gurion also warned in 1948: Assuring his fellow Zionists that Palestinians will never come back to their homes: “The old will die and the young will forget.”
“We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai.”
David Ben-Gurion May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, a Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.

“It’s not a matter of maintaining the status quo. We have to create a dynamic state, oriented towards expansion.” –Ben Gurion
“Every school child knows that there is no such thing in history as a final arrangement — not with regard to the regime, not with regard to borders, and not with regard to international agreements.”
Ben Gurion, War Diaries, 12/03/1947 following Israel’s “acceptance” of the U.N. Partition of 11/29/1947 (Simha Flapan, “Birth of Israel,” p.13)

"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population? ‘Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said ‘ Drive them out! "
Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.

Partition: “after the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine “
Ben Gurion, p.22 “The Birth of Israel, 1987” Simha Flapan.

5 October 1937, Ben-Gurion wrote in a letter to his 16 year old son Amos: “We must expel the Arabs and take their places…. And, if we have to use force-not to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Transjordan, but to guarantee our own right to settle in those places- then we have force at our disposal.”
“It is very possible that the Arabs of the neighboring countries will come to their aid against us. But our strength will exceed theirs. Not only because we will be better organized and equipped, but because behind us there stands a still larger force, superior in quantity and quality …the whole younger generation of Jews from Europe and America.”
Ben-Gurion, Zichronot [Memoirs], Vol. 4, p.297-299, p. 330-331.See also Teveth, Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, p. 182-189

On the 6th of February 1948, during a Mapai Party Council, Ben-Gurion responded to a remark from a member of the audience that “we have no land there” [in the hills and mountains west of Jerusalem] by saying: “The war will give us the land. The concepts of “ours” and “not ours” are peace concepts, only, and in war they lose their whole meaning”
(Ben-Gurion, War Diary, Vol. 1, entry dated 6 February 1948. p.211)

Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary on 12 July 1937: “the compulsory transfer of the Arabs from the valleys of the projected Jewish State…. We have to stick to this conclusion the same way we grabbed the Balfour Declaration, more than that, the same way we grabbed at Zionism itself.”
(Ben-Gurion, Zichronot [Memoirs], Vol. 4, p. 299)
----

Biden issued an executive order las week barring financial transactions by four Jewish colonists, (four, only four, I repeat, only four!!!), but Smotrich said in response to American sanctions, said “the sanctions targeted a half million Israelis who were fighting "terrorism" and were now considered enemies rather than allies”.

“We are not a banana republic of the United States in this regard and we won't allow for the harming of our citizens”,

“It is not possible for an Israeli citizen with Israeli money in an Israeli bank to be deprived of rights and assets due to an American order,”
“we won't allow for the harming of our citizens” We are not a banana republic of the United States

One might ask, who is who?

[PointOfViewGun]

A few days ago we told that Hamas refused the ceasefire proposal from Israel. As with many claims we saw here, it turned out to be false with Hamas proposing the following conditions:

Israel-Gaza war: Hamas responds to ceasefire offer with 135-day truce plan

A draft of the Hamas document seen by the Reuters news agency suggests:
Phase one: A 45-day pause in fighting during which all Israeli women hostages, males under 19, the elderly and sick would be exchanged for Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails. Israeli forces would withdraw from populated areas of Gaza, and the reconstruction of hospitals and refugee camps would begin
Phase two: Remaining male Israeli hostages would be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners and Israeli forces leave Gaza completely
Phase three: Both sides would exchange remains and bodies
The deal would also see deliveries of food and other aid to Gaza increase. By the end of the 135-day pause in fighting, Hamas says negotiations to end the war would have concluded.

Then we hear Israel rejecting these conditions:

Gaza ceasefire: Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu rejects Hamas's proposed terms

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected Hamas's proposed ceasefire terms - saying "total victory" in Gaza is possible within months.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

A few days ago we told that Hamas refused the ceasefire proposal from Israel. As with many claims we saw here, it turned out to be false with Hamas proposing the following conditions:

Israel-Gaza war: Hamas responds to ceasefire offer with 135-day truce plan


Then we hear Israel rejecting these conditions:

Gaza ceasefire: Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu rejects Hamas's proposed terms

I've said Hamas rejects all *temporary* ceasefires, and this is evidence of just that. They're saying that by the end of the 135 day period a permanent ceasefire will have to be negotiated. It also demands a full Israeli withdrawal. That's not a temporary ceasefire, this is a demand for Israeli surrender. No one in their right mind would agree to this, and if our government does, they should all be court martialed.

