Over the last couple of days, Germany has been in the dock, at the ICJ, charged with breaches of the Genocide Convention, and Geneva Convention, in respect of its failure to act to prevent potential war crimes and genocide, by Israel, in Gaza. Of course, you might not know this, because western media, as in the case brought by South Africa against Israel itself, has not provided live coverage, or much extensive coverage at all, of the proceedings. Only Al Jazeera has done so. Its obvious why western media has not provided coverage, in both cases, and, where it has even mentioned the cases, has provided its own, editorialised versions.
It was fairly clear what Germany's defence was going to be, which is that the ICJ, itself, has not ruled on whether Israel is guilty of war crimes, and so, absent any such ruling, it feels free to continue to sell weapons and military equipment to Israel, within the legalities set out in its own laws, relating to the sales of war materials. The second part of its defence, set out, today, has been that it has not, in recent months, sold weapons of war, to Israel, and it has, then, sought to argue that the military equipment it has sold to Israel, was of a nature that was not used in acts of genocide or war crimes, in Gaza.
But, the first part of the defence, was dealt with in the submission by Nicaragua, which has hauled Germany before the court. The ICJ, does not give immediate definitive rulings. It can take years before any such definitive ruling that genocide has been committed. But, the ICJ, did give a provisional ruling that prima facie, there was reasonable grounds to believe that a genocide was being committed, and ordered Israel tot take actions to prevent it, and to prevent the evidence of such genocide being eradicated. On that basis, it would be ridiculous to argue that other signatories of the Convention, could continue to act in such a way as to facilitate any such genocide, until such time as a definitive ruling has been given, i.e. after the genocide has been undertaken!
The Convention itself commits its signatories to act to prevent not just genocides that have been legally determined as such – that implies they have already occurred, and so prevention is too late – but to prevent potential acts of genocide. Usually, that is still itself something of a grey area, though you would think that based on a precautionary principle, even the slightest potential that a genocide is being committed should be enough to require that signatories act to prevent it, let alone, not to facilitate it, by supplying military or other equipment to the aggressor.
If I think someone is likely to commit a crime, using a gun, I sell them, I have a responsibility not to sell them the gun, not to wait until they have committed the crime, and been convicted of it in court. Or to give another analogy, if I run a pub, and someone has clearly exceeded the limit, I have a responsibility to prevent them getting in a car, and driving whilst intoxicated.
It was interesting that, not only did Nicaragua, in its submission, note the statements by German officials that given the role of Nazi Germany in the Holocaust, it had a specific commitment to the state of Israel, but the German lawyers, in their own submission, pointed to that fact. Its interesting, because, when Owen Jones, noted this fact, in his debate, on Sky News, with Hen Mazzig, he was accused of causing offence – as though causing offence is, somehow, now something that legitimately restricts free speech, or the presentation of uncomfortable facts – and a further torrent of abuse by Zionists, on social media.
Germany has also complained, therefore, that the case should not be heard, because it depends on a third party, Israel, being brought before the court, which has not been done. But, that is clearly not true, as the lawyers for Nicaragua set out, because the case is about Germany's failures under the convention, not Israel's. Whether Israel is ultimately found to have committed genocide in Gaza, or not, Germany, as with other signatories to the Convention have a responsibility to act in such a way as to prevent even the potential for a genocide being committed. But, on that point, the situation, here, is even more clear, leaving Germany with little room for argument.
In nearly every genocide, the perpetrators of it, claim they are not doing so. Unlike every other genocide, at least in modern times, as Owen Jones and others have documented, in detail, and as South Africa did in their extensive case brought to the ICJ, the Zionist regime, from top to bottom, and right from day one, after October 7th, have stated, openly, that they were going to be committing genocide in Gaza, that they would be inflicting collective punishment on Palestinians, along with numerous war crimes, such as cutting off water, energy, food medical supplies and so on. Indeed, last night, on BBC's Newsnight, a Zionist Minister again confirmed that that is what they were doing, and only complained that they had not done it as ruthlessly as he would have wished, because they had let some aid into Gaza! His argument was that the entire population of Gaza was culpable, because they supported the actions of Hamas on October 7th!
