The International Court of Justice in The Hague today made an initial ruling, four weeks after an application from South Africa that accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians.
The court ordered Israel to ensure that its military does not commit acts of genocide against Palestinians, to immediately improve humanitarian aid to Palestinians, and to prevent and punish genocidal incitement against Palestinians.
However, the court stopped short of ordering Israel to end its military operations against Hamas, a nod to Israel’s right to respond in self-defense after the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7.
South Africa had hoped the court would order such a cessation, in effect ruling in favor of an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.
The court did also call for the immediate release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Given the dreadful toll of civilian deaths in Gaza, reportedly now topping 25,000, Israel should answer questions about its conduct.
Every member of the United Nations’ 1948 Genocide Convention has an obligation to raise concerns if they have evidence that a group of people is at risk of genocide. Given previous catastrophic failures to prevent genocide—in Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur—more referrals to the court could be good news for the protection of civilians at risk.
And unlike Russia, against which Ukraine made a complaint to the court in February 2022, Israel has indicated that it takes the charges seriously, attending the court to dispute the accusation.
In my work for the Aegis Trust, a U.K.-based nonprofit devoted to preventing genocide, I use the tools of advocacy and communication in efforts to stop the worst from happening. But I am acutely aware that persuasion can do only so much; the deterrent effect of legal sanctions and criminal justice is vital to the cause.
For the law to provide justice, however, it must be fairly and evenly applied. South Africa’s case raises the question of why Israel is accused of genocide when Hamas is not.
The fighting in and around Gaza is an asymmetric conflict, but there are two sides. Against the accusation of genocide, Israel says it is acting in self-defense, and this latest round of fighting began when Hamas slaughtered some 1,200 men, women, and children—even infants in their cribs—on October 7.
Moreover, unlike Israel, which denies any genocidal intent, Hamas has publicly espoused genocide against Israelis for decades.
Understanding Hamas’s Genocidal Ideology
A close read of Hamas’s founding documents clearly shows its intentions.
How many Israelis, or Jews, or anyone else for that matter, have read the 1988 Hamas Covenant or the revised charter that was issued in 2017? With 36 articles of only a few paragraphs’ length each in the former, and 42 concise statements of general principles and objectives in the latter, both are considerably shorter and more digestible than the 782-page original German-language edition of Mein Kampf.
Moreover, unlike Hitler’s seminal work, which was not published in English until March 1939, excellent English translations of both the original Hamas Covenant and its successor can easily be found on the internet.
Released on August 18, 1988, the original covenant spells out clearly Hamas’s genocidal intentions. Accordingly, what happened in Israel on Saturday is completely in keeping with Hamas’s explicit aims and stated objectives.
It was, in fact, the inchoate realization of Hamas’s true ambitions. The most relevant of the document’s 36 articles can be summarized as falling within four main themes:
1.The complete destruction of Israel as an essential condition for the liberation of Palestine and the establishment of a theocratic state based on Islamic law (Sharia),
2.The need for both unrestrained and unceasing holy war (jihad) to attain the above objective,
3.The deliberate disdain for, and dismissal of, any negotiated resolution or political settlement of Jewish and Muslim claims to the Holy Land, and
4.The reinforcement of historical anti-Semitic tropes and calumnies married to sinister conspiracy theories.
Thus, as fighting rages in Israel and Gaza, and may yet escalate and spread, pleas for moderation, restraint, negotiation, and the building of pathways to peace are destined to find no purchase with Hamas.
The covenant makes clear that holy war, divinely ordained and scripturally sanctioned, is in Hamas’s DNA. Israel’s Complete and Utter Destruction The covenant opens with a message that precisely encapsulates Hamas’s master plan.
Quoting Hassan al-Banna, the Egyptian founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is a constituent member (Article 2), the document proclaims, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
Lest there be any doubt about Hamas’s sanguinary aims toward Israel and the Jewish people, the introduction goes on to explain:
"This Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS), clarifies its picture, reveals its identity, outlines its stand, explains its aims, speaks about its hopes, and calls for its support, adoption and joining its ranks. Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious … It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps."
After some general explanatory language about Hamas’s religious foundation and noble intentions, the covenant comes to the Islamic Resistance Movement’s raison d’être: the slaughter of Jews.
“The Day of Judgement will not come about,” it proclaims, “until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”
Article 11 spells out why this annihilation of Jews is required. Palestine is described as an “Islamic Waqf”—an endowment predicated on Muslim religious, education, or charitable principles and therefore inviolate to any other peoples or religions. Accordingly, the territory that now encompasses Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank is
"consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up … This Waqf remains as long as earth and heaven remain. Any procedure in contradiction to Islamic Sharia, where Palestine is concerned, is null and void. "
In sum, any compromise over this land, including the moribund two-state solution, much less coexistence among faiths and peoples, is forbidden.
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