Conditional support to the case at the ICJ on the genocide against Palestinians

 

It is rather obvious that Israel is perpetrating a genocide in Gaza and that the chief director of the genocide is US imperialism. Anyone can see that, even a 13 year old child. So it is a given that the slaughter in Gaza and the killings of Palestinians in the West Bank should be stopped immediately. 

 

The lazy minds of the SA legal team condemn the Hamas actions of 7 Oct 2023 because the President of SA, Ramaphosa said so. Just that. No argument. Nothing. This provides a cover for US imperialism and its zionist allies to continue on their killing spree of murdering and assassinating hundreds, if not thousands of the best Palestinian resistance fighters. The UN rapporteur, Francesca Albanese had a much better position, namely that as Israel is an occupying force that it has no right to attack any Palestinian and that Palestinians have the right to be armed and to resist an occupier. One cannot equate the resistance of the oppressed with the oppressive violence of the oppressor and exploiter. The SA legal team equates the 2. So essentially their argument comes down to this: Israel can go ahead and murder all the Palestinian resistance fighters , just take care not to harm civilians. This is identical to the US imperialist argument on why there should be no ceasefire and that Israel is taking care to minimise civilian casualties- an obvious lie of course. US imperialism wants to kill off as many of the Palestinian resistance as possible. They should be stopped. Would the ANC of 2023 have looked at the assassination of Chris Hani and argued that , well, he was head of the armed forces that carried out the attacks on civilians in Wimpy restaurants; they ANC of 2023 condemn that and therefore the assassination was justified as long as imperialism and the apartheid regime did not massacre civilians. This is what follows from the ANC position of 2023. 

 

The 'brilliant' legal minds on the SA legal team do not even explain the origin of captive taking. The Palestinians from Gaza and West Bank are regularly taken hostage since 1948 by the Israeli state, in a system called administrative detention. Palestinians are kept without charge for months and sometimes years without even a charge. This is nothing else but legal hostage taking entrenched in the laws of the Israeli state. There is no legal recourse. This state violence is what has led to a years of a process of Palestinian resistance taking captives from among the Israelis and exchanging them for prisoners kept in the zionist gulags. This has been going on for years and is the only recourse that Palestinians have. There is no court for them to turn to. Nothing. This was the root of the breakout operation of 7 Oct 2023. It was an operation to try to free all Palestinian prisoners. It was not to attack and brutalise civilians. 

 

It turns out now and various media cover it well, including The Grayzone, a reputable site run by a leftwing Israeli, Max Blumenthal, that all the horrific allegations made by the Israeli state are totally false:

1. They alleged 40 babies were beheaded. Proven false.

2. The alleged sexual violence. Proven false. In fact the Israelis used a fake photo from 2022 that involved Kurdish militia. This pic was not even taken in Israel at all.

3. It now turns out most of the civilian deaths on 7 to 10 Oct were from tank shells fired from Israeli tanks. It seems they preferred to rather kill Israeli citizens rather than have them be taken as captives. 

 

So what is there to condemn of the actions of the Palestinian resistance? Nothing at all. 

 

Resurrecting the discredited 2-state 'solution'

The majority of the masses in the USA want Israel disbanded and stand for a free Palestine. Without a doubt, any humane person, the majority on the planet want the same thing as well. Here comes the SA legal team and resurrects the 2 -state solution. Let us be clear, even the UN officials regard the 2 state as a long-standing private joke in their boardrooms. The 2 state gives legitimacy to the violent Israeli regime to continue to exist. It restores the permanent enslavement and expulsion of the Palestinian masses. It is still a genocide, just at a slower rate than what is currently happening. At the same time it resurrects the discredited Palestinian Authority that is Israel's and imperialism's local partner in the control over the Palestinians in West Bank. 