[Muizer]

You must know as well as I do that this is no more than a token proposal.

[Ludicus]

Israeli PM rebuffs US-led mediation efforts as order is given to commence ground assault in southern city of Rafah-The Guardian

World has entered age of chaos, UN chief says
UN chief warns of 'untold consequences' if Israel expands

I am especially alarmed by reports that the Israeli military intends to focus next on Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been squeezed in a desperate search for safety,” said Guterres, adding that “such an action would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences.”
An offensive in Rafah could push Palestinians into Egypt, undermining Israel’s peace agreement with the country.

This is what the State of Israel and its founder Ben Gurion always dreamed of. In his own words “maximum territory, minimum Arabs” when he spoke frankly of mass expulsions. As Segev writes, "he had always dreamed of possessing the entire Land of Israel, and that continued to be his ultimate wish”. As Segev shows, Ben-Gurion’s differences with the right were more a matter of tactics than principle. Like Netanyahu, he sought a Greater Israel, even if he believed it had to be pursued in stages.


Tom Segev - a reflection piece wrote in October 24, three days before Israeli’s ground invasion, Israeli-Palestinian history is scarred by tragedy - Financial Times

Some time before Israel celebrated its 75th Independence Day in May, I went to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem to visit my father’s military grave. He was killed in 1948 during the first Arab Israeli war, when I was three years old. The Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives has existed for about 3,000 years; my father’s grave overlooks a majestic panorama of the Judaean desert, descending to the Dead Sea. A few steps away I noticed the graves of two Israeli children murdered in the Gaza Strip in 1971. Marc-Daniel Aroyo was about seven, his sister Abigail about five. Both were born in London. The Palestinian terrorist who threw a grenade into the family’s car was around 15. I came down from the cemetery thinking of what David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, said about Gaza before the 1956 Suez campaign: “If I believed in miracles, I’d wish for it to be swallowed up by the sea.”

The slaughter of more than 1,400 Israelis by Hamas on October 7 brought to mind what Ben-Gurion said in 1919 about the Jewish-Palestinian conflict: “There is no solution. We want Palestine to be ours as a nation. The Arabs want it to be theirs — as a nation. I don’t know what Arab would agree to Palestine belonging to the Jews.”
His conclusion was that the conflict can at best be managed, not solved. The displacement of most Arabs from at least part of Palestine has always been a fundamental part of Zionist ideology.
Under Ben-Gurion, over half a million Palestinian Arabs became refugees and were never allowed to return. I feel a partner to the historical responsibility for at least some of the Palestinian “Nakba”, as they call their national tragedy. Not many Israelis do.

Israel’s presence in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 marks a continuation of the Zionist enterprise there, beginning at the end of the 19th century. The Palestinian population has been subjected to brutal oppression and daily violations of their human rights. But in more than 100 years since Ben-Gurion’s grim analysis, the management of the conflict has never been more catastrophic than under prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Hoping to divide the Palestinian leadership between rival groups, Netanyahu encouraged Hamas to take over Gaza.
He will probably be held responsible also for the army’s failure to detect in time the offensive plans of Hamas. The attack on Israel marked the country’s worst day since 1948.
The atrocious evidence found at the scene, including remains of children burnt alive, evoked memories of the Holocaust. Government and public opinion reacted by calling for massive retaliation aimed at the “elimination of Hamas”.

Soon, more recent chapters of the conflict came to mind. In 1956 foreign minister Golda Meir justified harsh military action against the population in Gaza as punishment for a murderous attack on Israeli civilians. “I freely admit that I don’t have any bad feelings about it,” Meir told the cabinet. “I am not saying that because in Gaza Arab children were killed and here we are talking about Jewish children, but because we did not start it. They need to know that they need to pay and pay a high price.”

Some Israeli television commentators urged the launch of a second Nakba. Indeed, it seemed for a while that Netanyahu was failing to distinguish between primeval instincts of revenge and calculated strategy.
More than 1mn residents of Gaza were “encouraged” to leave their homes. The city was subjected to ruinous air raids. An Israeli ground operation is said to be imminent.
US president Joe Biden issued a timely warning to Israel “not to be blinded by rage”, but also repeated the usual call for a “two-state solution”. It is an old diplomatic fiction, needed to preserve a glimmer of false hope.

