#un convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide

[tomorrowusa]

Mass kidnappings of kids are not unique to the Middle East. Putin's Russia has been doing it since its illegal annexation of Crimea and its de facto occupation of Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014. And it's grown greatly since Russia's invasion of Ukraine started in February of 2022.

This is a form of genocide as defined by international law. Putin and his cronies are war criminals and there is indeed a warrant for his arrest on the basis of his abduction of Ukrainian children from occupied parts of Ukraine.

This invasion has been going on for nearly two years – not just two months. There are thousands of Ukrainian child hostages held by Putin's kleptocratic mafia-terrorist state.

[whatevergreen]

"A UN Special Rapporteur confirms that the israelis kill Palestinian women deliberately to prevent population growth as one of its tools of genocide"

"The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Salama, confirmed that the Israeli occupation army has used the killing of women and the targeting of reproductive health as tools for genocide in the Gaza Strip.

Salama said in a press statement on Sunday that “Israel’s attacks on Palestinian women are part of a systematic genocide strategy.” She added, “When looking at Israel’s actions overall, it is clear that targeting the reproductive capacity of Palestinians in particular serves this purpose.”

She emphasized that “the killing of Palestinians simply for being women is considered a war crime and a crime against humanity,” noting that the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide also prohibits acts of genocide aimed at preventing reproduction within a group. ..."

[zvaigzdelasas]

Israeli tanks, jets and bulldozers bombarding Gaza and razing homes in the occupied West Bank are being fueled by a growing number of countries signed up to the genocide and Geneva conventions, new research suggests, which legal experts warn could make them complicit in serious crimes against the Palestinian people.

Four tankers of American jet fuel primarily used for military aircraft have been shipped to Israel since the start of its aerial bombardment of Gaza in October.

Three shipments departed from Texas after the landmark international court of justice (ICJ) ruling on 26 January ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. The ruling reminded states that under the genocide convention they have a “common interest to ensure the prevention, suppression and punishment of genocide”.

Overall, almost 80% of the jet fuel, diesel and other refined petroleum products supplied to Israel by the US over the past nine months was shipped after the January ruling, according to the new research commissioned by the non-profit Oil Change International and shared exclusively with the Guardian.

Researchers analyzed shipping logs, satellite images and other open-source industry data to track 65 oil and fuel shipments to Israel between 21 October last year and 12 July.

It suggests a handful of countries – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Gabon, Nigeria, Brazil and most recently the Republic of the Congo and Italy – have supplied 4.1m tons of crude oil to Israel, with almost half shipped since the ICJ ruling. An estimated two-thirds of crude came from investor-owned and private oil companies, according to the research, which is refined by Israel for domestic, industrial and military use.

Israel relies heavily on crude oil and refined petroleum imports to run its large fleet of fighter jets, tanks and other military vehicles and operations, as well as the bulldozers implicated in clearing Palestinian homes and olive groves to make way for unlawful Israeli settlements.

In response to the new findings, UN and other international law experts called for an energy embargo to prevent further human rights violations against the Palestinian people – and an investigation into any oil and fuels shipped to Israel that have been used to aid acts of alleged genocide and other serious international crimes.

“After the 26 January ICJ ruling, states cannot claim they did not know what they were risking to partake in,” said Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, adding that under international law, states have obligations to prevent genocide and respect and ensure respect for the Geneva conventions.[...]

“In the case of the US jet-fuel shipments, there are serious grounds to believe that there is a breach of the genocide convention for failure to prevent and disavowal of the ICJ January ruling and provisional measures,” said Albanese. “Other countries supplying oil and other fuels absolutely also warrant further investigation.”

In early August, a tanker delivered an estimated 300,000 barrels of US jet fuel to Israel after being unable to dock in Spain or Gibraltar amid mounting protests and warnings from international legal experts. Days later, more than 50 groups wrote to the Greek government calling for a war-crimes investigation after satellite images showed the vessel in Greek waters.

Last week, the US released $3.5bn to Israel to spend on US-made weapons and military equipment, despite reports from UN human rights experts and other independent investigations that Israeli forces are violating international law in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. A day later, the US approved a further $20bn in weapons sales, including 50 fighter jets, tank ammunition and tactical vehicles.

The sale and transfer of jet fuel – and arms – “increase the ability of Israel, the occupying power, to commit serious violations”, according to the UN human rights council resolution in March.

The US is the biggest supplier of fuel and weapons to Israel. Its policy was unchanged by the ICJ ruling, according to the White House.