 

Giving Legitimacy to the ANC

The ANC has lost huge support and polls indicate that it will be a minority party in the 2024 elections. This campaign comes as a huge PR exercise to rebuild the image of the ANC as if it stands for Palestinian rights. Meanwhile most diamonds from SA go to Israel and prop up its arms industry. Coal from SA keep the lights on in Israel while the power was cut to Gaza, with devastating consequences. SA still buys arms from Israel. The water cannons used on protestors in SA come from Israel. SA had signed protocols from the time of Mandela to increase trade with Israel and from the time of Mbeki to not nationalise any Israeli company. At the time of writing, the Israeli embassy in South Africa is still open, despite the will of the parliament and the overwhelming masses in the country. 

 

Israel is killing Israeli captives in Gaza

By carpet bombing, by pumping seawater into tunnels and recently shooting 4 captives who had white flags and were speaking Hebrew, shows that the Israeli state and US imperialism have no regard to the lives of these Israeli captives. What they fear is that the captives will report, as several have done, that they were well treated. US imperialism is scared that Palestinians will be seen as human, as sensitive, caring souls that they really are. Imperialism needs to keep the hatred going between Palestinians and Israelis in order to justify billions of dollars in weapons every year so that they can continue to use Israelis for ever more as their terror wing in the Middle East to keep the masses permanently divided and under control. 

 

Israel is a serial disregarder of international law

A few years ago there was a ruling at the same court that ruled that the apartheid wall in and around the West Bank was illegal and should be removed. Israel not only ignored this ICJ ruling but expanded the wall and poured in more settlers to the extent of 700 000 to date and still expanding. There are a number of UN resolutions through the years that Israel just ignored, from 194 to many others. It can do this because of the veto of the US at the Security Council. 

This is why there should be stronger measures put in place to rein in and disband all apartheid practices of Israel, starting with the system of administrative detention. 

 

The ICJ is subject to political manipulation

The chief genocidaire, the US regime appointed the head of the court. This is already a contradiction. This is like asking a Hitler- appointed judge to wage a campaign against Nazism. Secondly, France, Germany, Japan, the UK all have seats. Their regimes all opposed the ceasefire and went to assist in the start of the genocide. A number of the states there, such as Uganda, are tied hand and foot to imperialism. Can one really ask a bunch of genocidaires to rule on genocide? The majority of regimes represented on the ICJ are all supporters of the murder of Palestinian resistance. Can they deliver justice? The only reason why some of the imperialist regimes are hesitating is because they fear the masses on their home soil. They are signalling to the US regime that they are placing them in danger because the masses will now see them for who they really are, cold-blooded mass-murderers. 

No court ever brought justice. It can at best bring less injustice. 

 

While we give critical support to the call for immediate relief, we must depend on the mass action of the millions around the globe, not on a court that is based on capitalist principles of keeping imperialist power in place. 

 

In summary

1. There should be an immediate and permanent ceasefire

2. The system of administrative detention in Israel should be declared an apartheid practice and should be scrapped. Freeing of all captives and ending the practice of assassinations. 

3. Immediate treatment of all the wounded and counseling and support services for all the traumatised masses. 

4. Israel must be forced to pay compensation for all the deaths of Palestinians and should pay for the rebuilding of all the buildings and infrastructure they destroyed. 

5. All the refugees should be allowed to return. The masses in Gaza should be allowed to settle in southern Israel while Gaza is being rebuilt.

6. Councils of delegates of communities, one per 10 000, subject to instant recall and not earning more than the wage of an average skilled worker. These councils to convene a constituent assembly that will elect an interim government and set up the path for a unified Palestine irrespective of religious beliefs. a free Palestine from the river to the sea where the former citizens of Israel have to prove their commitment to democratic values.  

7. Disband the UN Security Council and its veto powers

8. Shut down all the US military bases around the world and send the soldiers home. Shut down all the Israeli embassies and isolate apartheid Israel.

 

Free, free Palestine, from the river to the sea

Viva the heroic masses of Palestine

Viva the heroic Palestinian resistance. 

We need a new unified workers party irrespective of religious belief and of national classification in historic Palestine and internationally. 

10 Jan 2023