Following this conflict from war to war since my childhood, I sometimes thought the worst still lay ahead. Perhaps both we and they had not yet suffered enough, and only a catastrophe of biblical proportions could break the deadlock.

[Muizer]

Finally some accounts from the battlefield. The Guardian interviewed some IDF service(wo)men anonymously. No real surprises I'd say, but it's good to get some voices from the ground of what that war is like rather than the pictures painted in the media by people with agendas.

[PointOfViewGun]

‘The destruction is massive … It’s a disaster area’: Israeli soldiers speak about fighting in Gaza

“The destruction is massive,” said one noncommissioned officer (NCO) who was in Gaza for two months with an infantry unit. “What really blew my mind was that there is nowhere for anyone to come back to. There aren’t even three walls connected. It looks like a scene of a zombie attack or something. It’s not a war zone. It’s a disaster area, like out of Hollywood.”

We have been getting footage from Israeli soldiers themselves that they put on social media platforms showing the level of excessive brutality in Gaza. This was known. The article doesn't reveal it. Merely confirms what we have seen and what many here chose to ignore.

[Ludicus]

It's nothing new, really. But in essence, the intention is to justify Israel's genocidal agenda,

None of the reservists interviewed doubted that Israel’s offensive and the tactics employed were justified

---

About Israel's genocidal military campaign in Gaza,
Measured Yet Damning: The ICJ's Genocide Ruling on Israel
Michael Lynk
Michael Lynk served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, from 2016 to 2022.

Genocide is a fearsome word. It was coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish lawyer who lost much of his family in the Holocaust, combining genos (Greek for race or tribe) with cide (Latin for killing) to describe what has become known as the "crime of crimes." Lemkin's persistent lobbying for the inclusion of genocide as a crime under international law was first recognized by the United Nations General Assembly in 1946, when it unanimously voted to accept Resolution 96, declaring that "genocide is a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups." The resolution added that "such denial of the right of existence shocks the conscience of mankind, results in great losses to humanity in the form of cultural and other contributions represented by these human groups, and is contrary to moral law and to the spirit and aims of the United Nations."

Two years later, in December 1948, the General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Suppression of Genocide, the U.N.'s first human rights treaty. The Convention defined genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:"

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Since then, the Genocide Convention has been ratified by 153 states. Genocide is distinct from other atrocity crimes, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity, by the fact that it requires persuasive proof of the special intent "to destroy, in whole or in part, a group."

Mass killings are commonly associated with genocide, but it is possible to commit mass killings—such as the Allied bombing of Dresden in World War II—without intending to commit genocide—the physical destruction of the German people—just as it is possible to commit genocide without necessarily engaging in mass killings, such as the incitement of genocide without success, or forcibly transferring children of the target group to another group with genocidal intent.
In its 84-page application in December to the International Court of Justice, the highest court in the United Nations system, South Africa alleged that Israel had breached its obligations under the Genocide Convention through the conduct of its war on Gaza. South Africa was able to assert legal standing to bring the application against Israel because both states are signatories to the Convention, which contains the obligation on every state signatory to prevent genocide as an erga omnes responsibility wherever and whenever genocide may be occurring.

In its oral arguments for the case in The Hague in January, South Africa laid out the scale of the death, destruction, displacement and suffering endured by the 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza from Israel's war, which it launched in the aftermath of the carnage committed by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in southern Israel on Oct. 7. In requesting "provisional measures" from the ICJ at this stage of the proceedings—similar to an interim injunction in a court in North America—the legal bar that South Africa had to meet was relatively low. Was it plausible that Israel's military actions in Gaza since October amounted to genocide?

To do so, South Africa had to satisfy two related requirements: that the acts committed by Israel, particularly the civilian killings and injuries, and the devastation of the civilian infrastructure, and the intentions attributable to Israeli political and civilian leaders together are plausibly contributing to the destruction, in whole or in part, of an identifiable group—namely, the Palestinians in Gaza.

Eloquence in the face of horror was woven throughout South Africa's arguments. In her oral submissions to the Court, Blinne Ni Ghrálaigh, the Irish human rights lawyer representing South Africa, outlined the consequences of the international community's inability to halt a genocide in the making:
The international community continues to fail the Palestinian people, despite the overt dehumanizing genocidal rhetoric by Israeli governmental and military officials, matched by the Israeli army's actions on the ground; despite the horror of the genocide against the Palestinian people being livestreamed from Gaza to our mobile phones, computers and television screens—the first genocide in history where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time in the desperate, so far vain, hope that the world might do something.
Gaza represents nothing short of a "moral failure," as described by the usually circumspect International Committee of the Red Cross.

She then reminded the Court that this case represented a pivotal challenge for the efficacy of international law itself: "Some might say that the very reputation of international law—its ability and willingness to bind and to protect all peoples equally—hangs in the balance."
In its oral arguments to the Court delivered the following day, Israel advanced two main claims. First, it insisted that South Africa did not have a "dispute" with Israel, and therefore the ICJ should dismiss the genocide application on this procedural ground. And second, it argued that throughout its military operations in Gaza since October, Israel has been acting strictly within the bounds on international law—and, more so, it was the victim, not the perpetrator, of genocide.

In the words of Malcolm Shaw, a British barrister and legal academic arguing on behalf of Israel:
Allegations have been made which verge on the outrageous. The attack by Hamas on 7 October, with its deliberate commission of atrocities, clearly falls within the statutory definition of genocide. Israel's response was and remains legitimate and necessary. It acted and continues to act in a manner consistent with international law. It does so not in an unrestrained manner, but in investing unprecedented efforts in mitigating civilian harm, at cost to its operations, as well as alleviating hardship and suffering, with investment of resources and effort.There is no genocidal intent here. This is no genocide.

When the ICJ delivered its remarkable judgement two weeks later, in late January, its measured tones masked a damning verdict. The Court largely accepted South Africa's narrative about Israel's conduct of its military operations against Gaza. It dismissed Israel's argument that there was no "dispute" between the two countries, holding that South Africa had issued a number of both bilateral and public statements since October that Israel's actions amounted to a violation of the Genocide Convention. In its view, this gave the Court jurisdiction to hear the merits of South Africa's claim. More importantly, the ICJ ruled that at least some of Israel's military operations in Gaza could plausibly amount to genocide under the Convention, opening the door for the order of provisional measures against Israel.

In assessing the plausibility of genocidal acts alleged by South Africa against Israel, the Court placed significant weight on the many statements issued by senior U.N. officials since October about the unfolding humanitarian calamity in Gaza. It expressly noted the extraordinary level of Palestinian casualties—25,700 dead and 63,000 injured at the time—along with the forced displacement of approximately 80 percent of Gaza's population and the destruction or damage to more than 360,000 housing units in the besieged territory.

The Court then gave life to these statistics by quoting U.N. Under-Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths, who said that "Gaza has become a place of death and despair" and that "Gaza has simply become uninhabitable." The Court also cited the World Health Organization's warning that "an unprecedented 93 percent of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger, with insufficient food and high levels of malnutrition."
All of this, in the Court's view, demonstrated that a "catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is at serious risk of deteriorating further before the Court reaches its final judgement."
The ICJ then turned to assess whether the plausibility of genocidal intent had been established by South Africa. In its December application, South Africa had provided 35 quotes from senior Israeli political and military leaders laced with dehumanizing language toward the Palestinians. The Court specifically cited statements from three Israeli leaders: President Isaac Herzog; Defense Minister Yoav Gallant; and Israel Katz, then the minister of energy and infrastructure and, since January, the foreign minister.

All three statements were graphic, with Katz's comment on X, formerly Twitter, in October particularly so: "We will fight the terrorist organization and destroy it," he said. "All the civilian population in Gaza is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world."
Implicit in the Court's ruling was the critical weakness at the core of Israel's case: its inability to provide any persuasive answer to South Africa's abundant evidence of indiscriminate death and destruction in Gaza. While the ICJ came to no conclusions about whether a genocide is actually occurring in Gaza—that will be determined only after a full hearing by the Court into South Africa's allegations, expected to last three to four years—it was entirely unmoved by Israel's assertion that its conduct of the war has been within the bounds of international law and that it had been doing its utmost to avoid civilian deaths.

Taken together, the Court ruled that the factual and intentional evidence laid out in the arguments satisfied the test for the protection of rights claimed by South Africa's application.
The Court issued six provisional measures to Israel, among them that it must to "take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of acts" in Gaza that violate the Genocide Convention; that it "take all measures" to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement in Israel to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza; and that it "take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance" into Gaza. In addition, the Court called upon Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza to immediately and unconditionally release the remaining Israeli hostages they are holding.

