from Philip Weiss at Mondoweiss
The South African legal team argued its case against Israel’s genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague last Thursday. It was a breathtaking session of over three hours, with several exquisite, morally astute speeches, like that of Irish barrister Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh – I was awestruck at the detail and the overview. These speeches must be preserved for posterity as some of the most important in history. Their summation rang like a bell meant to shake the entire world, such as when Ní Ghrálaigh intoned, “The world should be absolutely outraged… There is no safe space in Gaza and the world should be ashamed”.
But Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is not ashamed. If he is outraged at anything, it is about the “hypocritical onslaught at The Hague against the state of the Jews.”
On Saturday, in a nine-minute live speech (in Hebrew) on Israeli Channel 14, Netanyahu once again evoked the “war of the sons of light against the sons of darkness,” the same imagery that he used back in October. He also directly defied the ICJ: “Nobody will stop us – not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anybody else.”
It requires sheer gall to refer like this to the International Court of Justice, the highest legal authority of the UN, which represents the highest international consensus on international law. To suggest that its rulings will have no consequence is blatantly offensive. In addition, Netanyahu also lied in his speech, claiming that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Hamas the “new Nazis” when in fact it was Netanyahu himself who said that.
But Netanyahu doesn’t care, not about the truth nor about tarnishing the ICJ. He was speaking in Hebrew to his crowd. And while his scandalous dismissal of the ICJ made headlines, Netanyahu’s speech included other chilling warnings that Israel has no plans to relent in its genocidal attack..
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