A pro-Palestinian protest action briefly blocked all traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco Wednesday morning.
Starting at about 7:45 a.m. Protesters stopped cars and stretched banners across the roadway denouncing Israel’s bombing of Rafah in the Gaza Strip and demanding that the U.S. stop arming Israel.
Northbound and southbound traffic on the bridge was at a standstill as of 8 a.m.
And yet it did not actually order Israel to do anything that it was not already doing except submit a report by February 23rd.
Yes. This is normal in any legal case, not an exoneration of Israel and/or the IDF. Rwanda took 20 years to prosecute, Yugoslavia 16 years
Those were the criminal proceedings that took that long. The case against Israel right now is the application to institute proceedings. The Rwanda application was filed to the ICJ in 2002 and the final judgment was in 2006. The Yugoslav application was filed to the ICJ in 1993 and final judgment was in 2007.
You’re talking about the individual criminal proceedings of the special trial courts (the ICTR and the ICTY) against the perpetrators of charged crimes, which were mandated by the final judgments on the applications to institute proceedings.
The evidence in both of those cases, as far as my memory serves at this moment, included literal mass killings where civilians were lined up and shot, soldiers going door to door killing everyone inside houses, with a heavy helping of torture and mutilations. The stories were very real, as opposed to the allegations in South Africa’s application, which is loaded with innuendo, half truths, unverified stories from Qatari and Iranian media, and circular reasoning, a yes a helping of what appear to be very real war crimes. In Rwanda there were plenty of mutilated women and children there to say who did it. If the ICJ institutes proceedings against Israel at a special criminal tribunal, it will take decades to find and prosecute those responsible, and if Israel is telling the truth about what it has for intelligence, most of those proceedings are going to end in aquitals.
Either way, if South Africa’s claims were as clear cut and dry as the mob of this community believes they are, the ICJ could have granted any of the preliminary relief South Africa sought, but it didn’t. The UN isn’t going to open a new tribunal for isolated war crimes of invidiual soldiers as long as Israel is making good faith prosecutions on its own, and it is, as ICJ noted in its preliminary decision, denying South Africa’s proposed relief.
Of course, I guess since I’ve not included links to the the original legal decisions of the ICJ, the moderators might come along and delete this post for being disinformation if they can find an Al Jazeera link that implies in a few second something other than what I’ve said.
You’re correct throughout your post. We are at the super early phase, and the ICJ has elected to keep the case open because there’s credible allegations, along with a fuckload of disinformation.
I chose those two to highlight how long these proceedings and subsequent convictions take, hence my use of “prosecuted”. They are not the same severity nor wanton butchery, absolutely not. But international courts aren’t full of successful cases to draw parallels to - the situation in Ukraine or the Uyghurs resulted in condemnation but zero concrete action, and they’re much closer analogies to Palestine.
Thank you for the mature response. I’ve been thinking of those two analogies, also, though in my view the situation is Gaza is unprecedented and incomparable to anything the world has seen for two reasons: the tunnels and the martyrdom, which in large part are related.
The tunnels are the game changing factor, and precisely why the ground invasion was so foolish. The nightmare scenario of a 360 urban battlefield, where suddenly previously cleared buildings get used for ambushes that evaporate immediately, cannot be overstated enough. It restricts your preferred options, all the way through Nth preference, until you’re bringing the combat engineers with D9s in and leveling everything. All while your force is being attritted and even MBTs with cutting edge protections are getting knocked out with decent regularity.
It reduces your viable options to scorched earth, not participating, or a looooong siege of starvation. Which would be brutal but understandable as a part of war, and defendable in court if there wasn’t ~2 million civilians in the mix. But they’re there, and tend to feature as an afterthought behind the IDF protecting itself, and the IDF attacking targets.
Martyrdom is an optics problem but Palestinian youth have been throwing their lives away for decades. Fedayeen chose suicide bombings, Fatah less so, and now it’s suicidal attacks hoping for maximum damage. Driving a car over a checkpoint guard isn’t going to liberate your people. Neither would Oct7
I don’t see the tunnels as a threat for the kind of long term guerrilla warfare you’re suggesting, at least, not once Israel has finished bombing and clearing them, or flooding them, or filling them. And, I would say it’s because of those ~2,000,000 people that such an aggressive campaign against the tunnels and Hamas is necessary. The longer Hamas is able to stay combat capable holed up in tunnels, dragging it out, the more innocent Palestinian’s are going to die, which is absolutely fine by Hamas, but I think genuinely not fine by Israel and the world. Ending this as fast as reasonably possible, even if it’s at the expense of tens of thousands of additional dead civilians, is preferable to a slow, drawn out conflict, which would likely kill hundreds of thousands of people. For anyone following along, six figures > five figures.
