A member of the Israeli Knesset has come out in support of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), one of the UN’s top courts based in the Hague.
MK Ofer Cassif, a member of the left-wing Jewish and Arab Hadash-Ta’al party, and around 200 other Israelis have signed a petition supporting South Africa’s 84-page filing that will be submitted to the ICJ later this week.
“The information that emerges from the lawsuit is both horrific and credible. Israel is indeed taking systematic and thorough steps to wipe out the population of Gaza; to starve, abuse, and displace it. It has implemented a policy of erasing options for livelihood, which is leading to genocide,” the petition reads, according to Haaretz.
Explaining his reasoning for signing the petition, Cassif wrote on X: “My constitutional duty is to Israeli society and all of its residents, not to a government and its coalition members who call for ethnic cleansing and even actual genocide. They are the ones that harm the country and its people; they are the ones who led South Africa to approach The Hague, not me and my cabinet members.”
Cassif added that he will not “give up the fight for our existence as a moral society. This is the true patriotism — no revenge wars and calls for extermination, no unnecessary bloodshed, and no sacrifice of kidnapped citizens and soldiers in false wars.”
Cassif’s position has enraged many in the Knesset, including MK Oded Forer, a member of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, who is calling for Cassif’s removal. Forer is looking to collect the 70 signatures he needs to move toward launching impeachment proceedings for Cassif.
The ICJ is holding its first hearings on the case on January 11 and 12. A ruling on whether or not Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is not expected to happen for years, but South Africa is asking the court to declare Israel is carrying out actions that may be genocidal and to order a halt to military operations.
The White House, which has fully supported and enabled Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, has come out strongly against South Africa’s case. “We find this submission meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever,” said White House National Security Advisor John Kirby.
Wow. Good for him. He came out right away to say the attack was a result of Israel’s pogroms:
Israeli lawmaker blames pogroms against Palestinians for ‘terrible’ attacks
Ofer Cassif says he warned the situation would ‘erupt’ if Israel did not change its treatment of Palestinians.
An Israeli lawmaker has told Al Jazeera that his party warned about events like Saturday’s Hamas attack on Israel if the country’s government continued its illegal occupation of Palestinian lands.
Hamas launched a multipronged assault at dawn on Saturday with thousands of rockets fired at Israel, and the Gaza-based group’s fighters infiltrating Israeli towns and illegal settlements….
“We have been warning time and time again… everything is going to erupt and everybody is going to pay a price – mainly innocent civilians on both sides. And unfortunately, that is exactly what happened,” he said.
“The Israeli government, which is a fascist government, supports, encourages, and leads pogroms against the Palestinians. There is an ethnic cleansing going on. It was obvious the writing was on the wall, written in the blood of the Palestinians – and unfortunately now Israelis as well,” he added.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/8/israeli-lawmaker-blames-pogroms-against-palestinians-for-terrible-attacks
Ouch! this has gotta hurt.
If a country has no morality, it will not stand long. Hopefully Biden get’s the message and a Cease Fire will be done ASAP, for all concerned.
I’m afraid that’s just not the case. Countries “without morality” — at least morality of the kind that most of us would recognize — have long been the norm.
Ha. This isn’t a Disney movie. It’s real life and those chances are NIL!
Agreed. Absent a communal transcendant fiducial narrative, as especially the belief in Justice, a body politic ends up a nihilistic aggregate of atomized conumsers.
– “We find this submission meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever,” said White House National Security Advisor John Kirby. –
At the time embarassment incarnate Kirby (does he ever not aspire to be the spitting image of Wile E. Coyote shortly before the moment of his demise?) made us witness of the dizzying depth of his latest descent into the moral abyss he lacked the merits to submit this counterproductive opinion because the US did not evaluate the factuality of the genocide, at least beyond recycling Israeli propaganda and Netanyahu’s whisperings in Biden’s ear.