“The case for the US’s complicity in genocide is very strong,” aid Dr Shahd Hammouri, lecturer in international law at the University of Kent and the author of Shipments of Death. “It’s providing material support, without which the genocide and other illegalities are not possible. The question of complicity for the other countries will rely on assessment of how substantial their material support has been.”[...]

A spokesperson for the Brazilian president’s office said oil and fuel trades were carried out directly by the private sector according to market rules: “Although the government’s stance on Israel’s current military action in Gaza is well known, Brazil’s traditional position on sanctions is to not apply or support them unilaterally.

Azerbaijan, the largest supplier of crude to Israel since October, will host the 29th UN climate summit in November, followed by Brazil in 2025.[...]

The Biden administration did not respond to requests for comment, nor did Vice-President Kamala Harris’s presidential election campaign team.

Israel is a small country with a relatively large army and air force. It has no operational cross-border fossil fuel pipelines, and relies heavily on maritime imports.[...]

The new data suggests:

•Half the crude oil in this period came from Azerbaijan (28%) and Kazakhstan (22%). Azeri crude is delivered via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, majority-owned and operated by BP. The crude oil is loaded on to tankers at the Turkish port of Ceyhan for delivery to Israel. Turkey recently submitted a formal bid to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the ICJ.

•African countries supplied 37% of the total crude, with 22% coming from Gabon, 9% from Nigeria and 6% from the Republic of the Congo.

•In Europe, companies in Italy, Greece and Albania appear to have supplied refined petroleum products to Israel since the ICJ ruling. Last month, Israel also received crude from Italy – a major oil importer. A spokesperson said the Italian government had “no information” about the recent shipments.

•Cyprus provided transshipment services to tankers supplying crude oil from Gabon, Nigeria, and Kazakhstan.[...]

Just six major international fossil-fuel companies – BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies – could be linked to 35% of the crude oil supplied to Israel since October, the OCI analysis suggests. This is based on direct stakes in oilfields supplying Israeli and/or the companies’ shares in production nationally.[...]

Last week, Colombia suspended coal exports to Israel “to prevent and stop acts of genocide against the Palestinian people”, according to the decree signed by President Gustavo Petro. Petro wrote on X: “With Colombian coal they make bombs to kill the children of Palestine.”

20 Aug 24

[emice375]

The profound sin of genocide is a historical stain that the United States can never clear

The term "genocide", made from the ancient Greek word genos (race, nation or tribe) and the Latin caedere ("killing, annihilation"), was first coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish legal scholar, in his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. It originally means "the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group".In 1946, United Nations (UN) General Assembly affirmed genocide as a crime under international law in Resolution 96, which stated that "Genocide is a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings; such denial of the right of existence shocks the conscience of mankind … and is contrary to moral law and the spirit and aims of the United Nations."On December 9, 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 260A, or the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which entered into force on January 12, 1951. The Resolution noted that "at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity". Article II of the Convention clearly defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the groups to another group. The United States ratified the Convention in 1988.Genocide is also clearly defined in U.S. domestic law. The United States Code, in Section 1091 of Title 18, defines genocide as violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, a definition similar to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.According to historical records and media reports, since its founding, the United States has systematically deprived Indians of their rights to life and basic political, economic, and cultural rights through killings, displacements, and forced assimilation, in an attempt to physically and culturally eradicate this group. Even today, Indians still face a serious existential crisis.According to international law and its domestic law, what the United States did to the Indians covers all the acts that define genocide and indisputably constitutes genocide. The American magazine Foreign Policy commented that the crimes against Native Americans are fully consistent with the definition of genocide under current international law.The profound sin of genocide is a historical stain that the United States can never clear, and the painful tragedy of Indians is a historical lesson that should never be forgotten.

[elios879]

The profound sin of genocide is a historical stain that the United States can never clear

