This year started with a historic case: for the first time in over 70 years, Israel had to defend its crimes in an international court.
There is so much to cover when we talk about the case that South Africa filed against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Essentially, it accused Israel of committing genocide and hence failing to uphold its duties as a signatory of the Genocide Convention.
As importantly, this was the first time the Israeli government had to stand in an international court and respond to any legal team regarding its conduct. In this specific case, that conduct is committing mass atrocities in Gaza on a daily basis.
If the court rules that there is a base to investigate this further or not, this case has already shown us a lot. A lot of bravery and hope, but also hypocrisy and colonial violence — and not only in Palestine.
My episode is about those learnings.
I start by quickly presenting some of the differences between the ICJ and the ICC (please see a nice summary below) by AlJazeera:
Then, I go over the main accusations that the South African team and its international team of lawyers presented to the court.
I talk about the broader meaning and significance of this court case and how it was accepted by other states: from expressing support to violently attacking Yemen, the one country that has put a lot of effort into actually stopping this genocide.
As promised, I’m sharing a video on Yemen by Lowkey:
I talk a lot about colonialism, imperialism, and militarism, and how the violence that we find at the intersection of these areas is both what we’re seeing in the Middle East, perpetrated by Israel and its Western allies, and what the Global South has known for centuries.
Yet I end on a hopeful note.
Where does that hope come from?
Spoiler alert: more than from the court case itself.
Stay strong, check on others, and keep your heart open.
❤️💔❤️
Justina
PS. For further analyses, please watch an interview with Norman Finkelstein and a conversation hosted by Diem25.
Find all my work on Palestine here.
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