South Africa’s genocide charges against Israel: Cynical abuse of the ICJ

 https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-781481

While nothing is surprising in the international realities in which we live, it is nevertheless ironic that the International Court of Justice in the Hague, the world’s principal judicial organ, is being petitioned by South Africa, at the evident behest and initiative of the Palestinian leadership, to adjudge the State of Israel for the alleged crime of genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza.

The irony emanates first and foremost from the nature and history of the very term “genocide” – a term coined in 1944 by a Jewish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, to describe the Nazi atrocities against the Jews during the Holocaust in Europe. 

This term was ultimately coopted into international law by the international community when it adopted in 1948 the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which criminalized acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.”