ISRAEL SAYS SOUTH AFRICA ‘PLAYING ADVOCATE FOR DEVIL’

Tue 02 January 2024:

The Israeli government spokesman has crticised South Africa’s decision to bring a formal genocide application against Israel to the International Court of Justice last week – which has since been endorsed by the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

Eylon Levy reiterated during a short news conference that this is “blood libel” being brought against Tel Aviv, is anti-Semitic, and promised his country would fight it.

He claimed that Hamas is “hell-bent on the genocide of the Jews and sacrificing its own civilians for that cause”. He added that Israel “emphatically condemns South Africa’s decision to play advocate for the devil and to make itself criminally complicit with the perpetrators of the October 7 massacre”.

Israel to defend itself against accusations of genocide at international court

Israel will defend its actions in Gaza at the international court of justice in the Hague after South Africa launched a case against the state accusing it of genocide last week, Israeli media has reported.

“Israel, a long-standing signatory to the Genocide Convention, will not boycott the proceedings. We will participate and refute the absurd accusation that amounts to blood libel,” national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi told the news site Ynet.

Haaretz newspaper reported that the rare decision was made during a meeting chaired by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and after consultations with the justice ministry, the military and the national security council.

Proceedings at the court can take years, but Israel’s immediate aim would be to prevent the court from issuing an interim order to halt its Gaza campaign.

In its application to open proceedings against Israel last week, South Africa said Israel’s actions in Gaza were “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group.”

Genocide case filed by South Africa significant pressure tool, analyst says

Sultan Barakat, a professor of public policy at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, says that the genocide case filed by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice will be “the most important instrument of international pressure against Israel”.

“The way that South Africa has addressed this issue is that they are purely focused on the fact that Israel, by December 29 when the case was filed, has murdered more than 20,000 civilians without achieving any clear goal, in that they seem to be pursuing a genocide against the Palestinian people and specifically within Gaza,” Barakat said.

The ICJ works slightly differently from the International Criminal Court in that its mandate covers all the state members of the United Nations, Barakat explained.

“And Israel for them it’s very important to be recognised as a state. This is the only country in the world that talks about the right to exist, [whereas] every other state is comfortable within their own foundation.”

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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