The judges of the ICJ, would clearly be negligent if they did not follow their requirements to fully determine the charges against Israel, even though, the case seems prima facie indisputable that a genocide is being committed, not just in the documented statements to that effect by Zionist Ministers, military top brass, and the extensive video and other accounts of those policies being carried out in practice. But, all of that evidence is sufficient to provide the case that a potential genocide is taking place, and that signatories to the Convention should, then, act appropriately to prevent it.
They are not, and on the contrary, the imperialist backers of the Zionist state, have further facilitated it by the continued, and increased supply of weapons and military equipment. The German representatives at the Court, provided data on sales to Israel showing a reduction in recent months, but that is because, in October, there was a surge of supplies, based upon existing licences! The case presented was a sleight of hand, emphasising the lack of sales of actual war weapons, as against military equipment, as though military equipment is not an essential part of the operation of a military machine. Germany is the second biggest supplier of military equipment to Israel, behind only the US. It constitutes 30% of military equipment sales to Germany. To suggest that this is not significant in facilitating the continued military operation of the Zionist war machine, is simply not credible.
A further part of the case against Germany was that it had suspended its funding of UNRWA. Germany, in its defence, has tried to argue that it has continued to supply aid to Palestinians, and so it could not be complicit in genocide. That's like saying after having provided the weapons used to kill people, we've also been good humanitarians in providing the bulldozers to bury them in mass graves! The reality is that the humanitarian aid provided to Palestinians is small relative to the supply of military equipment to the Zionist state. Moreover, the aid provided by air-drops, is tiny compared to the requirements, given that the production of food etc., in Gaza has been stopped, making the population totally dependent on external supplies. In addition, even the previous inflow of goods, prior to the Zionist invasion, has been reduced to a fraction, as even David Cameron was forced to admit, in the face of Zionist lies to the contrary. Moreover, there is no point in funding increase aid, if that aid cannot be delivered to Gaza, because the Zionist military machine prevents its movement, and it is enabled to do that, because of the military supplies provided to it, by Germany amongst others.
Germany has claimed that its decision to stop payments to UNRWA was only a suspension of funding, rather than any actual prevention of funds due to be made. That is simply weasel words. Germany, along with Britain, and the US, and couple of other countries, stopped funding, solely on the basis of claims by the Zionist state that a handful of UNRWA workers had taken part in the October 7th attacks. No evidence has been provided by the Zionists' state to back up that claim, despite the reports that it has tortured captives to try to get them to confirm such actions. At every stage, Germany, along with the US, and its European allies, has taken the unsupported word of the Zionist regime, as it undertakes genocide, rather than acting to prevent the potential of genocide.
The argument used by Germany, in its defence, noting the war crimes of Hamas, is simple whataboutery, and no defence against its own complicity in genocide and war crimes. If Germany wants to bring Hamas, as the government of Gaza, before the court, or its members before the ICC, then fine. Although that would open another can of worms in the potential for the Ukrainian government, and members of the Azov Battalion, as well as the suppliers of weapons to it, also being hauled before the courts for similar war crimes in Eastern Ukraine, and Russia.
In the end, the ICJ will not make definitive decisions on any of these matters in any time span that is useful to, or will save, the Palestinians in Gaza. It is a part of the imperialist system of states that is dominated by US imperialism, and its subordinates. At some future date, the court might rule that a genocide was committed, and there will be a lot of hang-wringing, and statements about “if only we had known”. Well, as Owen Jones has said, we did know, we do know, because the Zionist regime has said, from the start, what it was intending to do, in committing genocide and war crimes, and it has acted according to its word. At best, some low level scapegoats in the Zionist military will be sacrificed, to give the superficial impression that bourgeois-democracy, and its rule of law has been satisfied. But, we can all, now, see the reality that it is a sham.
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