South Africa's claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza should be rejected by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). According to the UN Genocide Convention of 1948, the determination of genocide presupposes the intention "to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such."
In other words, the destruction of such a group - in this case the Palestinians in Gaza - should be the real goal of Israel's action. That is clearly not the case.
Israeli political and military leaders do not question the Palestinian presence in Gaza, nor do they refuse to provide humanitarian aid to the civilian population in the coastal enclave. Certain statements by the ultranationalist, right-wing extremist ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to the contrary are problematic.
But they do not represent the position of the Israeli government. In the 2007 case of Bosnia-Herzegovina vs. Serbia, the ICJ found that a particular “pattern of behavior” can only be considered evidence of genocide if it is based on “intention.” However, Israel's intention in Gaza is to prevent the terrorist organization Hamas from carrying out genocidal intentions against the Israeli civilian population.
South Africa's application is also not very promising because it does not name the trigger - the brutal murder of more than 1,200 Israelis, the rape of Jewish women, and the abduction of more than 200 hostages to the Gaza Strip on October 7th - as what it is; namely, part of Hamas' plan to destroy the State of Israel and replace it with an Islamist caliphate.
Hamas's founding charter from 1988 already calls for the elimination of all "warlike Jews" from the area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. By the way, this corresponds exactly to the legal definition of genocide.
This editorial was originally published in German in Jüdische Allgemeine.
