South Africa are OFFICALLY dragging pro Israel UK to the Hague!

Right, so as South Africa very much continues its case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, it might not make the news too often these days after dominating headlines earlier on in the year, it might be set to do so again now though, as it now finalises the case of complicity it is bringing against the likes of the UK and the US for aiding and abetting Israel in the genocide it has been committing against the people of Gaza since the night of October 7th.
We know this has been a months long task in organisation by South African lawyer Wikus van Rensberg and his team of nearly 50 lawyers, as they continue to build their case, it’s happening now on Keir Starmer’s watch though obviously this work on a case against the UK was begun whilst we still had a Tory administration, but Starmer has proved to be no change at all, he has continued to support Israel at every turn, a Zionist without qualification, yet as a former human rights lawyer himself, the optics could not be more damaging if he now has to defend not just his own actions but those of the former Tory administration in defending and siding with Israel regardless of the horrors they are meting out and the war crimes they continue to commit.
Right, so South Africa is once more leading the charge to hold not just Israel to account as we know they already are, but now in bringing cases against those seen to be aiding and abetting the genocidal regime, notably the US and the UK now.
This separate lawsuit from the one South Africa brought against Israel has been spearheaded by South African lawyer Wikus van Rensberg and his intention to take the US and UK to court for complicity after the case against Israel brought by his country had had it’s hearing had been known about from around that same time, there have been various stories in foreign media about it sporadically over the last several months, particularly from earlier in the year from around the time the International Court of Justice decided there was a plausible case of genocide that Israel had to answer, though not here in our own of course. What a surprise I hear you say, well indeed.
Van Rensberg has been busy though. In just a matter of weeks really, he assembled a collective of some 47 lawyers to work on a complicity case. Here’s an excerpt from the article in the Turkish news outlet Anadolu Agency, who interviewed Van Rensberg on his motivation to do this:
‘When he told the people around him about filing a lawsuit, Rensburg said he received a lot of support. "Many lawyers decided to join us in the lawsuit. Many of those who have joined are Muslims, but I am not. They feel obligated to assist this cause, but I believe that what is happening is incorrect."
What happened in Iraq is an example of this, he said, noting that no one held the US accountable for the crimes it committed in the Middle Eastern country as the issue was not given the necessary importance.
But now people believe what is happening in Palestine is an ideal scenario for the legal process to be carried out, the South African lawyer said, adding that "the US is busy spending more money and more resources to (allow Israel) commit the crime.”
“No one says stop, enough is enough," he remarked.
Rensburg said the genocide case filed by South Africa against Israel at the ICJ will serve as a guide for their case against the US and UK, and that they will begin the process based on the outcome of the case and the steps to be taken by the United Nations.’
It isn’t like the evidence against the UK isn’t building up and hasn’t continued to build up since the beginning of the year and since Starmer took over as Prime Minister and it’s not as though Starmer can possibly be unaware of it either, as those 30 suspended arms sales licences went to show, but it also showed, particularly to the rest of the world, which will no doubt include the South African lawyers of Wikus van Renberg, that sticking plaster politics like this was, something Starmer readily attacked the Tories for doing, but that he’s attempted to fob off in the interim is very much meant to look like he’s doing something, whilst really not doing very much of anything at all and as a show of how much trouble this Starmer administration might be in with South Africa, this excerpt from a recent Al Jazeera article spells it out:
‘While this announcement was hailed by some as a positive development that reflects growing international pressure on Israel to stop its genocidal war in Gaza, it in no way fulfils the United Kingdom’s obligations under international law. In fact, it reflects NATO members’ insistence on overriding international law in order to fulfil alliance commitments.
In the context of the ongoing genocidal Israeli war in Gaza and the West Bank, all states have the duty to impose a full arms embargo on Israel. This duty derives from decisions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) from January and July that concluded Israel is plausibly carrying out genocidal actions in Gaza in violation of the Genocide Convention and is illegally occupying Palestine.
This duty has also been asserted by the UN Human Rights Council and various UN experts. Stopping the flow of arms, energy and other key exports to Israel is meant to ensure the protection of the Palestinian people.’
