Israel is commiting genocide in Gaza

Its official: a UN independent international commission of inquiry has found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza:

The COI, set up by the UN in 2021 and staffed by three independent experts, cited the killing of civilians and children in a “scorched-earth military strategy”, starvation and deaths caused by restrictions on food and medicines, mistreatment of detainees, forced displacement and the physical devastation of much of the territory to support its finding.

The COI also accused Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister who has been accused of war crimes by the international criminal court, and other senior Israeli leaders of incitement of genocide, and said there was clear evidence of their genocidal intent, a key legal requirement.

“The commission concludes that statements made by Israeli authorities are direct evidence of genocidal intent … The commission also concludes … that genocidal intent was the only reasonably inference that can be drawn from the totality of the evidence,” Pillay, a former UN human rights chief, told reporters.

As they point out, all states have an obligation under international law to use all means reasonably available to them to stop genocide. We're a small country on the other side of the world, but the very least we can do would seem to be sanctioning them like we sanction Russia, cutting off the hundreds of millions in trade which genocide-enablers are currently profiting from, supporting an international tribunal to prosecute those responsible, and a global intelligence and law enforcement effort to identify, locate, arrest, and deliver them for trial. Plus of course recognising Palestine.

But realistically, Rimmer - who at this stage is just a local agent for far-right foreigners - isn't going to permit any of this. And while he's nominally only deputy prime minister, Luxon's utter spinelessness has left him de facto in charge of our government. So if we want justice for Gaza, we're going to have to throw these bums out to get it.

Making the world a more dangerous place

Like much of the rest of the world, I've been watching in horror for the last week as nuclear-armed, genocidal Israel started a war of choice against Iran, bombing its military facilities and cities, then screaming like a Russian when its victim hit back. And now they've dragged the nuclear-armed US into their little war, making things even more dangerous.

Firstly, the war is clearly an illegal act of aggression under international law. Iran had taken no aggressive action against Israel, let alone the US, and there was not a clear and imminent threat of it doing so which would justify a pre-emptive strike. Instead, its just Israel kicking over another neighbour in an effort to distract from its ongoing genocide in Gaza. It is a clear international crime - the supreme international crime, even - and its architects should be facing trial in The Hague for it. Which makes the New Zealand government's refusal to condemn the attacks pure cowardice, a betrayal of our long-standing support for peace and international law.

The ostensible purpose of the war is to "stop Iran getting a nuclear weapon". Which is ridiculous on a number of levels. Most obviously because Iran has been a member of the non-proliferation treaty for over 50 years, and had renounced weapons of mass destruction in 2003. Israel and the US didn't believe them, so they signed an anti-nuclear deal in 2015, which subjected them to enhanced monitoring in exchange for a relaxation of sanctions. The first Trump administration tore it up, simply out of hostility to anything done by his predecessor. In response, Iran began to gradually do the things it was no longer forbidden to do, to remind the US of why it had signed the deal in the first place, and the US finally seems to have figured out that withdrawal was a mistake. They were due to restart negotiations to restore it a week ago - the day before Israel started bombing. And then, when Iran was about to start talking to the EU (who were also partners to the deal), the US started bombing. You'd almost get the impression certain countries had simply renounced diplomacy entirely...

But even taking the supposed goal seriously, it seems unlikely to succeed - and more likely to have the opposite effect. On the immediate level, the US has now admitted that it has no idea where Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium is anymore, while Israeli bombing means the IAEA has lost track of all sorts of stuff. Nuclear material and equipment may have been destroyed, or it may have been moved to be used in secret later, so any future monitoring effort is basically doomed. But given that the bombing has destroyed all trust between Iran and the IAEA, that's pretty much moot.

In the longer term, if Iran didn't already have a Bomb, it now has a very strong incentive to get as many as possible as soon as possible, to deter future bullshit. And apparently a bunch of countries are willing to help them with that. Along with the invasion of Ukraine, its basically the death of the NPT, and the birth of a more dangerous, nuclear-armed world. Oh joy.

