TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Fighting “human animals.” Turning Gaza into a “slaughterhouse.” “The eradication of the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.”
Such inflammatory rhetoric is a central part of South Africa's lawsuit accusing Israel of genocide at the UN World Court, a charge Israel denies. South Africa says the language – in comments by Israeli leaders, soldiers and entertainers about Palestinians in Gaza since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack sparked a war – is evidence of Israel's intent to commit genocide.
Israeli leaders have played down the comments, and some in Israel say they were a result of the trauma of the Hamas attack.
Human rights groups and activists say they are an inevitable byproduct of Israel's decades-long, indefinite rule over the Palestinians and have worsened during the war. They say such language has been left unchecked, inciting violence and dehumanizing Palestinians.
“Words are followed by actions,” said Michael Sfard, a prominent Israeli lawyer. “Words that normalize or legitimize serious crimes against civilians create the social, political and moral basis for other people to do such things.”
Israel's genocide trial opened last week at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. South Africa wants to prove that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and that Israel has specific intentions to commit genocide. She uses a litany of harsh statements as evidence in her case.
THE COMMENTS
As the ground offensive began in late October, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted the Bible in a televised address: “You must remember what Amalek did to you.” Amalekites were persecutors of the biblical Israelites, and a biblical commandment states that they must be destroyed. South Africa argued that the comments showed Israel's intent to commit genocide against the Palestinians. Netanyahu denied this this week, saying he was referring to Amalek to describe Hamas and its attack.
Two days after the Hamas attack, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared that Israel was “fighting human animals” and announced a full siege of the Gaza Strip.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with soldiers as he visits the northern Gaza Strip on December 25, 2023. (Avi Ohayon/GPO via AP, file)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in Tel Aviv, January 9, 2024. (Evelyn Hockstein/Pool Photo via AP)
Deputy Knesset Speaker Nissim Vaturi of the ruling Likud party wrote on Power” suggested that Israel should drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza, saying there were “no innocent civilians” in the area.
Israeli soldiers captured on video made similar remarks as they sang and danced in the early days of Israel's ground offensive.
On October 7, a journalist wrote on
Military personnel and two Israeli pop singers are also cited by South Africa for inflammatory statements.
“The language of systemic dehumanization is evident here,” South African lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi said in a statement to the court. “Genocidal statements are therefore not a marginal phenomenon. They are anchored in state policy.”
South Africa is seeking a series of legally binding rulings declaring that Israel is violating “its obligations under the Genocide Convention” – a decision that could take years – and a binding injunction requiring Israel to cease hostilities, a decision that is expected to take place in the coming weeks.
Pro-Palestinian supporters demonstrate outside the Supreme Court in Cape Town, South Africa, Thursday, January 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht, File)
ISRAEL'S ANSWER
Lawyer Malcolm Shaw, who defended Israel in court, said the comments were largely made by officials who had little role in setting Israeli policy, calling them “random quotes” that were misleading and in some cases from Netanyahu had been rejected.
But Roy Schondorf, a former Israeli deputy attorney general, said in an interview that the statements still carried risks even out of context: “It would have been better if some of these remarks had not been said.”
Israel argued that its justice system would crack down on unacceptable speech. But critics say anti-Palestinian comments went unpunished or were not denounced. Attorney Sfard filed an appeal with the country's attorney general earlier this month on behalf of a group of prominent Israeli figures, demanding to know why the rhetoric had not been brought under control.
A person waves a Palestinian flag as they walk past a pro-Israel demonstration in front of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, Friday, Jan. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Patrick Post, File)
In a statement two days before the case was opened at the World Court, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara said that calling for intentional harm to civilians could constitute a criminal offense and that Israeli authorities were reviewing several such cases, without elaborating. The comments appeared aimed at deflecting the South African allegations.
Overall, Israel vehemently denies the allegations before the World Court. Israel says it is waging a war of self-defense against Hamas after it killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
Israeli officials say the country is abiding by international law and doing its utmost to protect civilians. They blame Hamas for the high death toll because it has established itself in civilian areas. More than 24,000 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Israel also says it is Hamas that demonstrated genocidal actions with its attack and genocidal intent with its violent speech against Israelis, including its promise to repeat the Oct. 7 attack and the group's commitment to the destruction of Israel.
The transition of rhetoric to the mainstream
The war is being waged under Israel's harshest government ever, dominated by far-right cabinet ministers who made controversial statements long before October 7.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich once called for the “obliteration” of a Palestinian town in the West Bank. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said freedom of movement for Jewish settlers in the West Bank took precedence over the same rights for Palestinians.
And since October 7th, this talk has moved even further into the mainstream.
FILE – Images of hostages kidnapped during the Hamas cross-border attack in Israel on Oct. 7 are placed at a table during a protest outside the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, Friday, Jan. 12, 2024, was covered. (AP Photo/Patrick Contribution, File)
Like the Palestinians, the Israelis have been hardened by decades of deadly conflict and a sense of their intractability. Some in Israel say the trauma of Hamas's unprecedented attack has sparked the current discourse.
“The intense collective trauma gave free rein to the expression of dark feelings of revenge, which to date have been less comfortable to express in the mainstream,” wrote deputy editor-in-chief Noa Landau in the Haaretz daily. She said the statements reflected “the social zeitgeist.”
While little appears to have been done to counter violent rhetoric against Palestinians, Palestinian citizens of Israel who have shown compassion for the people of Gaza are facing a crackdown, according to Adalah, a human rights group. According to police, the speech would amount to incitement, promote violence or show support for terrorist groups.
According to Adalah, at least 270 Palestinian citizens of Israel have had some form of contact with law enforcement – arrests, investigations or warnings, with at least 86 of them charged with speech offenses. Some Jewish Israelis who expressed sympathy for the Palestinians were also arrested or sanctioned by their employers.
Aeyal Gross, a professor of international law at Tel Aviv University, said that the way Israel responds to the inflammatory rhetoric in the South African case is significant because, as a signatory to the Genocide Convention, Israel not only prohibits the commission of genocide, but The commission of genocide is also prohibited from inciting genocide.
Gross said it was probably too late for Israel to take steps to show it would not tolerate such statements. Punishing such statements could have signaled both to the court and to Israeli society that the state does not tolerate inflammatory rhetoric.
“It's important because it would have said, 'That's not our intention,'” he said. “But it is also important because it would have meant that we would have signaled to the soldiers on site not to act like that.”
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