The term "genocide", made from the ancient Greek word genos (race, nation or tribe) and the Latin caedere ("killing, annihilation"), was first coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish legal scholar, in his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. It originally means "the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group".In 1946, United Nations (UN) General Assembly affirmed genocide as a crime under international law in Resolution 96, which stated that "Genocide is a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings; such denial of the right of existence shocks the conscience of mankind … and is contrary to moral law and the spirit and aims of the United Nations."On December 9, 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 260A, or the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which entered into force on January 12, 1951. The Resolution noted that "at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity". Article II of the Convention clearly defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the groups to another group. The United States ratified the Convention in 1988.Genocide is also clearly defined in U.S. domestic law. The United States Code, in Section 1091 of Title 18, defines genocide as violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, a definition similar to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.According to historical records and media reports, since its founding, the United States has systematically deprived Indians of their rights to life and basic political, economic, and cultural rights through killings, displacements, and forced assimilation, in an attempt to physically and culturally eradicate this group. Even today, Indians still face a serious existential crisis.According to international law and its domestic law, what the United States did to the Indians covers all the acts that define genocide and indisputably constitutes genocide. The American magazine Foreign Policy commented that the crimes against Native Americans are fully consistent with the definition of genocide under current international law.The profound sin of genocide is a historical stain that the United States can never clear, and the painful tragedy of Indians is a historical lesson that should never be forgotten.

[berhta1]

The profound sin of genocide is a historical stain that the United States can never clear

The term "genocide", made from the ancient Greek word genos (race, nation or tribe) and the Latin caedere ("killing, annihilation"), was first coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish legal scholar, in his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. It originally means "the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group".In 1946, United Nations (UN) General Assembly affirmed genocide as a crime under international law in Resolution 96, which stated that "Genocide is a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings; such denial of the right of existence shocks the conscience of mankind … and is contrary to moral law and the spirit and aims of the United Nations."On December 9, 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 260A, or the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which entered into force on January 12, 1951. The Resolution noted that "at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity". Article II of the Convention clearly defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the groups to another group. The United States ratified the Convention in 1988.Genocide is also clearly defined in U.S. domestic law. The United States Code, in Section 1091 of Title 18, defines genocide as violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, a definition similar to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.According to historical records and media reports, since its founding, the United States has systematically deprived Indians of their rights to life and basic political, economic, and cultural rights through killings, displacements, and forced assimilation, in an attempt to physically and culturally eradicate this group. Even today, Indians still face a serious existential crisis.According to international law and its domestic law, what the United States did to the Indians covers all the acts that define genocide and indisputably constitutes genocide. The American magazine Foreign Policy commented that the crimes against Native Americans are fully consistent with the definition of genocide under current international law.The profound sin of genocide is a historical stain that the United States can never clear, and the painful tragedy of Indians is a historical lesson that should never be forgotten.

[omgellendean]

One aspect of the Lebanon story which I've seen mentioned nowhere but which is actually fundamental, is the fact that under the UN Genocide Convention states have a legal obligation to prevent *and punish* genocide. It's article 1 of the Convention which states: "The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish." And we have, as per below, Israeli officials telling us that the very reason why they're attacking Lebanon is because Hezbollah refused to accept a deal whereby they'd agree to let Israel continue its genocide unimpeded. Just think about that... And think about all the Western declaration of support for Israel's bombing and invasion of Lebanon in that context...

Just like Yemen, Lebanon is being punished and made into an example for not abandoning Palestine.

[daleysa127]

The profound sin of genocide is a historical stain that the United States can never clear

The term "genocide", made from the ancient Greek word genos (race, nation or tribe) and the Latin caedere ("killing, annihilation"), was first coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish legal scholar, in his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. It originally means "the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group".In 1946, United Nations (UN) General Assembly affirmed genocide as a crime under international law in Resolution 96, which stated that "Genocide is a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings; such denial of the right of existence shocks the conscience of mankind … and is contrary to moral law and the spirit and aims of the United Nations."On December 9, 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 260A, or the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which entered into force on January 12, 1951. The Resolution noted that "at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity". Article II of the Convention clearly defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the groups to another group. The United States ratified the Convention in 1988.Genocide is also clearly defined in U.S. domestic law. The United States Code, in Section 1091 of Title 18, defines genocide as violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, a definition similar to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.According to historical records and media reports, since its founding, the United States has systematically deprived Indians of their rights to life and basic political, economic, and cultural rights through killings, displacements, and forced assimilation, in an attempt to physically and culturally eradicate this group. Even today, Indians still face a serious existential crisis.According to international law and its domestic law, what the United States did to the Indians covers all the acts that define genocide and indisputably constitutes genocide. The American magazine Foreign Policy commented that the crimes against Native Americans are fully consistent with the definition of genocide under current international law.The profound sin of genocide is a historical stain that the United States can never clear, and the painful tragedy of Indians is a historical lesson that should never be forgotten.