And that's the real tragedy here. Nuclear weapons were invented 80 years ago, and are now well-understood technology. There are now nine nuclear-armed states, a bunch of countries like Japan, Germany, and South Korea who can build them at the drop of a hat, and a much larger group who could build them if they set their mind to it. Iran is one of those countries. Its a large, modern state, with universities, research institutes, and a nuclear power program. The interesting question isn't whether it has nuclear weapons, it's why it doesn't. And the answer to that is the same as for other large, modern states: because it didn't want them. Because weapons are wasteful, and it didn't feel the need - even when its spent the last 20 years being constantly threatened by Israel and the US. The Israeli-US bombing campaign has almost certainly destroyed that, both for Iran and a bunch of other countries who feel threatened (or might feel threatened) by the hegemon or their neighbours. It is stupid, counterproductive, and dangerous. But its the world Netenyahu and Trump have given us. And we should curse them forever for it.

(As for the Iranian regime, fuck ‘em, they’re tyrants. But that’s a problem the Iranians will deal with in their own time and in their own way. And again, its hard to see how Israel or the US are helping to do anything other than keep the tyrants in power...)

Doing less than the bare minimum

Last night, after nearly two years of genocide in Gaza, the New Zealand government finally began to do the right thing, and sanctioned two Israeli cabinet ministers for promoting genocide. Which is a good first step, but its not enough. Firstly, the sanctions are just a travel ban, saying "you can't come here", which is pretty whoop-di-shit as far as sanctions go. Secondly, wanted international criminals Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant are not sanctioned - and nor is the state of Israel itself. In other words, the New Zealand government is still doing as little as possible.

This isn't good enough. Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza and an illegal occupation of the West bank, in flagrant violation of international law. We should be treating it like we treat Russia, with a full trade and investment ban and restrictions on financial dealings. IDF members should be banned from travelling here. Israeli officials complicit in or with political responsibility for these crimes should similarly be subject to asset seizures, travel bans, and trading restrictions, just like Putin and his cronies. And those sanctions should stay in place until the genocide and occupation stops, reparations (such as they can be) are made, seized land is returned, and everyone responsible is sent to The Hague to face justice before international courts. That seems like the absolute minimum we should be doing. Instead, though inaction, our government is sending a clear message that it approves of genocide. And that is not acceptable.

Justice in Brazil

Following the 2022 Brazilian general election, election loser Jair Bolsonaro tried to do a Trump, attempting a coup to overturn the election. It failed. But unlike his American friend, he hasn't been allowed to get away with it:

The former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and some of his closest allies are among dozens of people formally accused by federal police of being part of a criminal conspiracy designed to obliterate Brazil’s democratic system through a rightwing coup d’état.

Federal police confirmed on Thursday that investigators had concluded their long-running investigation into what they called a coordinated attempt to “violently dismantle the constitutional state”.

In a statement, police said the report – which has been forwarded to the supreme court – formally accused a total of 37 people of crimes including involvement in an attempted coup, the formation of a criminal organization, and trying to tear down one of the world’s largest democracies.

Prosecutions are likely to follow.

The contrast with America couldn't be clearer. There, the federal government dragged its feet on prosecuting Trump for insurrection, he was allowed to stand for re-election despite clear constitutional language forbidding it, and the US people then voted for him. Its an appalling indictement of the US's ramshackle "democracy" and of the state of the rule of law in that country.

(Meanwhile, in other good news, the ICC has finally issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister Yoav Gallant. Which invites the obvious question: when will our government be imposing sanctions against these war criminals and their genocidal regime?)

Justice for Gaza!

It finally happened: the International Criminal Court prosecutor is seeking an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes in Gaza:

The chief prosecutor of the international criminal court has said he is seeking arrest warrants for senior Hamas and Israeli officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant.

Karim Khan said his office had applied to the world court’s pre-trial chamber for arrest warrants for the military and political leaders on both sides for crimes committed during Hamas’s 7 October attack and the ensuing war in Gaza.

[...]

In an extraordinary rebuke of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and its conduct in the war in Gaza, Netanyahu and Gallant are accused of extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, the denial of humanitarian relief supplies and deliberately targeting civilians. Monday’s statement notably does not include any Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials, such as its chief of staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, focusing instead on political decision-making.

The latter seems like a significant omission, since they're the people actually doing the war crimes. But maybe they're next in the queue?

Meanwhile, the question for Aotearoa: when are we sanctioning Netanyahu and his criminal regime? We have rightly sanctioned Putin and his cronies for their illegal war in Ukraine. We can hardly do less to a genocidal war criminal.

Justice for Gaza?

The New York Times reports that the International Criminal Court is about to issue arrest warrants for Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over their genocide in Gaza:

Israeli officials increasingly believe that the International Criminal Court is preparing to issue arrest warrants for senior government officials on charges related to the conflict with Hamas, according to five Israeli and foreign officials.

