Throughout this past Thursday and Friday, a team of top experts came to The Hague to defend Israel from a ludicrous claim – that the Jewish State is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Indeed, South Africa – the complainant in the case – told the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israel is carrying out genocide in Gaza and therefore, the court must issue an injunction stopping all Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip.
These claims were presented in court on Thursday with a team of top anti-Israel and terror-supporting voices standing front and center, including former UK Labor head Jeremy Corbyn and Shawan Jabarin, a former senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – designated as a terrorist organization by Israel and some 30 Western countries.
While the list of reasons that this case is preposterous goes on and on, there is one thing that must be said, and that is that the Israeli delegation in the Hague is doing a marvelous job.
Israel's delegation in the Hauge
The reason an Israeli team went in the first place is frustrating but understandable; Israel ratified the Genocide Convention, meaning that it is harder to claim that the ICJ, which interprets that convention, has no role at all.And, while other countries defending themselves during a war are not questioned to such an extent, Israel is worried that the deaths of thousands of Palestinians at the hands of the IDF will permanently harm its reputation in the US and EU.
The Israeli delegation consisted of a legal team, accompanied by a handful of Israeli diplomats handling communications.
They argued that the court has no jurisdiction over this case, as no disputes exist between the country and South Africa. Its accuser, the country with a rough history with apartheid, claims it had sent to the Israeli Embassy numerous requests to discuss the situation in Gaza, but never received a response.
British international law expert Malcolm Shaw, who leads the Israeli legal team, countered that South Africa was misleading the court, citing the exact dates of Israeli responses to the diplomatic notes it received, including proposals for meetings between South African and Israeli officials to talk about Gaza.
Tal Becker, who opened Israel’s defense presentation on Friday, the second day at the ICJ, said, “If there have been acts that may be characterized as genocidal, then they have been perpetrated against Israel. If there is a concern about the obligations of states under the Genocide Convention, then it is about their responsibilities to act against Hamas’s proudly declared agenda of annihilation, which is not a secret, and is not in doubt.”
Lest we forget, the destruction of the Jewish people is written into the Hamas charter, the very foundational document of the terrorist organization.
Every piece of misinformation was countered, every false argument denied in the strongest of terms, but beyond that, every justification for Israel’s operation was laid out plainly and clearly.Do you claim Israel is murdering innocent civilians? It drops flyers about where to go to avoid the fighting. It is enabling unlimited amounts of fuel, food, water, and medical supplies to enter the Gaza Strip. It calls on Gazans to tell them how to protect themselves. It opened humanitarian channels with no help from the United Nations to see innocent civilians out of the way of danger.
All this while the International Committee of the Red Cross has failed to visit the hostages or bring them vital medical supplies.
Do you claim Israel is fueled by Islamophobia? It is antisemitism that is running rampant worldwide and, in fact, primarily antisemitism that fueled the horrific terrorist massacre on October 7.
You claim it is hate towards the Palestinian people that drives the war? Israel has not once equated between the Palestinian people and Hamas. Hamas is the enemy.
The team highlighted the forced ignorance of the opposing council towards Hamas’s acts of terrorism and presented it with a mirror: It is not Israel committing genocidal acts, it is Hamas. On October 7, Hamas attacked Jewish babies because they were Jewish, and it repeated its intent to do so over and over.
It is no easy feat, presenting Israel so reputably and with such cool, calm grace. To Israel’s defenders, on the battlefield and in the courtroom alike, we salute you.