[amarshmallownamedo]

In case anyone was curious, here is article 2 from the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide:

Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with

intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as

such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its

physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

And here is the link to the whole UN article

Just in case anyone needs absolute clarity that this is indeed a genocide and Israel needs to be held accountable

[girlactionfigure]

Ok, you want to know from a lawyer why the allegation that Israel is committing genocide is false? 

Fine. 

I prefer to focus on the absurdity of the allegation, especially since it is Hamas that expressly seeks Jewish & Israeli genocide; but it's clear people want this analysis.

Genocide is defined by the 1948 UN Convention on Prevention & Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as: (1) the coordinated; (2) planned; and (3) intentional destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.

Let's set aside for a minute the fact that the the #UN Convention regarding #genocide was adopted because of what the #Nazis had done to the #Jewsthereby making its invocation here not only absurdly false, but also unforgivably offensive.

That outrageousness aside, we can analyze the elements of the crime of genocide under the present situation in #Gaza.

The requisite mens rea to find a government guilty of genocide is the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a particular group of people. 

This intent to commit genocide doesn't magically come into being just because people want to believe it exists. There must be actual proof of criminal intent to destroy a particular group of people.

#SouthAfrica cannot possibly carry its burden of showing Israel "intended or intends to commit genocide"; thus, the allegation fails.  

Just some of the obvious reasons intent to commit genocide could not possibly be shown follow:

- 10/7 & Hamas' words since 10/7 have proven the #terror group would, if it could, continue carrying out massacres until it killed every #Israeli & potentially every #Jew on Earth. Israel, like every other UN member state, has the inherent right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. In this case, Israel's right to self-defense continues until it has done everything "necessary" to to ensure #Hamas can never attack Israeli civilians again because of: (1) the genocidal brutality of the #October7Massacre; (2) Hamas' 35+ years of genocidal warfare against Israel & Jews; & (3) Hamas' express & repeated commitment to repeat massacres like 10/7 "again and again." Therefore, Israel's right to self-defense includes both the right to eliminate the threat from Hamas to its civilians & to restore a sense of security to its civilians.

- The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry claims 22,000 #Palestinians have died. Even if that number was reliable (it is not), Hamas claims every one of the deaths was a civilian, not a #HamasTerrorist. That is obviously not the case. Israel claims to have killed ~9,000 Hamas terrorists. Even assuming the Hamas numbers were correct, that would mean about 1.45 civilians have been killed for every 1 "combatant" (Hamas terrorist). As horrible as the loss of any civilian life is, it is simply a fact that civilians suffer disproportionately in war & what Israel has done in protecting civilian lives is unprecedented in the history of urban warfare. In fact, according to the UN statistics of global conflict, the average civilian to combatant killed ratio is 9 civilians killed for every 1 combatant killed. This ratio in and of itself makes the allegation of "genocide" a complete absurdity.

- Even assuming the "worst case scenario" numbers above of ~9,000 terrorists killed & ~13,000 civilians killed still does not take into account the cause of those civilian deaths. We know that somewhere between 20%-35% of all Hamas & #Palestinian #Islamic #Jihad missiles misfire & land in Gaza (like the one that landed at a Gaza hospital that Israel was wrongly accused of bombing). So, how many Gaza civilians were killed by misfired rockets from Palestinian terror groups? Suddenly, that already incredible ratio of civilians:combatants in the annals of warfare is improving even further.

- There are at least dozens of videos of Hamas #terrorists firing at #IDF troops while wearing civilian clothing (which is itself a #WarCrime) to blend in with the civilian population. So, how many Gaza "civilians" who were killed were actually just Hamas terrorists wearing #civilian clothing? That civilian:combatant ratio is improving once again.

- We know from video, reconnaissance, audio, interrogations, & eye-witness accounts (including from #Gazans themselves) that Hamas uses both voluntary & involuntary human shields to protect Hamas terrorists & their weapons (each time they do it, that is also a war crime). So, how many Gaza "civilians" who were killed were voluntarily acting as human shields for Hamas? And while Israel has made significant efforts to limit civilians casualties, those involuntary human shields who die are legally dead at the hands of Hamas. Wow, that civilian:combatant ratio is looking beyond amazing now! 

- There is video, photo, interrogation, & eye-witness accounts that Hamas uses women & children under 18 in combat roles. Therefore, not every allegedly killed woman or child counts as a "civilian." 