With martyrdom, I’m not so much talking about the typical extreme Islamist suicide-bomber type of martyrdom, I’m talking about the Hamas-brand Martyrdom,™ where they block evacuation routes, tell people the evacuation calls and warning are hoaxes, and tell people to go stand on the roofs of their buildings to stop the IDF from bombing them, as well as when Hamas members and loyalists force their extended families and friends and neighbors to live above the tunnels, to have tunnels under their schools and hospitals, or even to huddle around them as literal human shields. Then, when they all get killed, Hamas comes to the international community all shocked Pikachu and says “how could the IDF do this?”
Indeed, October 7 was not going to liberate a single Palestinian person. I’m still waiting for one of the local Hamas supporters to explain to me what they thought was going to happen and how that attack wasn’t just handing to Israel the justification it needed to fully annex Gaza and destroy Hamas to the man; did they not trade any hope they had for statehood just to kill 1,200 civilians and first responders?
Bruh, sounds to me like a bunch of “reports”. How can you believe any of this? Ahjj wait because the IDF said so and you love licking their boots.
Only when Palestinians are torn limb from limb is something a "report” to you, or “just one small isolated war crime”.
Delusional stalker. Please stop.
Oh look at all this evidence for Israel committing apartheid that you somehow conveniently ignore
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_apartheid
Actual psychopath: yes I am ware of the arguments that some people make.
As I pointed out, apartheid is a system of minority rule.
When it’s majority rule it’s called democracy. That’s the good one.
Yes sure. Imaging a meeting at work. All of your colleagues are there. Your boss calls you up:
“JustZ, I have reviewed the information given to me, about your conduct. I deem it plausible, that you have violated company policy. Pending further investigation i order you to abide by company policy and general law. Specifically i order you not to steal your coworkers food from the fridge. I further order you to not spread slanderous rumors about your colleagues sexual life, or any other rumors. I order you to not touch coworkers, in particular not their private parts.”
Do you think, anyone would think this a normal occurence and to not be the result of serious doubt in your behaviour?
Anybody who claims, that the prelimary measures ordered by the ICJ are not confirming, that their is serious doubt about Israels abidance by the genocide convention and that its current behaviour is considered to be fully inside the law should rethink their position. If you need help to assess the trial, the meaning and the implications. Here is in full the video recordings of the trial so far:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOW_1exsHE8 - South Africas arguments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6CEKVSjg7o - Israels defense
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1niAwMbBC6g - Decision by the court for preliminary measures.
I didn’t watch but read all the filings, as an attorney.
At this stage the only issue was: whether South Africa’s application states a plausible claim.
That means that the tribunal must presume everything in South Africa’s application is true. The most salacious claims in the application are attributed to “reports” and often lack sufficient detail to even ascertain the data and location. Others are reports of things that are wildly speculative and solely from the putative victim’s vantage.
There has been no evaluation of evidence of Israel’s actual conduct, no consideration of Israel’s claims of military targets, and no consideration of Israel’s claims of having warned people.
Only jurisdiction and plausibility. Plausibility ≠ probability. Your analogy is clumsy in light of the actual state of the pleadings and the standard of proof at this stage, which is “everything the complainant says is deemed true, hypothetically.”
So for your analogy, just add the word “hypothetically” before the word “plausible” and it’s less clumsy, more accurate.
Hmmm look at this, Israel uses this term as part of their apartheid law!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_apartheid
It’s hilarious because they don’t even try to hide it. This is Israel that you defend so much, a G E N O C I D A L fucking A P A R T H E I D state.
I truly wonder for how long a nice person such as yourself would remain in denial
I think you know I’m being honest in my posts, calling it as I see it, and when I’ve gotten it wrong I admit it and correct it. I’ve said many times the sort of evidence that would convince me, and many times that there is zero doubt that the Israeli’s have committed a number of war crimes, maybe even enough to say it’s part of a culture and custom within the IDF that must be addressed by the ICJ. It’s still a democracy and it’s fighting against people that have literally zero understanding or respect for human rights.
Well, from observing you, it seems that you always call any and every news article or video or evidence that shows the IDF committing war crimes a “report”… and you somehow always think that calling it a “report” somehow would make it any less credible. I don’t think you exercise this same thing with other news you read… it seems like it’s only the news that have to do with Israel committing a televised genocide, one of the worst of our times.
You can say all these things about yourself but honestly it seems like me and many others have noticed the opposite and told you about it and you’re still in some kind of denial.