The Israeli and foreign officials also believe the court is weighing arrest warrants for leaders from Hamas.

If the court proceeds, the Israeli officials could potentially be accused of preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and pursuing an excessively harsh response to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, according to two of the five officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.

The Israeli officials, who are worried about the potential fallout from such a case, said they believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is among those who might be named in a warrant. It is not clear who might be charged from Hamas or what crimes would be cited.

Good. Israel is clearly perpetrating genocide in Gaza, as well as committing other war crimes and crimes against humanity. And as their ultimate political authority, Netanyahu bears legal responsibility for those crimes. He must be held to account for them. Israel is hardly going to do that themselves, so international justice is what we're left with. That process may be slow and imperfect, largely amounting to stigmatisation and a de facto lifetime travel ban from all civilised nations, but its what we've got, and it seems better than the alternatives.

Aoteraoa, Ukraine, and Gaza

Today the government designated the political wing of Hamas as a terrorist entity, making supporting them a criminal offence. I honestly don't know much about Hamas' organisation, or how involved its politicians were in planning its crimes in October last year, but when Israel is actively carrying out a genocide in Gaza, designating the political representatives of its victims as "terrorists" seems a little on the nose. And it invites the obvious question: when will we apply a similar designation to the Israeli government and its genocidal "defence forces"?

But beyond that, we should think about what our obligations are as a country which supports human rights and international law and opposes genocide. And unfortunately, we have a very illustrative example right to hand: Ukraine. Ukraine is a victim of invasion by a neighbour which has explicitly announced their intention to eliminate its culture and people, and who has given effect to that intention with numerous war crimes since the invasion began. And in response, the New Zealand government has:

• Applied sanctions to the Russian economy and leadership;
• Explicitly called for Putin to be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
• Provided money and other support to arm Ukraine to defend itself;

I have not been especially vocal about this, because I have a low tolerance for horror at the moment. But I think that's an appropriate response for a small country at the bottom of the world with our values. Its doing what we can to support Ukraine to defend itself and to support a peaceful world with international law.

But I think we should be doing the same for Gaza too. Hamas's attacks on 7 October were a terrorist act. But the Israeli response since has been disproportionate, indiscriminate, and explicitly genocidal. And that's something we should not tolerate. We should be sanctioning Israel, Netanyahu, and senior members of his genocidal regime. We should be supporting their arrest and extradition to The Hague for trial for genocide. And we should be arming the Palestinians. A people are being exterminated while we watch. The very least we can do is give them the means to defend themselves against it.

Morally bankrupt

Over the weekend the International Court of Justice found that there was a real risk that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, and ordered it to stop. Israel responded by accusing the UNRWA, a UN agency which feeds refugees in Palestine, of supporting Hamas, and persuaded their allies the US and UK to cut funding - basicly making them complicit in Israel's genocide. And now, to our shame, Chris Luxon has decided to join them.

This is utterly morally bankrupt, and it clearly aligns us with Israel and the US and makes our government complicit in Israel's actions in starving the Palestinian people. Maybe we should be sending them to The Hague for that.

Still chickenshits

After a month of watching Israel bomb hospitals and murder children and threaten starvation, ethnic cleansing, and nuclear strikes in revenge for a terrorist attack, Chris Hipkins finally seems to have discovered his conscience:

Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, saying "the violence and the killing has to stop".

He has stressed that he has made the announcement as Labour leader, not caretaker Prime Minister.

But Hipkins said it had become "untenable" for him to remain silent.

"It runs against Labour Party values to see the horrific scenes we are witnessing without calling for a ceasefire," he said.

Its good to see - better late than never – and likely to be popular. But at the same time it was rather undercut by (incorrect) reports yesterday that the US had brokered the ceasefire Hipkins was calling for. Leading to the suspicion that rather than actually standing up for "Labour Party values", Hipkins was just being a spineless little yes-man, going with the international flow, as usual.

Once upon a time the Labour Party had leaders who didn't have to wait for a month to do the right thing. We wouldn't have had this craven bullshit under David Lange, or Helen Clark (or, for the Boomers, Norman Kirk). But those days are clearly long gone. And Labour wonders why no-one believes in them anymore? Its because these days, they don't seem to believe in anything other than their own careers. They're chickenshits all the way down.