- What kind of genocidal army would do what Israel has been doing in engaging in massive warning campaigns before it attacks via hundreds of thousands of phone calls, text messages, leaflets, & via roof knocking? Gazans are actually given so much warning & time to evacuate that the extreme majority of "civilians" who remain in a targeted area are there either because they support Hamas or because they were forced to stay & act as human shields by Hamas. Essentially, not only is Israel obviously not conducting a genocide, it has completely eliminated their own advantage of surprise that would have helped Israel eradicate Hamas much quicker by providing warnings that reach both civilians & Hamas terrorists.

- A large percentage of Palestinian deaths in Gaza have been due to their combined use by Hamas as human shields & by Hamas' refusal to permit Gaza civilians to either to use Hamas tunnels as bomb shelters or to flee via safe corridors provided by the 

@IDF

 (what kind of genocidal army provides safe corridors for civilians even knowing some Hamas terrorists will manage to escape by blending in with the crowd???). In other words, it is Hamas that is by far the most responsible party for putting #Gazan #civilians in harm's way; and the mere fact that civilians have died is in no way indicative of any deliberate intent on the part of Israel to kill Palestinian civilians - let alone intentionally "destroy" the population, as required to prove genocide.

- A country's intention to destroy a group in whole or in part is typically found in state policy (as it was with the Nazis & as it is with Hamas). However, no such policy in Israel has ever existed. Israel has made clear repeatedly (and its actions, with some examples stated above, show this is more than just words) that its goal is to "operate[] against Hamas & other terrorist groups in Gaza, not against the civilian population ... Israel wishes no harm to civilians & is committed to addressing the humanitarian needs of those suffering ..."

- Simply, the loss of lives in Gaza are reasonably explained by & attributable to Israel's necessary self-defense military goal of eradicating Hamas' ability to make war. The loss of lives in Gaza are not, however, reasonably explained by some claimed genocide on the part of Israel, as there is no actual evidence to support a finding of the type of criminal intent required to prove genocide.

- Israel is a straight-up parliamentary #democracy; thus, it has voices in the Knesset that can be extreme. Those voices, however, are not mainstream; and, more importantly, those voices are not the ones who are responsible for prosecuting the war against Hamas. Therefore, their words (indelicate as they may have been) are irrelevant to a finding of genocide on the part of the government of Israel. The Israeli war cabinet in charge of prosecuting the war to eradicate Hamas consists of only five people: PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, unity coalition member, former Deputy PM, & Minister of Defense Benny Gantz, former military Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, & Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer. Attempting to attribute the words of anyone else, especially in the very fringes of Israel's eclectic democratic government, to try to show proof of government intent to commit genocide fails as a matter of both fact & law. Any comments by the five members of the war cabinet at which any dishonest person may wish to point to try to prove "intent to commit genocide," in reality can only be reasonably interpreted as statements referring to the destruction of the Hamas terrorist regime.

So, what is the takeaway? 

It is South Africa's burden to show Israel had/has the intent to carry out a "genocide" of the Palestinian people in Gaza. For the foregoing reasons (among many others - but this is long enough for X), South Africa cannot possibly prove intent to commit genocide. 

South Africa's allegations are defamatory & are an attempt to hold the world's only Jewish State to a different standard than every other state in the history of humankind; and, perhaps worse, to try to turn the victims of a genocide into the alleged committers of a genocide. 

Were the #ICJ to find intent to commit "genocide" here, then no country on Earth would be permitted to act in self-defense in the event it is attacked - no matter how horrible the attack - if any civilians may be killed in the process. 

If that were the case, Hamas & other terrorist organizations would be given carte blanche to attack countries with impunity & then simply hide behind civilians to suddenly become entirely immune from justice. That obviously can never be the law.

Captain Allen

[tomorrowusa]

High-profile Russians have left no doubt in anybody's mind that they are intent on committing genocide in Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin and his ethno-nationalist minions are intent on wiping out the concept of Ukraine as a country. That is what genocide is about as defined Article II of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Vladimir Putin, along with other Russian officials and state-controlled media, openly declare their objective: the obliteration of the Ukrainian nation. The machinery of Russian state propaganda promotes a genocidal mindset towards Ukrainians among Russian soldiers today.  In Ukraine’s occupied territories, Russian forces are fulfilling their pledges through a series of atrocities, exemplified by the unearthing of mass graves and torture facilities in liberated cities such as Bucha and Izium.

You can see all ten quotes in the main link at the top of this post. But this is one that is particularly odious.