LOL. That’s his baseline. But he’s even more of an “embarrassment incarnate Kirby” when he cries tears for Israel. Seriously. His performance as Wile E. Coyote is his baseline. Yuck.
This adds a lot of perspective to the situation. Not every Israeli is a blood-thirsty sadist! The Israelis want to show the world how great Israel is? Well, getting these corrupt warmongering murderers out of your government would be an action the world would applaud. When they’re through cleaning house, come to America and show Americans how to do the same thing to “their” government!
I agree, but probably less than 2% based on: Poll from November 5 and 6:
https://time.com/6333781/israel-hamas-poll-palestine/
“Not every Israeli is a blood-thirsty sadist!” I agree, but probably less than 2% based on: “Poll results were also hawkish when it came to the use of force in Gaza: 57.5% of Israeli Jews said that they believed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were using too little firepower in Gaza, 36.6% said the IDF was using an appropriate amount of firepower, while just 1.8% said they believed the IDF was using too much fire power, while 4.2% said they weren’t sure whether it was using too much or too little firepower.” November 5 and 6
https://time.com/6333781/israel-hamas-poll-palestine/
How militarised is ASI society that you can ask a question like this and ONLY ~4% of respondents don’t know and can say “effing, how should I know” ????
Ask me, “Hey, does NASA currently have boosters that could take a human crew to Mars ?” and I wouldn’t have the faint-f**kingest clue, and I REALLY DIG space exploration.
To the teeth!
One of these days, I expect to hear Biden say “I was only following orders”.
I didn’t know a rational Israeli politician exists…!
John Kirby is a complete idiot…!
I applaud this man’s courage and morality. I knew there were good people in Israel, as everywhere else. It’s too bad the voices of peace and logic get lost among the louder voices .
MSM is in on shouting over them.
Of course. Peace doesn’t butter their bread.
You’ve probably seen these examples, but in case you haven’t:
TOP DEMOCRAT-LINKED PR FIRM TAPPED BY PRO-ISRAEL GROUPS TO CONTROL GAZA WAR NARRATIVE
https://www.mintpressnews.com/democrat-linked-pr-firm-tapped-pro-israel-groups-control-gaza-war-narrative/286514/
CNN RUNS GAZA COVERAGE PAST JERUSALEM TEAM OPERATING UNDER SHADOW OF IDF CENSOR https://theintercept.com/2024/01/04/cnn-israel-gaza-idf-reporting/
Oh yeah, but I have to admit, I’ve been surprised by how some of the media is actually reporting on it. Maybe some within the media can no longer go along with the horror. Or maybe I’m just being foolish?
Here is an example article from AP that came out in November. .
https://apnews.com/article/palestinians-gaza-israel-bombing-destruction-hamas-reconstruction-f299a28410b70ee05dd764df97d8d3a0
Yes, but pay attention to passive wording:
The war didn’t knock out hospitals. Israel blew them up. It diverts blame to the “war”.
That’s true. Sneaky ways to manipulate your mind
Right. It’s the war that is responsible, meaning both sides. Not a massive bombing campaign by Israel to obliterate a population.
Yeah, it’s like saying “Israel is at war with Hamas,” while the majority of the people they’re killing are Palestinian civilians.
Like Biden talking about the Palestinian suffering as if it’s a natural disaster and not Israel, with US weapons, causing that suffering.
Of course. Peace doesn’t butter their bread.
I thought he was the same guy who warned for the armament of settlers, saying they would one day, sooner rather than later, if they’d felt losing their grip on power, turn their guns on any Israeli not entirely beholden to their brand of religious fascism. I fail to see any future in which he is going to be proved wrong. But then again I am not clairvoyant, just able to extrapolate the logic.
I don’t know. I thought he was antizionist?
Could be that he called himself that and that he genuinly holds that position. He certainly seems to oppose Jewish racist/ supremacist thinking, and that is necessarily in direct opposition to Zionism, the political ideology.