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South Africa's False Charges of Israeli "Genocide"

(Washington Post) Max Boot - Israelis struggle to understand how their country could be accused of carrying out genocide in a war they did not start. If any party to the conflict is guilty of attempted genocide, it is Hamas. This terrorist organization, which is explicitly dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state, has carried out war crimes, including the murder of Israeli civilians, the kidnapping of more than 200 Israelis (including old people and young children), and the widespread use of rape and sexual violence against Israeli girls and women. There is no denying that Israeli forces have inflicted large-scale death and destruction in Gaza. This is a great tragedy for the people of Gaza, but primary blame must lie with Hamas, because it launched an unprovoked attack on Israel and uses civilians as human shields, in violation of the laws of war. But there is no evidence that Israelis have engaged in a deliberate campaign to "destroy, in whole or in part," the Palestinian people - which is what "genocide" means in international law. If Israel, with all the firepower at its disposal, had been trying to commit mass murder, the death toll would have been higher by orders of magnitude. Far from trying to deliberately slaughter Palestinian civilians, Israeli forces have made extensive efforts to notify them in advance of military operations and urge them to move out of the line of fire. Israeli forces ordered "humanitarian pauses" to facilitate relief efforts and created a "humanitarian corridor" for evacuations from northern to southern Gaza. Israel has also facilitated the entry of more than 8,000 trucks carrying more than 145,000 tons of food to Gaza since the start of the war, some of which Hamas has seized for itself. These are clearly not the actions of a nation bent on exterminating the Palestinian people.
2024-01-17 00:00:00
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