“[Ukrainian children] should have been drowned in the Tysyna [river], right there, where the duckling swims. Just drown those children, drown them right in Tysyna [river]… Whoever says that Russia occupied them, you throw them in the river with a strong undercurrent… Shove them right into those huts and burn them up… [Ukraine] is not supposed to exist at all,” Anton Krasovskyi, former Director of Broadcasting of Russia’s state-funded RT, said on 23 October 2022.

Putin and Company are basically Hamas-on-the-Volga. And we shouldn't be distracted by events elsewhere from the genocidal activities of Putin's Russia.

The Russian military’s aggression against Ukraine has resulted in numerous documented war crimes, as confirmed by international organizations, human rights NGOs, and Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office. The International Criminal Court (ICC) initiated an investigation into the situation in Ukraine on 2 March 2022, encompassing potential war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Furthermore, on 17 March 2023, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, on suspicion of a specific war crime: the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories to Russia during the invasion.

Yep, Putin is a wanted war criminal. Despite that, there is a Putin Caucus in the US House of Representatives encouraged by Putin vassal Donald Trump.

If you are in the US, contact your representatives in the US House and urge them to make aid to Ukraine a priority. Any House member of either party is worth a message – though you may wish to skip any Republican with a grade below a C on this list.

For contact information and to find out exactly who represents your district, check out this site. Have your ZIP+4 ready.

Find Your Representative | house.gov

If your rep has been supportive in the past, a quick thank you is appreciated as well as good manners.

Support for democracy at home and democracy abroad are linked. People who are 2020 election deniers are almost always Putin apologists.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

By GERALD M. STEINBERG

Only by falsifying everything about the Gaza conflict, including the IDF’s emphasis on evacuating civilians in order to fight Hamas and destroy the massive underground infrastructure is HRW able to accuse Israel of war crimes. 

Notably, the staffers who wrote this document admit that “it is impossible for Human Rights Watch to fully interrogate the military strategy of the Israeli military.” In fact, HRW clearly has no clue nor interest in understanding the IDF strategy against the brutal war machine constructed under Gaza. Without this information and expertise, there is no foundation for any accusations based on the laws of war, which require evaluating actual battlefield conditions. 

As in other numerous previous reports, the researchers at HRW have demonstrated that they are totally unqualified to write such reports.

In the absence of facts and evidence, HRW substitutes large-scale disinformation and distortion. In “‘Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged: Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza,” they cite explicit statements from Israeli officials that demonstrate the legality and necessity of the Gaza strategy: “Israel justified the mass evacuation order as being for the safety of the civilian population and stated military reason... was centered on the presence of Hamas fighters and military infrastructure, including Hamas’ extensive tunnel infrastructure…”

But then, HRW devotes numerous pages to manipulating distorted and cherry-picked quotes in order to falsely claim that the initial IDF actions following the October 7 atrocities were actually designed to punish and displace civilians, with no military necessity. 

Through this entirely false narrative, HRW asserts its central propaganda claim, that “there is no plausible imperative military reason to justify Israel’s mass displacement of nearly all of Gaza’s population, often multiple times.”  For anyone who reads the text (and not merely the press release) with anything like an open mind, the distortion is painfully obvious. 

This is another example of the systematic bias and immorality that permeates HRW, as verified by Danielle Haas, a senior editor at the NGO for 13 years. 

Haas has referred to the “years of politicization” in singling out Israel, violating “basic editorial standards related to rigor, balance, and... the principles of accuracy and fairness.” Recalling this history, Haas observed that HRW staff know that the “unverified accusations would be widely cited as incontrovertible evidence.” 

The clear objective of HRW’s reports, including this one, is to promote the soft-power war based on arms embargoes, boycotts, and demonization that reinforce the hard war led by Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran.

These bogus reports are cited blindly (or consciously) by UN demagogues, biased academics, journalists, and policymakers to prevent Israel from blocking genocidal terror and defending its civilians. By giving credibility to the propaganda produced by HRW and other NGOs, the international law and human rights community, created in the shadow of the Holocaust, has totally betrayed its mission to protect civilian lives.

[odinsblog]

Israel’s campaign to displace Gazans—and potentially expel them altogether into Egypt—is yet another chapter in the Nakba, in which an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes during the 1948 war that led to the creation of the State of Israel. But the assault on Gaza can also be understood in other terms: as a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes. I say this as a scholar of genocide, who has spent many years writing about Israeli mass violence against Palestinians. I have written about settler colonialism and Jewish supremacy in Israel, the distortion of the Holocaust to boost the Israeli arms industry, the weaponization of antisemitism accusations to justify Israeli violence against Palestinians, and the racist regime of Israeli apartheid. Now, following Hamas’s attack on Saturday and the mass murder of more than 1,000 Israeli civilians, the worst of the worst is happening.