International law obligations trump political alliances, yet you wouldn’t think so to see the way the US and UK continue to acquiesce to Netanyahu and his regime over and above legal findings by the ICJ, ignoring their obligations under the UN Charter in favour of that, and it does bring into sharp focus the perceived toothlessness of the UN in regards to such nations, especially since both are permanent Security Council members, when neither frankly are upholding international security right now.
Where the UK figures 30 suspended licences is good enough, it clearly isn’t when a full arms embargo should be implemented, and when even the Tory government of Margaret Thatcher managed to do just that in the early 80s, it shows how dismissive of international law subsequent governments have been ,especially where it comes to Israel and of course excuses along those lines have come out as well.
The UK Foreign Office as a for instance issued a legal note along with its decision to suspend those 30 out of 350 arms export licences on the basis that Israel probably was violating international humanitarian law where they were blocking aid getting through to Gaza or where they were clearly being exposed for mistreating prisoners and meting out torture, but stopped short of going any further. The implication of that is that the UK and US as well, is that they consider the invasion of Gaza as being lawful, because if they didn’t do that, they couldn’t justify any further arms sales and of course one of their biggest arguments comes down to the supply of F-35 fighter jet parts, citing international co-operation on those jets would be hindered if they stopped allowing the parts the UK supplies, which as I’ve spoken about before, include the bomb release cradles for these jets, into Israel. It’s nonsense and frankly it doesn’t hinder the construction of the jets at all, merely where they can be sold and who to.
To imply that Israel has a right to defend itself given what it is doing in Gaza and has been for getting on for a year now, though of course the abuse of the Palestinian people goes back much longer, but thinking in terms of legal casework, is also clearly a nonsense. It is an excuse to carry on, it is pleading ignorance and ignorance is never any excuse. Israel is an occupying force over Palestine, over Gaza, has been for 57 years, they have no right to go to war against people they already rule over, control the movements of, abuse and subjugate. Who they treat as less than human such is their apartheid regime.
There’s an even bigger consequence of this South African court case however, affecting the US as much as the UK of course, both being taken to the Hague as things stand, the US setting UK foreign policy as it does, because both nations foreign policies have been defined since the early 2000s by the US war on terror doctrine, which has also been widely accepted amongst numerous other NATO countries as well, which I find entertaining no end, when NATO’s own charter, the North Atlantic Treaty, dictates that security interests do not override internation law either! It was fine talk in the aftermath of 9/11, it was fine rhetoric when going after the likes of Osama bin-Laden, but now one of their allies is the rogue state, the rules are somehow now different? It gets applied when the West has a vested interest, it doesn’t when the opposite is true, so it’s little wonder the so-called war on terror gets viewed more and more as a tool of convenience rather than a necessary universal framework and I can’t help but wonder if this is now potentially set to be routed by South Africa in the ICJ as part of their upcoming case over complicity, because I don’t think those advocates of the war on terror mantra have much of a leg to stand on where it comes to Israel and Gaza.
But if we’re going to talk about security and international law in the same breath and that both of these should be issues very much on the same page, where the US and UK seem most guilty, most bang to rights, why they should genuinely fear this court case coming down the line from South Africa over complicity, is the simple fundamental truth, that all nations have responsibilities and undertakings where there are concerns about security. That also includes Palestine. Palestine has a right to security as well, yet it always seems as if this is not the case. Not once, do the security interests of Palestine ever get brought up, merely Israel’s, yet in truth this also doesn’t override internation law either. No matter what the excuses, the reasoning, whatever British or American politicians say, they haven’t upheld international law, which trumps everything else. If they really meant it, there’d be a full arms embargo in place now. That won’t happen. For too long I think, western politicians have been lulled into believing they are untouchable. It is way past time, accountability played it’s part again and maybe South Africa are going to be the ones to bring it.
As if to underline what the west, the likes of Starmer or Biden are standing up to defend in defiance of international law though, is the fact that now even human rights and standing up for them might just be about to be criminalised. The Israeli human rights agency B’Tselem has via it’s director Yuli Novak, addressed the UN on this matter and the matter of the violations of the Palestinian people at Israeli hands, to which one Israeli minister responded by saying she wated Novak to face capital punishment over what she said. Standing up for human rights is now Hamas apparently! Check out the details of that story in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.