Rustibrooks Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 It’s not that much of a surprise that South Africa went to the ICJ. I mean Nelson Mandela has quotes about the freedom of Palestinians. I guess they are just following his legacy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jareth Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 49 minutes ago, magnkarl said: Agreed. Genocide is a very high bar. Israel is committing war crimes, and cleansing (I'm not sure ethnic is the right word either as there's no filtration), but if the bar is lowered to what we've seen in Gaza now then we'll need a whole new term for the Uighur, Armenian and Assyrian genocides, Holocaust, Holodomor+++. Perspective, even though that is hardly easy to find for a lot of people on either side in this conflict dictates that 20.000 killed and 60.000 injured isn't even an average allied bombing of a German city in WW2, or a couple of weeks in most modern conflicts. Mariupol alone has reportedly had more dead civilians than Gaza so far during Russia's total destruction of the city. Funnily enough SA are against calling Russia's invasion of Ukraine a genocide or ethnic cleansing, yet when Israel does it, it somehow is. People aren't voting for the actual people of Gaza or Ukraine, they're voting or leading a case with their international blocks, in this case BRICS. Hang on, South Africa laid out in facts why they believe there to be genocidal intent. You're just going to dismiss that because they haven't murdered enough civilians yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 16 minutes ago, Rustibrooks said: It’s not that much of a surprise that South Africa went to the ICJ. I mean Nelson Mandela has quotes about the freedom of Palestinians. I guess they are just following his legacy. Israel and the Apartheid government had their weapons for diamonds trade while the rest of the world boycotted that regime. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnkarl Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 (edited) 1 hour ago, Jareth said: Hang on, South Africa laid out in facts why they believe there to be genocidal intent. You're just going to dismiss that because they haven't murdered enough civilians yet? I didn’t dismiss it though, I gave you some context as to why ICJ likely won’t agree with South Africa, when South Africa have essentially dismissed the same charges against Putin in the UN in however many votes. To be fair I think both Vlad and Benny should be in The Hague, I just don’t like South Africa’s two faced attitude solely because of their political ties to Russia when the reality is that there’s many many more dead Ukrainians than Gazans, mass graves and civilians being tortured, kidnapped, put in camps and children kidnapped on an industrial scale by Russia. Genocide is a term used for the most vile mass slaughter of whole groups of people, as of today there’s anywhere between 20-30k dead in Gaza after 3 months of war with some of those being Hamas fighters, that’s not even the amount of dead from one night of bombing Hamburg, or one day of the Armenian genocide, or two days of the worst weeks of Auschwitz’ operation. That’s not to say that what is happening in Gaza isn’t atrocious, but the term just doesn’t fit. Intent is an iffy legal term at best, we don’t sentence people for murder based on the fact that they wanted to murder someone, or else a lot of people would be judged for murder while not having murdered anyone. You can be sentenced for planning, but the sentence for criminal intent is a lot milder, hence the term ‘intent’ to commit the most vile of all crimes against humanity likely won’t stick. Edited January 11 by magnkarl 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted January 11 Moderator Share Posted January 11 49 minutes ago, magnkarl said: To be fair I think both Vlad and Benny should be in The Hague, I just don’t like South Africa’s two faced attitude solely because of their political ties to Russia when the reality is that there’s many many more dead Ukrainians than Gazans, mass graves and civilians being tortured, kidnapped, put in camps and children kidnapped on an industrial scale by Russia. Around half as many civilians in the Ukraine have been killed as in Gaza and that's in a conflict that's run for almost two years in Ukraine against almost three months in Gaza. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted January 11 Moderator Share Posted January 11 54 minutes ago, magnkarl said: Intent is an iffy legal term at best, we don’t sentence people for murder based on the fact that they wanted to murder someone, or else a lot of people would be judged for murder while not having murdered anyone. You can be sentenced for planning, but the sentence for criminal intent is a lot milder, hence the term ‘intent’ to commit the most vile of all crimes against humanity likely won’t stick. I'm inclined to agree with you to an extent on genocide as a legal accusation that can be levied against Israel right now, I don't think it's a charge that currently sticks - but carrying forward your idea from above, in this case, it very much looks like we've caught someone in the act of murdering someone - not something you can try them for murder for - but we're not intervening - should we wait until the victim dies before arresting them? I think Israel is undeniably guilty of war crimes and it will be really interesting to see what happens when a court agrees. To not agree with the weight of evidence I think would expose the court horribly, but presuming the law follows its natural course and some sort of charges are raised against Israel, it will then be fascinating to see how exactly the US, UK and Israel go about ignoring that judgement. The ICJ is in a terrible position - find Israel not guilty and they're no longer a viable court of law, they're a political vehicle - find Israel guilty and they'll be declared irrelevant by the only global power that has the capacity to enforce their judgement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted January 11 VT Supporter Share Posted January 11 You can't peg genocide on Israel (yet - give them time and a run up to finding the bollocks to do it openly) but there's plenty of other heinous crimes you could quite easily convict them of. They should be a pariah state. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted January 11 Moderator Share Posted January 11 32 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said: Around half as many civilians in the Ukraine have been killed as in Gaza and that's in a conflict that's run for almost two years in Ukraine against almost three months in Gaza. Nah, the oft quoted 10,000 dead civilians in Ukraine is an extremely flawed figure, the UN whose figures they are even admits as much. There are a further 11,000 civilians “missing” but they can’t confirm whether they are dead or alive. Then there’s all the dead in the Russian occupied parts of Ukraine that just aren’t able to be counted in the figures because they have no access. But turning this into pure numbers is just pointless, it’s the actions that are important and to my way of thinking both Ukraine and Gaza are both genocides It’s just a shame that South Africa brought the case because they are not being honest actors in all of this, which does give the Israelis the point that “it’s politically motivated”. It would have been a much better case if a genuinely neutral country had brought the case and not someone firmly on the side of Putin and Iran. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 I won’t bother dragging up the Yemen thread from ages ago, as what’s going to happen tonight is obviously linked to the broader Israel - Iran death match playing out across the region… However, bombing Ansarallah in Yemen really isn’t going to work in the way the people deciding to do it, think it will. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted January 11 VT Supporter Share Posted January 11 Since this is going to kick off tonight... chucking a few missiles at some targets in Yemen isn't achieving anything. They're conducting these attacks with cheap drones from more or less anywhere they fancy, you're not knocking out any major infrastructure like an airfield or destroying much (if any, really) capability to launch the attacks by striking a few places with missiles. They'll just keep doing it. It does take things a few more steps closer to a wider conflict though. Which is nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rustibrooks Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Some in America are saying that Biden didn’t go through congress to get permission for the strikes in Yemen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desensitized43 Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Didn’t the Saudis pretty much destroy Yemen to try and get at these Houthi rebels? If they’re threatening trade in the Red Sea then what are the Saudis and Egyptians doing about it? It’s their region and surely they’re the ones with the most to gain from keeping it open? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnkarl Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 (edited) 9 hours ago, OutByEaster? said: Around half as many civilians in the Ukraine have been killed as in Gaza and that's in a conflict that's run for almost two years in Ukraine against almost three months in Gaza. Yeah, that's the reported figures by Ukraine in their controlled areas, meaning that essentially most of the ethnic cleansing that have gone on in Russian occupied territories (there are many) aren't on that list. Mariupol, Berdyansk, Popasna, Kupyansk +++ are all cities that have had 50-80% of their population gone after Russians took over, and the fact that Ukraine have found massive amounts of mass graves when they've liberated territories at least strongly indicates that the figure is likely 100.000 (Mariupol was a city of several 100.000 before the war and was not evacuated before Russia leveled it with the ground). Then you've got the 40.000 or so kids that have 'dissappeared'. It's grim. And it makes South Africa look like idiots for not saying it like it is about Russia but being Iran and Putin's political tool against Israel. Edited January 12 by magnkarl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted January 12 VT Supporter Share Posted January 12 2 hours ago, desensitized43 said: Didn’t the Saudis pretty much destroy Yemen to try and get at these Houthi rebels? If they’re threatening trade in the Red Sea then what are the Saudis and Egyptians doing about it? It’s their region and surely they’re the ones with the most to gain from keeping it open? It's really, really, really hard to beat insurgencies, especially as an outside force and especially when your actions actually fuel the clamour for supporting those rebels. Saudi may have killed a lot of people and forced untold further misery on Yemen, but they weren't defeating anyone and it's very easy to argue, if you're Yemeni, that Saudi needs to be fought. Our getting involved isn't going to change things for the better, it'll just escalate. Which is exactly what Iran wants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Ah, if only we hadn’t chosen the long slow burn option for Ukraine, then waffled about whether or not 3 months of killing grandmothers and babies in Gaza was a bad thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desensitized43 Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 20 minutes ago, Chindie said: Which is exactly what Iran wants. I highly doubt that. They want an enemy that they can point at to unite their people against. They'll fight through proxies to maintain the feud, but they don't want to actually fight because they know that would be the end for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted January 12 VT Supporter Share Posted January 12 4 minutes ago, desensitized43 said: I highly doubt that. They want an enemy that they can point at to unite their people against. They'll fight through proxies to maintain the feud, but they don't want to actually fight because they know that would be the end for them. They want to cause issues to the global economy. They know they are miles away from a true hot war with the West, but they also know that arming and assisting their proxies brings a hot war closer - but they still do it. Because they want to harm the West's position. And they know that the response, like what we've now done, will fuel the escalation that leads to more harm to the West in the immediate aftermath. These strikes will make the Houthi's hit harder, hit more, and make the Gulf of Aden even worse. Iran will be pissing itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jareth Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Great coverage on TV news today of Israel's defence in the Hague. Why didn't they show South Africa's case yesterday? What a joke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mic09 Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 1 hour ago, chrisp65 said: Ah, if only we hadn’t chosen the long slow burn option for Ukraine, then waffled about whether or not 3 months of killing grandmothers and babies in Gaza was a bad thing. Sure it's a bad thing. Just let the men in expensive suits and important jobs discuss how bad of a thing it actually is. You know, what sort of label we shall give it as the 'democratic, law abiding western state'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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