Genocide and Accountability at International Court of Justice
South Africa, Israel and Intentionality
People gather outside courthouse in The Hague for interim ruling
of International Court of Justice,
January 26, 2024
In the opinion of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), it is important to discuss the significance of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) case on Israeli genocide. The South Africans put together 84 pages of documentation and arguments based on international rule of law while Israel denied it is committing genocide or has the intention to do so. The U.S., UK and other former colonial powers along with dominions such as Canada concurred with Israel.
We can see a distinct clash of outlooks, one based on rule of law, on the norms civil society has given rise to, and the other based on a nebulous concept we refer to as intentionality. Intentionality is the fact of being deliberate or purposive. In philosophy it refers to the quality of mental states (for example, thoughts, beliefs, desires, hopes) that consists in their being directed toward some object or state of affairs.
It is significant that even after the ICJ ruled, all signatories to the convention on the crime of genocide were not in conformity with their duty to prevent acts of genocide as upheld by international rule of law. This includes Israel itself, as well as Canada and others. They give their reasons but the result is that nothing has yet stopped Israel from perpetrating the crime of genocide. This is a matter of major concern for the peoples of the entire world as Israel's slaughter of the Palestinian people escalates with impunity.
The
peoples of the world uphold the rights of the Palestinian people
and
salute the successes of the resistance, including putting
U.S./Israeli
genocide on the agenda of the world. The peoples face the
problem that
Israel is not the only country which acts on the basis of
arguments not
based on
the rule of law, either domestic or international. Besides the
U.S. and
UK, Canada is one such country. Canadians want Israel and the
U.S. to
be held to account for which they must also be able to hold
Canada to
account. How to make it so is the question which requires an
answer.
To sort out how the problem poses itself, recent meetings held by the Ideological Studies Centre (ISC) affiliated with CPC(M-L) stressed the importance of discussing South Africa's case on Israeli genocide at the ICJ and Israel's response. This is part of analyzing the need for democratic renewal in Canada and internationally. The requirements of this particular historical juncture involve recognizing that old forms no longer function or have passed away and new ones which defend the interests of the people are yet to be brought into being. There is a battle for democracy which involves not permitting ruling elites to act with impunity and to deprive the peoples of civil liberties and the exercise of their rights. And there is the battle of democracy to bring into being new arrangements and forms of governance that provide for accountability, outlaw impunity and empower the people.
The conversations held by ISC on South Africa's case before the ICJ highlighted what was really striking upon hearing the case. For rational people, it was that South Africa based their case on the strength of the claims made about genocide, while the lawyer for Israel, Tal Becker, attacked the lawyers presenting South Africa's case. To demean them he said they have no standing in law. What did he mean?
Throughout its 84-page document, South Africa referred to context significantly – that the argument for genocide had nothing to do with October 7, but with Israel's activities before, during and after October 7. These were given as context in many examples and as the basis for the legal obligation to demand Israel cease and desist everything it is doing immediately.
There
is a legal obligation for all signatories to the Convention on
the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to
prevent it. There is a legal obligation of the world
community to prevent it. This obligation has existed since 1948.
The
context the South Africans gave was 75 years, i.e. since 1948.
They
grounded their
arguments from there, in that time frame, on that experience of
75
years, and that is how their case was constructed. There is also
a name
attached to it, which was apartheid and that has implications
for
making the case that this must be prevented.
For their legal construction, the Israelis and Becker especially argued South Africa was trying to pick and choose in a one-sided and partial manner by using context in a devious way. They conducted a typical postmodernist deconstruction. Why stop at 75 years ago, why not 1922 when the British gave up their mandate, or 1917 and the Balfour Declaration as context, they said, adding that the South Africans are, to use the pejorative term, shysters – meaning unethical, disreputable and good at misinformation on context.
In this vein, another Israeli lawyer made a point about South Africa's 15 pages of statements made by Israeli government officials and Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) showing genocidal intent. These included some from the Hebrew Torah: "kill all, kill all Amalekites, do not spare them." Becker said the South African lawyers were being shysters because they did not know the Torah, did not know Hebrew, that this was just a way of speaking, not a call for genocide. This was to serve to divert attention from the fact that the South Africans not only gave the statements, but they also showed soldiers blowing up a house with people in it, with one dedicating the massacre to his daughter, dancing and shouting the same "kill all" words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Israeli deconstructionists are attempting to use intentionality, which refers to what you are thinking inside your head. It is a mental act and no one can get inside someone's head, so you cannot say what they intended. This is different from how the South Africans were demonstrating intent, which is called for by the Genocide Convention. There must be the intent to commit genocide.
The South Africans put forward that intention is when words fit with deeds. How do you know what was the intention? You look at what was done – that is intention. One use of the word intentionality is that it is private; someone can claim anything they want, like the police claiming self-defence or fearing for their life to justify a killing. The other is public, and that is what gets judged. It is a public act, not a private meaning in someone's head. This is a crucial issue in law and politics.
There is a real divide that people pick up on and deconstructionists are especially big on. It is that you cannot get inside someone's head because the individual can give any meaning they want. There is a joke using the Godfather movie where they make an offer you can't refuse. The joke asks, "What happens when you cross a mafioso making an offer you can't refuse, with a deconstructionist?" The answer is, "You get an offer you can't understand."
An important part of what ISC highlights when analyzing the case before the ICJ speaks to the battle of democracy, the modern forms and content needed for modern democracy. In this regard, what came to the fore was that in addressing the valid argument on intentionality used by the South Africans, essential for us in today's work on modern definitions, we say understanding requires an act of conscious participation of the individual, an act of finding out. That is how we look at intentionality -- as an act of freedom of speech.
Given in theoretical form, understanding is bound up with freedom of speech. It is not the same as a description of how anyone pictures the situation. Our conception of understanding involves relates -- "I" as a relate, "we," the plural of "I," as a relate -- and how to activate them. It has correlates with the ensemble of human relations, the relations of humans to humans and humans to nature.
When someone says anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, or treason, it is a mental act, private to the person saying it. It only has a public meaning when it is backed up by guns, courts and jails. Understanding requires an act of conscious participation of the individual, an act of finding out, on the other hand, is immediate, without mediation. The intentionality we are talking about is in the here and now. It expresses itself in deeds. It is a matter that one can make a decision about.
In
conclusion, Israel's response to South Africa's case of
genocide,
besides other things, calls on us to recognize crimes against
humanity
as the new normal. The major powers give justifications for them
based
on deconstructionist mental concoctions about which no-one can
make a
judgement but
they have the power to implement anyway. A major offensive has
been
launched by the international ruling elite to use the issue of
democracy not only to advance their inter-imperialist rivalries
for
world domination but to divert the people's striving for
empowerment
from seizing the initiative to
turn things around in their favour.
CPC(M-L) calls on people to fight on the basis of a vantage point of their own, one they establish themselves by participating as individuals in acts of finding out which reveal a way forward on that basis. We cannot permit those who give self-serving deconstructionist arguments to further the case of criminal narrow private interests to set the agenda of discussion or define what is and what is not possible.
All Out to Support the Palestinian People's
Right to Be and
Their Right of Return!
Ceasefire Now!
This article was published in
Volume 54
Number 13 - February 23, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS54131.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca