Israel, the accusation of genocide and the contradictions of politicians

Tajani: “Genocide is something else, here is an attack that affects the civilian population”

1. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a member of the “religious” right now in government, declared that the current trial brought by South Africa against the Israeli state would be “a new Dreyfus case”. Perhaps he has no sense of the ridiculous, as well as lacking that of the tragic. The ancestors of the Jewish citizens of the State of Israel suffered, generation after generation, unspeakable suffering and injustice. This does not justify today's Israeli Jews to rival the persecutors of their ancestors. Indeed it makes their crimes even more monstrous in the eyes of humanity.
2. On November 23, 2023, European newspapers, including Italian ones, reported a statement by a philosopher Jurgen Habermas, the now elderly heir of the “Frankfurt School” to whom his state often entrusts official speeches, almost as if he were a kind of oracle. He and some of his fellow co-signatories state that “Israel's counterattack is justified in principle”, but its execution is “discussed controversially”, which is why the authors of the text recommend “the principles of proportionality”, avoiding casualties civilians and waging war with the prospect of future peace. However, “it does not help in the assessment of whether genocidal intentions are attributed to Israeli actions.” However, whether this attribution is true or false depends on the reports of the UN rapporteurs and not on purely a priori reasoning. Which isn't even a reasoning but a mere requirement. The execration of these German intellectuals for their country's Nazi past cannot plausibly push them to claim their past regime's monopoly on genocide, and even worse to deny the facts. That the Israeli government had no desire to stick to the principles of proportionality and was not concerned about avoiding continuous massacres of the population of Gaza, indeed it wanted them, was already evident in November 2023.
3. «Israel may have taken actions that violate international law in Gaza»: the British Foreign Secretary said David Cameron answering questions from the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. The head of the Foreign Office said he was “concerned” about the conduct of the conflict against Hamas and specified that he had not received explicit indications of any violations. But it is strange that a well-organised state like the United Kingdom has not been able to provide them to the Foreign Secretary. On the other hand, the UN observers are there specifically to provide member states with information on violations of the laws of war and humanitarian law. However, the head of the Foreign Office also criticized South Africa's accusation that the Jewish state is perpetrating genocide against the Palestinians in the conflict, presented before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. “I don't think it's useful or even right,” he said. It is up to the courts to define the term genocide, not the states. Our opinion is that Israel has the right to defend itself.” The term “genocide” is defined in international treaties and legal texts, not by courts. To activate the Court of Rights, the initiative of one or more states is sometimes necessary. Whether or not the Israeli army is violating international law is a question that can be asked without denying the State of Israel's right to defense.
4. «Genocide is something else, here is an attack that affects the civilian population», declared our Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani yesterday, «we said in every way that we do not agree with the attacks on the population, we continue to invite Israel not to exceed the limits of the right reaction to defeat Hamas». A genocide can be the result of a series of “attacks targeting the civilian population,” so genocide cannot be ruled out with this modest play on words. The Minister “continued to invite Israel not to exceed the limits”, but he also has the duty to face the fact that the State of Israel does not seem to pay attention to it. Will Tajani invite forever? He added that “we cannot forget what happened on October 7 when Israeli citizens were taken one by one with unimaginable violence”. Of course we cannot. But, either attacks on the civilian population are permitted by international law, in which case the Israeli army remains within the limits of the right reaction, and therefore does not need invitations, or not. And what does Italy, and for her Tajani, do if the answer is, as in fact it is, no?
5. The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has rejected South Africa's genocide charge against Israel, saying it “distracts the world” and calling it “meritless.” Blinken urged Israeli leaders to work with moderate Palestinian leaders, saying countries in the region would only invest in rebuilding Gaza if there was a “path to a Palestinian state.” The US secretary said that the daily toll of the war against civilians in Gaza is “too high” and that he stressed to Israeli leaders that more food, water, medicine and other essential goods must reach the Strip. He added that he was “very clear” that Palestinians must be able to return to their homes “as soon as conditions allow.” Does it “distract the world” by causing it to hope that an impartial tribunal can determine whether it is true or false? Who decides who are “moderate Palestinian leaders”? Even his statement that there are too many deaths every day is disturbing, as it reveals the fact that international law does not apply to the USA. “Too many” compared to what? It is not the humanitarian law that prohibits the massacre of civilians that protects them. The number of deaths is the subject of continuous negotiation between the US and Israel; or rather, peroration. Of pure facade, because the Gazans are torn to pieces, and sometimes buried by Israeli bull-dozers while still alive, by American bombs.
6. On December 29th South Africa filed an application. Reason: the three months of war in Gaza would be violating Article 9 of the Geneva Convention for the Prevention of Genocide, ratified by the Knesset [il Parlamento israeliano] in 1950, as well as the Rome Statute which first (1948) defined the crime of genocide, i.e. any act which has «the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a group identified on an ethnic, religious, racial or national basis ».
«Israel's acts and omissions – we read in the South African complaint – are of the nature of genocide because they accompany the specific intent required to destroy the Palestinians of Gaza, as part of the broader national, racial and ethnic group of Palestinians» .
7. “We acted out of a moral duty, because we cannot witness a genocide in progress,” says the South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, who filed the lawsuit. A moral duty that no European country has felt despite the continuous daily carnage. As follows from the statements of Habermas, Cameron, Tajani reported above.

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