These are authoritative orders, and they are legally binding under international law. Particularly striking was the size of the majority for each provisional measure. The judges on the Court voted either by a 15-2 or 16-1 majority for these measures. All six elected judges from the Global North—the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Australia and Slovakia—joined seven of the eight elected judges from the Global South (only the Ugandan judge dissented) and the Russian judge in endorsing the orders. The ad hoc judge from South Africa, specifically brought in for the case, voted in favor of the orders, and even the ad hoc Israeli judge, Aharon Barak, voted in favor of the order for humanitarian assistance.
Yet missing among the Court's provisional measures was South Africa's request for the immediate suspension of Israel's military operations in and against Gaza. This is the hole in the heart of the ruling. Although South Africa correctly argued after the judgement that Israel could only comply with the provisional orders by agreeing to an immediate cessation of hostilities, the absence of a specific cease-fire order has allowed Israel the wiggle room to re-interpret the rulings in its own favor.

After initially denouncing the Court's ruling as "antisemitic" and "outrageous," Israel then changed its tack to argue that, because its military operations have supposedly always been consistent with international law, it remains in compliance with the orders for provisional measures. Since the ICJ ruling, Israel's war on Gaza has continued, largely without restrain; in the 10 days following the decision, more than 1,220 Palestinians in Gaza were killed. Humanitarian agencies continue to issue stark bulletins about the impending threat of famine in Gaza.
The ICJ, a sober and restrained court that is very conscious of its place in the international system, has issued a formidable decision that matches the public temper of our times respecting the unfolding nightmare in Gaza. The Court's acceptance of the possibility of genocide being committed by Israel's military operations in Gaza has indelibly stained Israel's international standing, while lifting the promise of international law as a tool for justice rather than a cudgel for power.

Israel is not the only badly damaged party. The judgement has also deeply blemished the reputation of those countries—the United States most of all—that have backed Israel politically and militarily throughout the war while belittling South Africa's case before the ICJ. "Meritless" and "distracts the world," said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in early January about the proceedings in The Hague. "Completely unjustified and wrong," British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated at the same time.

And while Blinken had expressed his concern in mid-November that "far too many Palestinians have been killed," he subsequently invoked emergency provisions twice in December that enabled tens of thousands of artillery shells and other munitions to be sent to Israel to replenish its depleted ammunition stock without Congressional oversight.

When the ICJ issued its ruling, the United States continued to speak from the same playbook. "There's no indication that we've seen that validates a claim of genocidal intent or action by the Israeli Defense Forces," said John Kirby, a National Security Council spokesperson a few hours after the decision.

Yet within a day, the Biden administration had accepted the allegations by Israel that 12 staff members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency—the U.N. organization that supports the Palestinian refugee population in Gaza and throughout the region—had been involved in Hamas's Oct. 7 attack, and quickly suspended its funding to UNRWA. Seventeen countries followed suit. Almost immediately, the political focus of the media in the United States and Europe switched to a new channel while the sky over Gaza remained crimson and black.

The cloud hanging over the ICJ ruling is whether those countries that have staunchly supported Israel through its war on Gaza—first and foremost, the United States—may face legal consequences for being complicit in international crimes, should genocide subsequently be established.

After all, Article III (e) of the Genocide Convention expressly states that "complicity in genocide" is a punishable act.
Since October, the United States has not only supplied missiles, tank shells and bunker-busting bombs to Israel, it also provided an impenetrable diplomatic shield at the U.N. Security Council to defeat three resolutions demanding a cease-fire, which had the overwhelming support of other Security Council members.
As a sign of what may be coming, the international NGO Defense for Children International–Palestine and several individual Palestinian-American plaintiffs sought an injunction in a U.S. federal court in San Francisco in late January to order the Biden administration to take all measures within its power to prevent Israel's commission of genocidal acts in Gaza.

Although the court ruled against the motion on the grounds that it does not have the jurisdiction to decide a fundamentally political issue, citing precedent, it also called on the White House to take heed of the ICJ's ruling: "[A]s the ICJ has found, it is plausible that Israel's conduct amounts to genocide. This Court implores Defendants to examine the results of their unflagging support of the military siege against the Palestinians in Gaza."

The ICJ has no army or police to enforce its rulings. Its authority is based entirely on the willingness of states, acting in good faith, to comply with its legal orders, particularly when they are on the losing end. In other circumstances, the United States has joined Western countries to insist upon compliance with the Court's orders.

