Moral power
The ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) did not result in a cease fire in Gaza. But this does not diminish its importance. The ICJ ordered Israel to take immediate steps to prevent acts of genocide. It demanded that the government take actions “to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide; to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance;” to protect Palestinian civilians, especially the 50,000 women giving birth and to prevent the destruction of evidence related genocide.
The ICJ has no mechanism to enforce its orders, but its moral power is unmistakable. Through forceful, clear, and relentless arguments the South African representatives documented a strong indictment of Israel. The Israeli response, by contrast, was hollow. As Lamis Deek, a spokesperson for the International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine and convener of the Global Legal Alliance for Palestine said the verdict “profoundly reshapes the geopolitical and legal topography…changing international and domestic approaches to stopping the genocide.”
In an article exploring the role of UN actions in supporting the struggles of people for justice over the last 50 years, Matt Meyer wrote that the decision “lays the seeds of ending not just genocide but Israeli settler colonialism, of freeing Palestinian political prisoners, and of creating a more lasting peace in the region if pressure is increased to end the Zionist project of unending occupation and racism.”
More directly Henry Giroux wrote, “One thing has been made clear on the world stage: There is vastly documented evidence that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians.”
The fact that this case was brought before the world by South Africa has given it enormous moral clarity. In a recent article talking about the significance of the case, Sean Jacobs a Black South African scholar in the US wrote:
The South Africans in the court that day represented the country that many of us had imagined as we tried to think beyond apartheid to a new country…This group in The Hague, in its diversity, represented a country whose national identity is a product of collective struggle and a rejection of the ethnonationalist blood-and-soil politics that South Africa left behind when we defeated legal apartheid. That kind of politics seemed to many of us to define Israel’s policy toward Palestinians; for years, the country’s now-governing African National Congress has made common cause with the Palestinians. In the international court, these South Africans were at once fighting for and helping us imagine, nationhood built on shared struggles and ideals rather than group identities.
As I reflected on meaning of South Africa bringing the weight of its history to bear on this moment, I heard echoes of the voice of Dr. Vincent Harding. Theologian, historian, activist, companion to Dr. King, visionary writer, Vincent consistently probed the question “Is America Possible?” He would say:
I am, you are, a citizen of a country that does not yet exist, and that badly needs to exist. And I want to offer you the opportunity to celebrate … with me by pledging deep in you that you are not going to give up this life without offering yourself totally to the creation of this country that does not yet exist.”
Borrowing the refrain from Langston Hughes’s poem Let America Be America Again, he said: “We can always stop there and complain and complain and complain. ‘You’ve never been America to me.’ But remember, Langston did not stop there. ‘America, you’ve never been America to me. But I swear this oath—you will be!’ I want you, those who are not afraid to swear oaths, to swear that oath for yourself, for your children, and for your old uncle here. You will be, America. You will be what you could be. You will be what you should be, and I am going to give my life to the working for that.”
Today, the contrast between the US and South African moral vision is stark. Vincent’s call to engage in the kind of political action that will birth a nationhood, built on values of shared struggles, is most urgent.