Israel on Trial for Genocide. The South African Document

Send us Fan MailIn December, 2023 South Africa filed a document before the High Court of Justice in the Hague accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza.  This was for its actions against Gaza in the wake of the blood-chilling Hamas attack on Israeli military positions, towns, and a music festival on October 7.  Those attacks killed nearly 1200 people. There are three recent developments worth noting.  First, Mexico and Chile are preparing to charge Israel in the International Criminal Court with War Crimes.  This has a much lower standard of evidence for conviction than genocide.  Also various parties have raised the issue of "complicity in genocide."  What does this mean from a legal perspective?  I am not entirely sure but the U. S. and Britain may well be charged by a group of South African attorneys.  Finally, the President of Israel, Herzog, has just been accused of war crimes in the international criminal court.  This was just announced a few hours ago and there are no details about who filed the complaint, but he is now in Switzerland and could possibly be detained or arrested.  You will probably know more by the time you read this.  For those interested, I have a talk delivered to a class  during a unit focusing mostly on the Armenian and Rwanda genocides.   I also have two earlier podcasts on the Attacks of October 7.  One was posted three days after the attacks, one three weeks later.  Note:  There is a section in the document that discusses Israeli policy on the West Bank.  It discusses these policies as "apartheid."   Note that I have a podcast on this topic. This is a complex podcast.   If you find it painful, then you are not alone.