In May 2022, following the Court's order for Russia to suspend its military operations in Ukraine, the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and 41 other states said in a joint statement: "We welcome the Court's ruling and strongly urge Russia to comply with this legally binding order… As the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, the ICJ is a pillar of the rules-based international order and has a vital role to play in the peaceful settlement of disputes."

A similar statement was issued following the Court's orders for provisional measures in Myanmar, in a case on allegations that the atrocities committed by Myanmar's military against the ethnic Rohingya population also amounted to genocide.

The insistence by voices in the Global South that international law has one measuring stick to judge the behavior of all states has undercut the rote repetition by American and European leaders about their unwavering commitment to a rules-based international order. Nowhere is the daylight between the promise and performance of international law greater than with Israel's occupation of Palestine, and now its war on Gaza.

"As long as those who make rules enforce them against others while believing that they and their allies are above those rules, the international governance system is in trouble," Thuli Madonsela, a prominent South African constitutional lawyer, told The New York Times after the ruling. "We say these rules are the rules when Russia invades Ukraine or when the Rohingya are being massacred by Myanmar, but if it's now Israel butchering Palestinians, depriving them of food, displacing them en masse, then the rules don't apply and whoever tries to apply the rules is antisemitic? It is really putting those rules in jeopardy."

--
As for the agendas, (" people with agendas"), there are those who defend the peaceful coexistence of two independent states, and there are those who defend the illegal objectives already confessed and announced by the Israeli government, which are not worth repeating.

[Muizer]

Ludicus, your persistent excising of the role of Hamas from your narrative is getting tiresome. Hamas could have prevented any and all bloodshed at any time by capitulating in the face of a clearly superior force. So explain to me what you believe is their responsibility in all this. Are they right to continue to resist if the result is Gaza being destroyed and depopulated? Is it right for them to commit their entire people to a fight to the death? Is that, e.g. what you'd expect your government to decide, plan for and instigate on your behalf?

Your stance goes well beyond criticizing Israel. You're reducing 7/10 to a pretext hardly worth mentioning in the story of Israel's long term relentless pursuit the genocide of the Palestinians.

[PointOfViewGun]

If Muizer's logic was to be followed we would have all been expected to allow Nazi's to do everything they wanted to back in WWII. The logic he banks on to brush away Israeli brutality in Gaza is just preposterous.

Meanwhile in Gaza:

Israel seeks to evacuate Palestinians jammed into a southern Gaza city ahead of an expected invasion

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said he has ordered the military to prepare a plan to evacuate civilians from Rafah ahead of an expected Israeli invasion of the densely populated southern Gaza city. The announcement came after heavy international criticism, including from the U.S., of Israeli intentions to move ground forces into the city that borders Egypt. Rafah had a prewar population of roughly 280,000, and according to the United Nations is now home to some 1.4 million additional people living with relatives, in shelters or in sprawling tent camps after fleeing fighting elsewhere in Gaza.

Rafah on October 13th, 2023:


On January 14th, 2024:

[Ludicus]

Ludicus, your persistent excising of the role of Hamas from your narrative is getting tiresome

No I'm not-reread my first post. But just as we, as a colonial power, ended up making peace with the Angolan Hamas, I predict that this war will end in the same way.
What is "tiresome" is your inability to realize that this war is much more than a war against Hamas, it is a war against the Palestinian people. Israel's plan for military escalation is aimed to drive Palestinians from their land, and you know that.
Edit.
This week, relatives of Portuguese Israelis who are hostages of Hamas came here asking for our intervention. It's the second time they've come. They are desperate, as you can imagine. They were very well received and cared for, as it should be - but no one can do anything. Israel has no intention, nor has it ever had any intention, of saving them. Only eighty remain.


Gaza: Israel moves closer to Rafah offensive despite ‘bloodbath’ warning

Biden and UN say assault on city where 1.3m civilians are sheltering would be disastrous.
Despite warnings from a senior aid official that an assault on Rafah – where about 1.3 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering – would lead to a “bloodbath”, and the UN urging against forced mass displacement, Israel appeared determined to push ahead.
“No war can be allowed in a gigantic refugee camp,” said Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, warning of a “bloodbath” if Israeli operations expanded there.
“I’m of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response in the Gaza Strip has been over the top,” the US president told reporters late on Thursday, even as his secretary of state, Antony Blinken, left the region without reaching an agreement.