Israel is an apartheid state

Israel is an apartheid state. That's been the conclusion of investigative journalists, the US government, the United Nations, and Israeli human rights groups. And now, its a conclusion shared by Israel's former spy-chief:

A former head of the Mossad intelligence agency has said Israel is imposing a form of apartheid on the Palestinians, joining a growing number of prominent Israelis to compare the occupation of the West Bank to South Africa’s defunct system of racial oppression.

[...]

Pardo told the Associated Press that Israel’s mechanisms for controlling the Palestinians, from restrictions on movement to placing them under military law while Jewish settlers in the occupied territories are governed by civilian courts, matched the old South Africa.

“There is an apartheid state here,” he said. “In a territory where two people are judged under two legal systems, that is an apartheid state.”

When a person at the heart of a state's establishment tells you about that state, believe them. They're in a position to know. The question then is what to do about it. When South Africa ran an apartheid regime, it was subjected to boycotts and sanctions, and made an international pariah. That would be a start. But Apartheid is now a crime in international law. If that law is to mean anything, those responsible for that crime need to be prosecuted.

A victory for international justice

Back in 2015, Palestine became a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. In 2018, it complained to them about war crimes carried out on their territory by occupying Israeli forces. And now, the ICC has ruled that it has jurisdiction and can investigate:

The international criminal court has announced that it has jurisdiction in Palestine, clearing its chief prosecutor to investigate alleged atrocities despite fierce Israeli objections.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, condemned the ruling and said the country would “protect our citizens and soldiers in every way from legal persecution”.

[...]

Bensouda, a Gambian lawyer, has said she would investigate both the Israeli military as well as Palestinian armed groups, including the Gaza-based Hamas faction, which has been accused of “intentionally directing attacks against civilians”, according to her office.

Good. Both Israel and Hamas have carried out indiscriminate attacks against civilians. In addition, Israeli blockades deprive palestinians of the necessities of life, while its legal structure is essentially an apartheid regime. The only way these crimes against humanity will end is when their perpetrators are prosecuted and held to account. And the fact that the Israeli government is fighting so hard to stop that from happening tells us everything we need to know: they're guilty, and they know it.

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Netanyahu does a Berlusconi

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is being prosecuted for corruption. So how is he planning to avoid it? A law granting him immunity would not survive judicial scrutiny. So, he plans to remove that scrutiny entirely:

The new far-reaching bill would allow the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, and government ministers to essentially ignore any High Court of Justice ruling, Haaretz revealed, including the potential revocation of Mr Netanyahu’s immunity.

According to the left-leaning daily, the move is written into a “legal appendix” of the coalition agreement and government guidelines Mr Netanyahu is currently drawing up as he builds a new coalition government after winning the April general election.

[...]

Anshel Pfeffer, an Israeli journalist, author and expert on Mr Netanyahu, sounded the alarm.

“The implication of this law, if it passes, will be that the High Court will lose its powers of judicial review over government actions, in any field, the military occupation, state and religion, etc. All this to save Netanyahu from being put on trial,” he wrote on Twitter.

This overturns a key plank of Israel's constitution, and all to protect a corrupt politician. Its reminiscent of the antics of Silvio Berlusconi, who for years manipulated Italy's laws and undermined its constitution to keep himself out of jail. Its not the sort of thing that decent democracies do. But then, neither is apartheid.

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More Israeli war crimes

During 2018, Israel murdered 189 people and injured more than six thousand when they repeatedly gunned down protestors at their border fence. Now, the UN has said it was a war crime:

UN investigators have accused Israeli soldiers of intentionally firing on civilians and said they may have committed war crimes in their lethal response to Palestinian demonstrations in Gaza.

The independent Commission of Inquiry, set up last year by the UN’s human rights council, said Israeli forces killed 189 people and shot more than 6,100 others with live ammunition near the fence that divides the two territories.

The panel said in a statement that it had found “reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli snipers shot at journalists, health workers, children and persons with disabilities, knowing they were clearly recognisable as such”.

Thirty-five of those killed were children, three were clearly identifiable paramedics and two were clearly marked journalists, the report said.

Israel regards protests by Palestinians as a military attack or "terrorism". The UN dismisses that view. The protestors were not a military force and "were neither directly participating in hostilities, nor posing an imminent threat". Which makes shooting them simple murder. As for what happens next, hopefully it will result in a formal investigation by the International Criminal Court and war crimes charges.