It strains credulity to believe
that vengeance against the Palestinian residents of Gaza was not among the motives
of the Israeli government’s ministers in retaliating for the Hamas attack
against occupation on October 7, 2023. Within days, Israel’s president publicly
accused every Palestinian in Gaza of being guilty. Because it cannot be assumed
that every resident of Gaza who had voted Hamas into office was in favor of the
attack, and the residents who had voted for the PLO could even less be assumed
to be supportive of Hamas, the Israeli notion of collective justice is
ethically flawed. Deficient as a subterfuge for the very human instinctual urge
to inflict disproportionate vengeance, the espoused justification did not hold
South Africa off from charging Israel with genocide at the International Court
of Justice (ICJ). At the time, both South Africa and Israel were parties to the
Genocide Convention. Because the ICJ was at the time the principal judicial body
of the United Nations, the UN’s lack of enforcement power—notorious even on
resolutions passed by the Security Council—meant that even a conviction could
send the message that a national government can get away with even genocide.
The full essay is at "Crimes Against Humanity: Israeli Genocide"