I’m pushing very hard now to deal with this hostage ceasefire,” Biden said. “There are a lot of innocent people who are starving, a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying, and it’s got to stop.”

That’s good to hear. Give the order.

From the Guardian,

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Explaining his response to the crisis, Biden appeared to mix up the details of his diplomatic efforts, calling the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, the leader of Mexico.“Initially, the president of Mexico, Sisi, did not want to open up the gate to allow humanitarian material to get in,” Biden said. “I talked to him. I convinced him to open the gate. I talked to Bibi [Netanyahu] to open the gate on the Israeli side.”

Ben Gvir apologizes for tweet by his son that implied Biden has Alzheimer’s disease

Let’s hope it’s not Alzheimer- a psychologically devastating disease for patients and their families.

[Muizer]

If Muizer's logic was to be followed we would have all been expected to allow Nazi's to do everything they wanted to back in WWII.

You do not expect governments at war to capitulate when defeat is certain and prolonging the war will only result in more civilian deaths?

[PointOfViewGun]

You do not expect governments at war to capitulate when defeat is certain and prolonging the war will only result in more civilian deaths?

If capitulation is an existential threat, no. You wouldn't too. Nobody would. As I pointed out, if the argument you're putting forward in defence of Israel was followed Nazi's would be allowed to do anything they wanted. You may not realize it but what you're arguing there is fundamentally troubling.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

No I'm not-reread my first post. But just as we, as a colonial power, ended up making peace with the Angolan Hamas, I predict that this war will end in the same way.

Ignoring everything else, this single argument is mind boggling to me. Do you not realise that Hamas sees all of Israel as a colony, and wants all of it exterminated, along with its people? How can this possibly end like Angola? Did Portugal get destroyed and all of its people genocided? No? Then how can you even say it'll end the same way?

[Ludicus]

Hamas sees all of Israel as a colony,

That's the main excuse used to reject negotiations. Israel’s apocalyptic prose is surprising, because Israel’s very survival is not at stake here. In any case, you've never heard anyone mention Israel as a "colony". On the contrary, Israel is the occupying power.

You do not expect governments at war to capitulate when defeat is certain

What are you saying? The ruins of Gaza no longer impress. It is impossible to imagine the degree and severity of the humanitarian situation there. The images that reach us help us perceive the indescribable situation of the survivors, reduced to starving beggars, deprived of everything. Dehumanized. They are the shame of Israel and all of us, passive accomplices to something that has long exceeded the limit of acceptability, of admissibility. We are all in the process of dehumanization if we limit ourselves to being indifferent spectators. But in fact, what Israel is doing today is putting into practice the policy of aggressive expansion advocated by Ben Gurion, so well described by the Israeli historian Tom Segev in his book "A State at Any Cost - The Life of David Ben-Gurion."
--
Edit,
About the latest campaign in a decades-long attack on UNRWA by Israel in the context of a broader campaign to eliminate the “Palestinian refugee issue”. UNRWA staff accused by Israel sacked without evidence, chief admits

(…) Lazzarini added that a consignment of food aid from Turkey, including flour, chickpeas, rice, sugar and cooking oil, that would sustain 1.1 million people for a month had been blocked at the Israeli port of Ashdod.

Craig Mokhiber, a former U.N. official who resigned over the global institution's failure to stop Israel's assault on Gaza, wrote

“Whether you care about Palestinian lives or not, the fact that the U.S., UK & several other western governments INSTANTLY attacked UNRWA on the orders of a genocidal foreign government (based on bogus claims) should make you very worried about your own democracy”

Defunding UNRWA would be both disproportionate and dangerous... Borrel EU 04.02.2024

…While the emotions prompting suspensions of funding are understandable, political responsibility has to look beyond emotions and consider the consequences of such a step.
…The lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, not only in Gaza, are at stake.

Certainly, some prominent member of the current Israeli government would like to see UNRWA closed, as repeatedly stated publicly. They have argued that UNRWA contributes to perpetuating the Palestinian refugee issue by granting refugee status across generations, despite this approach being in accordance with international law. These calls are by no means new; in 2018, they culminated in a suspension of US funding under President Trump, a move that has left the agency financially strained ever since. But suppressing the agency would not make the issue of Palestinian refugees vanish, it would only make it worse.
Israel, as the occupying power, has responsibility for the wellbeing of the Palestinian people under the Geneva Convention.
Advocating for the end of UNRWA often confuses cause with consequence. The agency's continued existence, since it was established in 1949, is the direct consequence of the fact that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has never been resolved.

