Do Jewish Lives Matter?     

A new front in the war being waged on Israel opened on December 29, when South Africa filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of committing “genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity” against Palestinians in Gaza. The 84-page document asserted that Israel’s actions are genocidal, intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinians as a national, racial, and ethnic group.

“The claim by South Africa is completely without a shred of merit or any legal basis whatsoever,” says human rights attorney Arsen Ostrovsky, CEO of the International Legal Forum, an Israel-based NGO of lawyers advocating for Israel, in a conversation with Mishpacha. “Essentially, it is no more than a blood libel and act of lawfare, in which South Africa is willingly serving as pro bono counsel for the Iranian regime and Hamas.”

Despite Ostrovsky’s contempt for South Africa’s case, he takes the charge very seriously. “The crime of ‘genocide’ is one of the most serious accusations that can be leveled in international law and has a very specific definition under the Genocide Convention, meaning committing acts intended to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. It has nothing to do with the number of civilian casualties, with the key element of the crime being the need to possess relevant ‘intent.’ ”

South Africa’s complaint urged the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a United Nations entity headquartered in the Hague, Netherlands, to demand that Israel “immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza.” The complaint does not classify Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel as genocidal, reserving that term only for Israel’s response to the attack.