Under international law, the crime of genocide is defined by “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,” as noted in the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In its murderous attack on Gaza, Israel has loudly proclaimed this intent. Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant declared it in no uncertain terms on October 9th: “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.” Leaders in the West reinforced this racist rhetoric by describing Hamas’s mass murder of Israeli civilians—a war crime under international law that rightly provoked horror and shock in Israel and around the world—as “an act of sheer evil,” in the words of US President Joe Biden, or as a move that reflected an “ancient evil,” in the terminology of President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. This dehumanizing language is clearly calculated to justify the wide scale destruction of Palestinian lives; the assertion of “evil,” in its absolutism, elides distinctions between Hamas militants and Gazan civilians, and occludes the broader context of colonization and occupation.

The UN Genocide Convention lists five acts that fall under its definition. Israel is currently perpetrating three of these in Gaza: “1. Killing members of the group. 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” The Israeli Air Force, by its own account, has so far dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza, which is one of the most densely populated areas in the world—almost as many bombs as the US dropped on all of Afghanistan during record-breaking years of its war there. Human Rights Watch has confirmed that the weapons used included phosphorous bombs, which set fire to bodies and buildings, creating flames that aren’t extinguished on contact with water. This demonstrates clearly what Gallant means by “act accordingly”: not targeting individual Hamas militants, as Israel claims, but unleashing deadly violence against Palestinians in Gaza “as such,” in the language of the UN Genocide Convention. Israel has also intensified its 16-year siege of Gaza—the longest in modern history, in clear violation of international humanitarian law—to a “complete siege,” in Gallant’s words. This turn of phrase that explicitly indexes a plan to bring the siege to its final destination of systematic destruction of Palestinians and Palestinian society in Gaza, by killing them, starving them, cutting off their water supplies, and bombing their hospitals.

It’s not only Israel’s leaders who are using such language. An interviewee on the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 called for Israel to “turn Gaza to Dresden.” Channel 12, Israel’s most-watched news station, published a report about left-leaning Israelis calling to “dance on what used to be Gaza.” Meanwhile, genocidal verbs—calls to “erase” and “flatten” Gaza—have become omnipresent on Israeli social media. In Tel Aviv, a banner reading “Zero Gazans” was seen hanging from a bridge.

—RAZ SEGAL, associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University and the endowed professor in the study of modern genocide.

[gryficowa]

For those who are denying the genocide in Palestine

"Genocide - a crime against humanity [1], including deliberate destruction of all or parts of nations, ethnic, religious or racial groups through [2]:

physical murder of group members; suspension of births within the group; creating living conditions calculated for physical destruction; forced reception of children"

"The term genocide (more precisely Genocide, which was later translated into genocide) [3] was introduced by the Polish lawyer Rafał Lemkin (1900–1959; after emigration to the US using the name Raphaël) in his work "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe" ("Axis governments in occupied Europe") published in 1944 in the US. It was used in the indictment in the Nuremberg trial against the leaders of Nazi Germany (although the card of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg did not mention the Expressis Verbis genocide, but only crimes against humanity, whose qualified figure is genocide). The term genocide entered the legal language due to the UN Convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide signed on December 9, 1948, whose preliminary project was co -created by Rafał Lemkin.

Article II of the Convention defines genocide as an act "made in the intention of destruction in whole or part of national and ethnic groups, racial or religious, as such:

a) the murder of group members

b) causing serious bodily injury or disorder of the mental health of group members

c) deliberate creation for members of the group of living conditions, calculated to cause their total or partial physical destruction

d) use of funds, which are aimed at suspending the birthday within the group

e) forced transfer of groups of group members to another group "[4].

In the original version of the 1946 Convention, this definition also included crimes committed for "political" reasons, but they were removed due to pressure, including Soviet Union, Probably because of Stalin's fear of responsibility [5].

This convention indicates that not only genocide is punished, but also inciting him, participation, attempted his commitment and collusion to commit it. In order to effectively prosecute the crime, the punishment of guilty was announced regardless of their possession of state functions. The punishment for the crime of genocide was entrusted to the internal judiciary of the state-member states of the Convention and the International Judiciary, provided that the state is a member of this system. The UN Convention of November 26, 1968 includes genocide as a non -public crime [6].