It’s so sad that you seem to base this view on them being a “democracy” when they have been so fucking undemocratic every single day. It’s so sad that you seem to brush over the crimes of the IDF no matter how they are presented to you.
Respect your view, but look: Israel is a democracy. That’s a settled fact of political science. Saying it’s not is the same as saying the earth is flat; actual, wilfull denial. Brushing over crimes? Like when I say “Israel has committed a bunch of war crimes and must be held responsible for them?”
Yes, “reports,” without more, are not credible, there’s just too much fake information and too much rushing to publish for reporters and readers to be so sloppy. Reports must name the witnesses, must say how many reports, must state the date and location.
Ethical journalism means getting three confirmatory sources before publishing based on anonymous sources. When based on a single, named source, the facts must be at least partially confirmed by another source, independently, and if any part of the report remains unconfirmed, the article must say “we were unable to independently verify X part of the report.”
Further, ethical journalism requires the reporter to seek and publish unedited comment from the involved parties. If you read an article and it does not include a statement from the IDF, even if the statement is “no comment,” it’s pretty much not credible reporting.
Look for this stuff when you read news about Gaza, epecially when the claim is one that is instantly outrageous or that makes you say “that’s unbelievable/unconscionable!”
How on earth can a country be an apartheid ethnostate and a democracy at the same time?! Democracy only for Jews and Israelis in Israel without the Palestinians is not a democracy.
Like I said, you always deny “reports” from humanitarian organizations, from Reuters, from B’Tselem, basically anyone showing the massacres happening now. You can toss and turn and make those claims all you like but it’s your entire discussion history with everyone that shows just how biased and blind you are.
I honestly think it’s something psychological with you. I really hope you will look into your heart and actually treat us Palestinians like human beings.
I didn’t invent political science and make up the definition of democracy. America was still a democracy while it had chattel slavery. And look, we used it to get rid of chattel slavery just like Israel is going to use it to get rid of Netanyahu and his party.
You’re right, it is something psychological: I control my emotional reaction to the story and evaluate it based on rational interpretation and reasonable inferences drawn from credible evidence.
For example, it’s not rational to say the earth is flat, nor is it rational to say Israel isn’t a democracy. Those questions and most others do not concern your feelings as to what you want to be true.
Rueters and B’Tselem are pretty good usually.
If you really think that the highest court of the UN, with an international team of judges is unable to identify which evidence brought forth in a case is plausible, in the sense of worthy of consideration, then i am sorry for all of your clients.
The court has in its decision mentioned, which information it deemed relevant and worthy of emphasis. In particular they quoted Statements by the Israel president, prime minister, minister of defence and IDF, that give reason to investigate genocidal intent.
Also they specifically mentioned, that Israel warnings and designated safe zones are insufficient, as Israel has regularly (and this is undisputed) bombed the areas it priorly designated as “safe”.
“Go south” isn’t the same as “we guarantee your safe passage southward.”
Not telling someone that you wouldn’t kill them is no justification for killing them. But with your argument you shoudl realize that this is another reason, why Israel cannot and is not trusted by the ICJ to take proper measures to protect the civillians.
And in this case unlike in Ukraine and other wars there is an especially high responsibility for Israel, because they are de facto occupiers of Gaza, by controlling all the border crossings, the sea and the air.
Just saying “well there wasn’t a clear seperation between combatants and civillians” doesnt cut it, if you are the one who keeps the civillians from getting to safety.
Have you seen for yourself any of the evacuation notices and warning phone calls the IDF has made?
Keeps them from getting to safety? Isn’t it true that ~1.9 million people have evacuated and nearly ~1.9 million of them (~99.?%) are still alive, and that ~600,000 people could not or would not evacuate and nearly 600,000 of them (~99.?%) are still alive?
When also considering how flagrantly Hamas uses large groups of civilians as human shields, blocks routes, lies to people about where to go and what to do, and hides military assets under peoples’ houses, and if there were truly no regard for civilians, a widespread problem of safe zones and evac routes being wantonly blocked or targeted, and other such indiscriminate bombing, then why aren’t we here talking about hundreds of thousands of deaths? Why, given the fact that we’re talking about barely into five-figures after five months of war, is it not evidence of great care and precision?
I agree wholeheartedly that Israel as de facto sovereign of Gaza has a special duty to the people of Gaza. I don’t agree that such duty changes the rules of engagement in areas of operation during combat. Rather, I think the duty is one of irredentism and speaks mostly to Israel’s duty to rebuild the failed state next door and make it safe after Hamas is destroyed.