Israel’s smearing of South Africa as “the legal arm” of Hamas exemplifies the bankruptcy of its defense, a smear replicated by those who claim that demonstrations held to call for a ceasefire and protect Palestinian human rights are “anti-Semitic.” Israel, its genocide live-streamed to the world, has no substantial counterargument.
But that does not mean the judges on the court will rule in South Africa’s favor. The pressure the United States will bring -- Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called the South African charges “meritless” -- on the judges, drawn from the member states of the U.N., will be intense.
A ruling of genocide is a stain that Israel -- which weaponizes the Holocaust to justify its brutalization of the Palestinians -- would find hard to remove. It would undercut Israel’s insistence that Jews are eternal victims.
It would shatter the justification for Israel’s indiscriminate killing of unarmed Palestinians and construction of the world’s largest open air prison in Gaza, along with the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It would sweep away the immunity to criticism enjoyed by the Israel lobby and its Zionist supporters in the United States, who have successfully equated criticisms of the “Jewish State” and support for Palestinian rights with anti-Semitism.
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