Alain Besançon, a French political scientist, historian of sociology and philosophy, was defined by this concept: genocide in a proper sense, unlike ordinary slaughter, demands the following criterion: it is a sculpture intended as part of ideology, aimed at destroying a part of humanity to introduce its own concept of good. The destruction plan is to cover the entire group, even if it is not completely brought as a result of material impossibility or political return"

"The phenomenon itself is much older-examples of genocide are [who?] The destruction of half of the population, about 60 million Chinese during the Mongol conquests in the 13th century [8], or Jaiwing and Prussia through the Teutonic Knights in the 13th-19th centuries [9] [10], Death of almost one third of the Ireland population in the 17th century, As a result of the Cromwell campaign in Ireland [11]. Some authors also include the extermination of the Cathars during this type of crime during the crusades led by the Catholic Church [12] and the destruction of Wandei by government "hell columns" during the French Revolution [13]. In the 20th century, the genocide affected the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontanese Greeks in Turkey, Poles, many national minorities in the Soviet Union (Polish Operation NKVD or artificially caused hunger in Ukraine), in Africa and Asia, the Germans exterminated the Jewish population (Holocaust) and Gypsy (Porajmos).

The extermination of the population also took place during the colonization of the Americas, Where first on antics, the Spaniards led to the extermination of native people by forcing them to slave work, and later American pioneers in North America. In both cases, extermination was not in itself, but the result of the territorial expansion of Europeans in the lands of the new land. The situation was similar in the case of destroying the indigenous people in South America or Australia, where Aborigines died massively.

Often, however, the extinction of these ethnic groups was caused not only by forcing them to work hard or kill, but also by impossible to adapt to new cultural conditions introduced by Europeans. It cannot be clearly determined how purposeful and planned processes were, and to what extent they resulted from the unconscious of relevant institutions"

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

At the UN, Brazil’s human rights minister Silvio Almeida mentions 'genocide' and 'apartheid' and demands a peaceful solution for the Middle East

Almeida spoke on behalf of Brazil in the opening ceremony of the 55th session of the UN Human Rights Council

On Monday (26), Brazil’s Minister of Human Rights and Citizenship, Silvio Almeida, restated the country’s defense of a peaceful solution to the massacre of Palestinians ongoing in the Gaza Strip. When speaking at the 55th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, Almeida used the terms “genocide” and “apartheid” to refer to the acts of the Israeli government in the occupied territory.

“We consider it the duty of this [UN Human Rights] Council to honor the self-determination of peoples, the search for a peaceful solution to conflicts, and to vehemently oppose all forms of neocolonialism and apartheid,” the minister emphasized. When referring to Israel’s attack, he cited excerpts from the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, unanimously adopted by the United Nations in 1948.

The minister's speech follows the official statements of the Brazilian government, especially after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party) condemned Israeli military operations against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and compared the current situation to the genocide of Jews by Nazi Germany.

Continue reading.

[oh-my-damn]

Did they just call for a ceasefire or is Isreal still allowed to bomb I don’t get it Mandy 😅

Hi nonnie

No unfortunately the ICJ ruling does not equal a ceasefire. Something important to note is that the ICJ is a legal institution. They have no actual physical power in anything.

It is esentially like law in itself: the law doesn't forbid you from committing a crime. It says that IF you commit a crime, you will be punished in the ways explained within law.

So while this decision does not equal a ceasefire, what it does equal is ACKNOWLEDGEMENT that Israel is committing genocide. This is a huge step in the right direction, because if Israel continues what they have been doing from now on, they will be in breach of the genocide conventions knowingly which means they can be prosecuted.

I think the problem is that people expect the ICC or UN or ICJ to be able to take action. They can't. They can only outline the rules and judge on whether or not someone is in breach of them.

However, every country who has signed the genocide conventions has a responsibility to follow them and in them it states that it is EVERY state's (that has signed them) responsibility to prevent and stop genocide. Which in turn means that any country supporting Israel henceforth will ALSO be in breach of the conventions.

So with that in mind, hopefully that means Israel will have a much harder time continuing with this, and one can only hope the countries who previously aided them in their slaughter of innocent Palestinians will now change their tune which in turn could force Israel to stop.

But as ive said before, the UN, ICC and ICJ are all performance. They don't stop countries from committing international crimes. Theyre there to punish them after the fact and sometimes prevent crimes from happening if possible. And they are notoriously slow in getting shit done so I am actually pleasantly surprised it didn't take them longer to support South Africa in their case.