Facing up to inconvenient truths about Gaza

 

Last week South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza came up at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which made front page news in many countries. Surely this was the most important international news event so far in 2024, but it didn’t get much prominence in western media.

Compared to life-and-death issues elsewhere, such as a decades-old scandal involving the Post Office in the UK, it did not seem newsworthy enough. But perhaps, as Al Gore once said about the climate crisis, the matter had become rather inconvenient.

There are many in the West with a decent heart who are faced with severe cognitive dissonance in trying to square the deaths of thousands of Palestinian against their unshakeable belief that Israelis, as descendants of genocide victims, couldn’t somehow be guilty of the same crime. Much of western media is guilty of this affliction too.

There were not many western media live-streams of South Africa’s submission to the ICJ. Either some hidden-hands were at play, or some equally barely-hidden bias kicked in to protect Israel.

Whatever it is, the idea of a free and fair Western media is on life-support right now. When sanity returns, there’ll be soul-searching about their reporting on the Gaza tragedy; I foresee there’ll be many regrets and mea culpas and admissions that “mistakes were made”.

But by then, their reputation would have bitten the dust, much like the houses and schools and hospitals in Gaza.

Many people in the non-western world would have moved away from the New York Times and CNN and BBC and their ilk, leaving the way open for the Al-Jazeeras and CGTNs of the world to compete with and maybe even replace the old “gold standards”.

It can’t happen soon enough.

South Africa’s case

At the ICJ, South Africa is accusing Israel of committing genocide, meaning taking deliberate actions to wipe out the Palestinian people of Gaza. South Africa is not saying that Israel doesn’t have the right to defend itself. In fact South Africa condemned Hamas immediately after the Oct. 7 attack.

South Africa’s position is one in which increasing numbers of “neutrals” find themselves too, appalled by the attacks of Oct 7, but also increasingly suspicious about accepting whatever comes out from the west.

Hundreds of those killed that day were members of the Israeli military; by western rules of war, the Israeli campaign in Gaza amounts to a legitimate military action. The other claims of what else happened still have to be proven, and Hamas, too, must be held accountable if what they did were war crimes.

What has happened since then is of the people of Gaza being collectively punished as a result of the Israeli offensive. The western concept, as in the Geneva Convention etc, is that collective punishment of a group or people is illegal. So is the use of banned weapons such as phosphorus bombs, and thermobaric devices, and actions of cutting off food and water supplies and medical services, and targeting civilian infrastructure etc.

Chillingly, some Israeli leaders have been quoted as dehumanising the Palestinians, while extremist rightwing politicians have called for Gaza to be wiped off the face of the earth. Should we accept that these weren’t the actual commands given to the Israeli military? And that the resultant killing and destruction was because of the Israeli military collectively and independently (and enthusiastically?) going rogue? Or whatever.

Deliberate targeting of civilians

If the Israelis, who form the military power of the region, backed by the greatest military powers on earth, had wanted to keep civilian casualties low, they could have done that. They recently killed some leaders of Hamas in Lebanon and the West Bank, using precision air strikes that left little or no civilian casualties, perhaps only because collateral damage there carries risks, but not in Gaza.

So, they didn’t bother with that in Gaza. Israel claims that Gazans were warned by text messages and phone calls (when much of the telecoms infrastructure has been destroyed) and dropped flyers of impending attacks, that “safe zones” were created, and that Hamas prevented Gazans from evacuating by car (how many cars are there in Gaza anyway?*). These claims ring hollow, much like an afterthought from their PR folks.

That is the crux of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, that the Israelis deliberately and purposefully razed towns and villages with thousands of tons of munitions, causing the highest number and ratio of civilian casualties in any recent conflict.

So here we are in the fourth month of the conflict. What military objectives have been achieved? How many hostages have been rescued?*

Has Hamas been destroyed? Has support for Hamas in Gaza and elsewhere gone down? Is peace breaking out through the region?

The answer, from where I’m sitting, and probably also from where you are, is a resounding no. The world has become even more chaotic, polarised, Islamophobic and antisemitic. America appears to be all lost at sea, perhaps driven more by racism than principles.

Flexing its muscles

That South Africa is supporting the Palestinians is not a surprise. From a geopolitical perspective, we’re seeing the coming of age of an emerging regional power flexing its new-found muscles on the world stage. Their time is here.

If you want to tell the South Africans to focus on their internal issues, of which they have many, then you’d have to tell the UK or the US or any of the western powers to focus on their own internal issues themselves rather than parading around as moral policemen of the world while selling arms to preferred clients at the same time.

The other reason is more personal to South Africans. There has always been solidarity between Palestinians and black South Africans, dating back to the days of apartheid. Perhaps misery loves company among those who feel themselves to have been subjugated, but at least the South Africans have been consistent and loyal in their long friendship.

That Germany is supporting Israel is more perplexing and beggars belief, especially coming on the 120th anniversary of the Namibian genocide. Namibia has come out strongly to call out Germany, and the irony and Germany’s tone deafness isn’t lost on the world.

One wonders if Germany supports Israel because of its own complicated history of the Nazi genocide against European Jews in the second world war? Much has been made of that in describing their surprising move, and I’m inclined to believe there’s something in this argument.

Watershed in politics

But whatever happens, the Gaza tragedy will be a watershed in international politics and international relations. The world will not be the same again after this, regardless whether the killings end soon, and especially if matters there lurch out of control, which looks increasingly likely by the day.

That much of the non-western world, especially the so-called global south, is beginning to speak up and demand more respect and a bigger say in how the world is run will not be good news to the US or the bumbling European powers.

The west will find it far harder to argue about a rules-based world order when many see the rules are made for the west’s own advantage. I wouldn’t dispute that the alternatives to the west aren’t much better, and could even be worse, but that argument is not going to persuade many nowadays.

The institutions of the west, from the United Nations to the ICJ to the various western nations themselves, are looking rather soiled and threadbare if not outright broken. There’s a palpable feeling of a growing anti-west radicalisation among many in the global south, and in the west too.

There’s a smell of change in the air, though with it comes a guarantee of more turmoil and conflicts in the future for all. But if this current tragedy in Gaza is the catalyst for the global south to look away from the bloody, unfaithful hands of the west, then perhaps something good has come out of it after all.

*Editor’s note: There are 50,652 private cars in the Gaza Strip (Oct 2023), many now inoperable from fuel shortages.  - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.