Every day brings new indictments for Israel. The early accusations of genocide by South Africa are now quickly becoming an accepted legal definition among international bodies and governments alike. The latest indictment came from the United Nations Human Rights Council.
“The Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have had and continue to have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” the UNHRC’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) report unambiguously stated. While this may seem obvious to those watching the Israeli genocide unfold in real time, the step is historic nonetheless.
According to Triestino Mariniello, an international law expert and a member of the legal team representing Gaza victims before the International Criminal Court (ICC), the report is of “historic importance” and “unprecedented.” Though previous UN commissions had repeatedly accused Israel of committing war crimes in Palestine, “they had never gone so far as to say that Israel is also responsible for what represents the most serious crime at the international level: the crime of genocide.”
Desperate to see enough international pressure to force Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist government to end their mass extermination of Palestinians in Gaza, many wonder if such reports are enough to hold Israel to account. Navi Pillay, a South African judge who headed the International Tribunal for the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, admits that justice “is a slow process,” but does not consider it “impossible that there will be arrests and trials” in the future. For those eager to see some measure of justice, the specific references to arrests and trials are of some comfort. The images of thousands of innocent people, mostly women and children, being slaughtered are simply impossible to bear.
The report is particularly important as it ties into the ICC’s ongoing actions against accused Israeli war criminals, Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
Though the report is not binding on the ICC and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), it provides a strong legal foundation for their investigations. For example, similar reports were taken into account during the war crimes investigation in Sudan. The credibility of the UNHRC, the COI, and its reputable judges are all of immense value.
Equally important is that the report is not an isolated conclusion; it is the culmination of two years of extensive research and aligns with the findings of other well-regarded international legal and human rights bodies, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
The latest of such significant statements was the resolution by the world’s leading organization of scholars on genocide, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS). In a resolution that passed by an absolute majority on August 31, the reputable body concluded that Israel’s “policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition” of genocide.
Excerpted: ‘The Point of No Return: Why Accountability in Gaza is a Global Imperative’.
Courtesy: Counterpunch.org
