It could be a comedy of the absurd or a tasteless joke if it were not for the gravity of the matter: judging Israel for genocide.
South Africa has presented before the International Court of Justice in The Hague the thesis that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Let’s not forget that for the accusation to be consistent, there must be an intention to exterminate an entire people by the accused.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The constant calls to the civilian population of Gaza to distance themselves from military targets are evidence that the Israeli Defense Forces, in their defensive action against the terrorist organization Hamas, are not seeking harm to civilians but their safety.
This fact alone dismantles the accusation of genocide.
These calls are made even at the risk of Hamas leaders also seeking shelter during the attack on their infrastructure. But for Israel, minimizing civilian casualties is more important. And that is the opposite of genocide.
The evidence that Israel has presented regarding the assistance the military has provided to Palestinian civilians found in abandoned buildings, offering them food and water, and ensuring their safety, ridicules the accusation of genocide.
The aid that Israeli soldiers have provided in Gaza hospitals, attending to the sick abandoned by their leaders, is the opposite of genocide.
Allowing humanitarian aid to enter Gaza to help civilians, despite the 136 Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas three months ago receiving no assistance or visits from humanitarian organizations to confirm their condition, is the opposite of genocide.
If Israel had wanted to commit genocide in Gaza, it could have used its military potential without risking the lives of its soldiers.
But it chose risk and the painful loss of its young soldiers, who fight street by street, building by building, searching for and destroying tunnels, weaponry, infrastructure, and terrorist leaders hiding among the population. Leaders who care more about the destruction of Israel than the prosperity of their people.
Proof of this is the systematic theft of humanitarian supplies intended for the civilian population by Hamas.
It is sadly curious how Israel has to justify its steps in detail while no country, NGO, human rights, or feminist association has dared to denounce before an international tribunal the crimes perpetrated by Hamas on October 7.
And that was a genocide. Because the 3,000 terrorists who entered Israel did so shouting “Allahu akbar” and with the intention of killing the greatest number of people without discriminating by age, gender, condition, or status.
What Hamas did on October 7 was massacring entire families. Murdering them in the worst possible way. Using sex to torture women. Women who were systematically raped even after being executed.
Today, there are still 136 people kidnapped in Gaza about whom nothing is known. But we can infer the suffering they are going through, as described by the released hostages.
Hamas is not only the executioner of the Israeli and Jewish people (to whom it has extended its call for murder). Hamas is the perpetrator and the one responsible for the situation of the people in Gaza. No group operates from civilian areas as Hamas does in Gaza.
The Israeli Defense Forces, in their incursion into Gaza, have found bombs, rockets, and military material in schools, incubators, hospitals, bags with the UNRWA logo. They have found tunnel entrances next to nurseries and mosques. They have found rocket launchers in civilian residential buildings.
Hamas has turned civilian areas into military targets. And no one has labeled that as a crime against humanity.
The reactions of those arrested by the Israeli army are enlightening, reproaching the soldiers for not having come earlier to liberate them from Hamas. “You took 17 years to come and free us,” shouted a man at the Israeli soldiers.
And the world, with its courts, its robes, and its solemnity, focuses on Israel.
Of course, there are innocent victims. As in all wars. Of course, there could be many fewer if Hamas acted ethically, behaving like an army fighting against another army.
And, of course, we wouldn’t be talking about any of this if Hamas didn’t have the goal of eliminating Israel, as stated in its founding charter.
However, South Africa points the finger at Israel, whose only goal is to prevent Hamas from perpetrating another massacre. A massacre that has already been announced by Palestinian terrorist leaders.
Israel not only complies with international law but also fulfills the obligation to protect its population.
If Israel had not entered this war it never sought, it would be a matter of time before the genocide against the Israeli people had a new chapter in history.
The pointing of fingers at Israel by South Africa is a blood libel and empties the word ‘genocide’ of its meaning.
A word that was created after the deliberate and systematic murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust.
This article was originally published in the Spanish online newspaper El Español
