CRIME AND COVER-UP

The horrific discoveries of mass graves at several sites in the Strip in addition to those seen by the brutal and indiscriminate Israeli bombardment show that the impunity of Zionism and its project has gone too far

 

By Sidney Hey 

Even if the ruling of the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Israel's crimes in the Gaza Strip sounds rather ambiguous, it is a sign that something is changing and that the influences that Zionism has used to save every single abuse and crime committed since before and even more so after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 are diminishing.

The case was brought by South Africa and has been joined by Colombia and Brazil, highlighting the complicity that exists in other governments in the region as seen in Argentina today under an openly pro-Israeli government.

The case, based on the genocide that Israel has been committing against the Gazan civilian population and which Tel Aviv tries to justify as a ‘right of defence’, has a much broader and deeper framework of factors (involving interests in gas fields and complicity between intelligence agencies) that go far beyond 7 October 2023, as Zionist intellectuals and, obviously, the Western media adept at this vision, try to cut it down to size.

It is no secret that this international body is biased and has been particularly affected by Washington's influence, especially on one of its members. It is precisely the former judge Joan Donoghue who, as president of this Court, called into question its impartiality after the weak precautionary measures ordered in January and her point of view on the ‘plausibility’ of the crimes committed by Israel. It seems redundant to recall that in order to administer justice one should be impartial and uninfluenced, but this ‘abc’ of common sense has always been kept in a drawer.

Surely, if the complaint had been made in the 1960s or even the 1980s, Washington and the pressure of Zionist organisations at the international level would have closed the file in no time. But today, in this new millennium where communications fly and facts are known instantaneously, it is impossible for these sectors to apply the cover-up they have been practising with the complicity of the American Establishment and the media.

Let us take a brief reminder of how the genocide and war crimes case against the state of Israel was initiated. It was the South African government that set this mechanism in motion, knowing that it would have to tolerate all kinds of pressure and even threats from Tel Aviv. Even so, under the cover of their own history of apartheid, they asserted not only moral legitimacy but also true human solidarity, so absent in international forums.

The evidence is decisive when it comes to making a complaint and in the case we are dealing with and due to the sensitivity of the crimes being perpetrated (foreseen in the Rome Statute), the plexus of evidence presented before this court is extremely graphic, detailed and overwhelming, and even more so, it grows day by day, as Israel does not stop its ‘operations’. Despite the filing of this lawsuit, the political leadership in Israel with Benjamin Netanyahu at the helm (with Washington's support) has ignored calls for a ceasefire and with it, respect for the rights and lives of Palestinian civilians. This is the clearest and simplest case of de facto action against international law and, in this case, international humanitarian law.

Considering these elements (of which there are many) that emerge from the complaint, there are more than enough grounds to order the immediate arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu and his most immediate political and military leaders. As soon as he became aware of this possibility, he did not hesitate to publicly challenge the legitimacy of the court, resorting to the trick (also used by Washington) such as the ‘non-jurisdiction’ of this instance over Israel, but ‘Bibi’ has a little confusion in his dark head and that is that the impunity he used to enjoy can no longer be exercised.

As happens in the mafia, the disgraced kingpin is no longer part of the family and everyone begins to turn their backs on him.

Even in Washington they know that Netanyahu's situation is very delicate and that despite efforts to try to justify the unjustifiable, the world is witnessing 24/7 the indiscriminate and sadistic actions of the IDF, both those committed in broad daylight and those carried out by its ‘special units’ in secret against men and women in its torture rooms.

But the aberrations go far beyond this already abominable. The findings in the funds of the hospitals attacked and occupied by the Israelis speak of the sinister behind these massacres and evidence of the complicity of Israeli doctors and hospitals involved in the business of organ trafficking of the murdered.

That is why there are many Jewish citizens around the globe who oppose what is being done, is making the state of Israel more unviable with each passing day. 

On the other hand, Joe Biden and his administration, adhering to the policies of neo-conservatives aligned with pro-Israeli lobby groups like AIPAC, have been playing good cop/bad cop with Tel Aviv, trying to portray themselves as interested in imposing a ceasefire when, in fact, they are doing the opposite. A notoriously hypocritical and outrageously cynical course of action, but it is the harsh reality.

In conclusion, one cannot expect true justice if one accepts this whole situation, let alone that the investigations into these crimes perpetrated by Israelis should be carried out by Tel Aviv, since this is clearly a contradiction in the logic of the principle of impartiality.