We should concentrate all our efforts on addressing this deeper cause and finally implementing the two-state solution advocated by the international community and all EU member states. UNRWA's mission will automatically end once a sovereign Palestinian state, living peacefully side-by-side with Israel, has been established.

Smith's anti-UNRWA bill approved in Foreign Affairs February 07 2024

(…) his bill would indefinitely prevent any U.S. funds from going towards the agency (…)
This is far from Smith’s first time agitating against UNRWA. Back in 2003, he tried to shift funds away from UNRWA via a State Department authorization bill that was passed by the House but dropped by the Senate, and just last week, Smith co-chaired a hearing on UNRWA’s alleged involvement in October 7 attacks.

UNRWA makes the Nobel Peace Prize nominations shortlist

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 will be announced at 11 am on Friday, October 11, 2024
At the top of the list is the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, followed by the International Court of Justice, UNRWA and Philippe Lazzarini, Article 36 and the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, and UNESCO and the Council of Europe.
UNRWA and its Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, were nominated due to UNRWA’s “fundamental” effort to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
This is in spite of the allegations that UNRWA staff participated in the October 7 attacks as members of Hamas.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

That's the main excuse used to reject negotiations. Israel’s apocalyptic prose is surprising, because Israel’s very survival is not at stake here.

Hamas's goal is not a two state solution, it's genocide.

In any case, you've never heard anyone mention Israel as a "colony". On the contrary, Israel is the occupying power.

Lmao, yes I have, maaaany times.

[Muizer]

What are you saying? The ruins of Gaza no longer impress. It is impossible to imagine the degree and severity of the humanitarian situation there. The images that reach us help us perceive the indescribable situation of the survivors, reduced to starving beggars, deprived of everything. Dehumanized. They are the shame of Israel and all of us, passive accomplices to something that has long exceeded the limit of acceptability, of admissibility. We are all in the process of dehumanization if we limit ourselves to being indifferent spectators. But in fact, what Israel is doing today is putting into practice the policy of aggressive expansion advocated by Ben Gurion, so well described by the Israeli historian Tom Segev in his book "A State at Any Cost - The Life of David Ben-Gurion."

Yes, I know you're point of view. You view the role of Hamas in this conflict as peripheral and 7/10 a mere pretext for Israel to carry out its long term goals.

If capitulation is an existential threat, no. You wouldn't too. Nobody would.

In war it is expected of government officials and military leaders to place the welfare of the people they fight for above their own.

As I pointed out, if the argument you're putting forward in defence of Israel was followed Nazi's would be allowed to do anything they wanted. You may not realize it but what you're arguing there is fundamentally troubling.

If you want a WWII parallel, by your reckoning, the 100.000+ casualties of the siege of Berlin were attributable to allied brutality, not to the Nazi's fighting to the death for a lost cause in their capital city.

[PointOfViewGun]

In war it is expected of government officials and military leaders to place the welfare of the people they fight for above their own.

Not at all. Any war, one way or another, causes suffering for citizens of a country. Its sacrifice is often glorified. What you're trying to argue there doesn't make sense even a little bit.

If you want a WWII parallel, by your reckoning, the 100.000+ casualties of the siege of Berlin were attributable to allied brutality, not to the Nazi's fighting to the death for a lost cause in their capital city.

Interesting example but that's a different issue. Your earlier logic, dictating that if defeat is sure the losing side must capitulate, tells us that you think all the European countries should have just give in to Nazis, allow certain minorities to be gassed in chambers and be done with it. Bombing of Berlin, which is often an episode of history questioned for whether it was a war crime or not, is a separate issue.

[Muizer]

Not at all. Any war, one way or another, causes suffering for citizens of a country. Its sacrifice is often glorified. What you're trying to argue there doesn't make sense even a little bit.

I feel the same way.

Interesting example but that's a different issue. Your earlier logic, dictating that if defeat is sure the losing side must capitulate, tells us that you think all the European countries should have just give in to Nazis, allow certain minorities to be gassed in chambers and be done with it.

This sentence does not make sense either. Most European countries were overrun by the Nazis and in fact did capitulate when further resistance was futile. Yes, there was resistance afterwards, but that is a different matter.

Bombing of Berlin, which is often an episode of history questioned for whether it was a war crime or not, is a separate issue.

I think you're referring to Dresden here.