The popular National Public Radio (NPR) network in the United States published the following statement on January 26, 2024: “The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has found that Israel has committed acts in violation of the Genocide Convention. This comes as global news outlets and online media report on the ICJ’s decision in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. Words of the same form appeared over and over again.
However, what is not generally known is that the judge who presided over the court and actually handed down the court’s decision claimed that the world media was wrong at the time, and has repeatedly misinterpreted the court’s decision ever since. It means that there is.
Justice Joan Donoghue said this was not at all what the court had decided.
On April 25, Donoghue, who is currently head of the ICJ in a case against Israel, was interviewed on the long-running BBC television program Hard Talk to mark his retirement. Her interviewer, Stephen Thacker, said a key point the court considered in reaching its preliminary decision was that there is a plausible claim that Israel committed genocide in Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attack. I asked if it was.
“You have clearly determined that there is a plausible case,” Mr. Thacker said. “Is it correct to say that that is the core of your decision?”
Judge Donahue responded, “I’m pleased to have the opportunity to address this matter.”
She began by explaining that the court’s test for determining whether to impose a measure, that is, requiring a party to a lawsuit to take a specific measure, draws on the concept of reasonableness. However, what is tested is the validity of the rights claimed by the applicant (in this case South Africa).
The court ruled that the Palestinians had a legitimate reason to be protected from genocide. It argued that South Africa had the right to pursue its claims in court. That is no doubt why the court ordered Israel to take special care to avoid violating those rights.
“We then reviewed the facts,” Donahue continued, “but we did not reach a decision. And – and this is a correction to what has often been said in the media – we did not determine that the allegations of genocide are plausible. The common, quick-fix claim that genocide was possible was not something the court decided.”
It lists, in black and white, the most authoritative source possible: the judge who presided over the ICJ when the case was heard and who handed down the court’s judgment directly after the hearing.
The court did not find that there was a plausible case of genocide to answer. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the “genocide in Gaza” that pro-Palestinian activists keep chanting has no basis in fact or law.
Later in the interview, Mr. Thacker asked why the court only dealt superficially with Hamas. Mr. Donahue explained: “The courts only have jurisdiction over cases between states, and Hamas is not a state.
“The court is in no position to give orders to Hamas at all. We felt that this was very important.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Donohue’s explanation of the ICJ decision received little media coverage, and the idea that Israel was found guilty of “plausible genocide” persists throughout the media. It is repeated over and over again because the people peddling it see it as appropriate for their anti-Israel purposes.
On May 12, Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Cairo intends to join the case filed by South Africa with the ICJ.
Egyptians misunderstand ICJ charges
What is their reason? Egypt recognizes that Israeli aggression against Palestinian civilians is escalating. The Iran-based MEHR media group, which published this article, snuck in to further substantiate the Egyptian decision, which Donoghue called a widely believed but false “shorthand,” calling the “United Nations Supreme Court” and MEHR The report was released. “issued a preliminary ruling in January finding that there was a plausible risk of genocide in the enclave.”
This is a misinterpretation of the court’s findings, but at least it is not a condemnation.
Students participating in campus protests in the United States, students in the United Kingdom imitating them, and pro-Palestinian marchers who march weekly through London and other cities have all gone a step further, insisting that Israel actually They claim that they are committing genocide, and they constantly repeat their claims. Demand that Israel stop.
The ICJ findings have been most misunderstood within the United Nations, where the term “genocide” is thrown around freely by groups and individuals with their own anti-Israel agendas.
On March 21, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories, submitted a report called “Anatomy of Genocide” to the Human Rights Council. Albanese, an Italian lawyer, is one of dozens of independent human rights experts tasked by the United Nations to report on and advise on specific topics and crises. The US ambassador in Geneva said he had a history of using “anti-Semitic metaphors.”
“We find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the criteria to show that the crime of genocide has been committed against Palestinians as a group in Gaza has been met,” she said, continuing to call for sanctions and arms embargoes on Israel. Ta.
The Israeli diplomatic mission in Geneva said the use of the word genocide was “outrageous” and said the war was not against Palestinian civilians, but against the Islamist group Hamas.
Palestine advocacy groups’ constant claims that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza may be part of a strategy aimed at influencing the International Court of Justice’s final decision on the case brought by South Africa. unknown. That decision is probably years away.
Meanwhile, the best pro-Israel spokespeople could do was to deny a common misconception about the ICJ ruling: that there was a plausible case that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. The idea is to publicize this as widely as possible. “That is,” Mr. Donahue clarified. “It’s not something the court has decided.”
The author is Eurasia Review’s Middle East correspondent. His most recent book is Trump and the Holy Land: 2016-2020.
Follow him at a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com.
