For the New Year, Global Solidarity to Save Palestine: Backing South Africa
By: Sam Husseini / Arab America Contributing Writer
It’s an old joke that people in the US learn geography by making war. Now, there’s a chance to learn some by working for peace — and thus reorient the world.
With South Africa submitting an 84-page application to the International Court of Justice (also called the World Court) invoking the Genocide Convention against Israel, the task before many activists it to get other countries to back it up.
If this isn’t done, South Africa — even though it suffered under apartheid — may be isolated and vulnerable to all manner of attack. So there are many calls, like this one:
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, based in Saudi Arabia, put out a statement praising South Africa and calling on the Court to take urgent measures to stop the “mass genocide.” So you’d think its members would act.
World Beyond War and RootsAction have updated their action alert on the Genocide Convention. You can use their system to send a strong letter to other countries that have been critical of Israel to get them to support South Africa’s action:
It only takes a moment. CodePink also has a petition they will deliver in person.
And you can approach countries directly, using this great resource that a volunteer put together:
Here’s a slight modification of the letter that World Beyond War sends which you can send:
I urge your country, as party to the Genocide Convention, to immediately file a Declaration of Intervention with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in support of the South African case against Israel for the crime of genocide.
Your United Nations mission, government leaders, and populace have rightfully expressed outrage at Israel’s bombing of hospitals, clinics, apartments, UN refugee centers, and escape routes, killing civilians, many of them children, in Gaza’s densely packed coastal strip.
I ask your country to take the next step, to file a Declaration of Intervention with the ICJ in support of the South African case against Israel on the crime of genocide.
Under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the crime of genocide is defined as acts perpetrated to bring about the destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such.
Israel’s killing, injuring, traumatizing, and making homeless large number of Palestinians and denying an imprisoned population water, food, medicine, and fuel meets the criteria for the crime of genocide.
If a majority of the world’s nations call for a ceasefire, yet fail to press for prosecution of Israel – what is to stop Israel from ethnically cleansing all Palestinians? For that matter, what is to stop other nations from repeating a horror of this magnitude?
I urge you to immediately file a Declaration of Intervention in support of the South African case against Israel at the International Court of Justice to stop the killing in Palestine.
(Examples of past Declarations of Intervention.)
Here’s the breakdown of the Dec. 12 UNGA vote:
A few countries that have criticized Israel are not included in the above document because they are not signatories to the Genocide Convention (Chad and Djibouti) and more are listed at the bottom of the document because they have reservations about Article 9 of the Genocide Convention that makes it likely the Court would reject any Declarations they might submit, including Malaysia. Or such Declarations would have to be filed extremely carefully. UN page on parties to the Genocide Convention.
If you have suggestions on the document, you can contact the volunteer who generously put it together: lalleshwariyoga@gmail.com.
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