In December, 2024, Amnesty
International, a highly reputed human rights international organization “found
sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to
commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip.”[1]
The International Criminal Court (ICC) had recently issued arrest warrants for
a former defense minister and the sitting prime minister, Ben Netanyahu, and
the UN’s high court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) had also ruled
that Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank violates international law. When
Amnesty’s report came out, the ICJ was considering whether to declare a
genocide in Gaza. Considering the series of determinations against Israel in
Gaza, did it matter that the ICJ had not yet ruled specifically on genocide?
Formally yes, but the currency of formal rulings and determinations regarding
Israel based on international law had lost considerable de facto value,
given Israel’s ongoing infliction of such widespread and dire suffering on
civilians in not only Gaza, and Russia’s attacks in Ukraine (the ICC had
already issued an arrest warrant for Russia’s sitting president. Oddly, news that
Israel was committing an apartheid genocide seemed at the time to be old news,
whereas that the U.S. was complicit, as an accomplice in providing the weapons,
in a genocide was news.
The full essay is at "The United States: Complicit in Genocide."
1. Amnesty International, “Amnesty International Investigation Concludes Israel Is Committing Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza,” Amnesty.org, December 5, 2024.
