It sure is a good thing that Israel has Netanyahu to lead in this trying time! How amazing that he’s managed every military decision since Oct 7th so incredible perfectly!
When have they indicated they wanted to reach an agreement?
What they did say, in 2023, was that every Hamas member was a dead man. Given that everything they say is at best bullshit, they are being remarkably consistent on this.
…there is absolutely nothing “damming” about this at all. What you shared is a baseless conspiracy theory. And for anyone that actually followed the case, doesn’t even make any sense. Because:
it wasn’t a “frivolous lawsuit.”
A reminder: this is the case we are talking about.
Everybody should read it. It lays out just how bad things were by the end of 2023. It shows how Israel were laying the groundwork for what we are seeing now. Endless slaughter. Deliberate famine. The result was the International Court of Justice ordered interim measures in order to prevent gen_____
Again, a reminder of what this “frivolous lawsuit” resulted in:
If South Africa hadn’t taken the case to the ICJ then someone else would have. The evidence was overwhelming then: the evidence is overwhelming now.
And the amount of work that has been put into this application, that continues to this day and includes this dossier of new evidence submitted this year.
So let’s sum this up. South Africa presented a case to the ICJ that was compelling enough that the ICJ issued interim measures to prevent gen___. Lets pretend for a minute that Iran did give money to South Africa to take this case to the ICJ. (even though Babale has presented no evidence of this, except for a matter of timing)
The case was still valid. The evidence they presented to the court is still evidence. And that evidence showed that as far back as December 2023 Israel were deliberately targeting hospitals, Mosques, schools, cemeteries, farmland, they were killing journalists and scholars and medical workers, they had targeted water and sanitation facilities, cultural and archaeological sites. There is an entire section that also covers intent.
It’s all right there. Both submissions total over 300 pages and are meticulously cited.
So far this week Israel have:
Bombed Syria.
Breached the ceasefire with Lebanon and bombed targets in Bekaa and Hermel districts, killing five.
Were almost certainly responsible for an attack on the aid flotilla currently in port in Tunisia.
Destroyed 50 apartment blocks in just two days in Gaza, claiming (again without evidence) that they were “high rise terror towers”, killing many and leaving thousands more people homeless and without shelter. For those that didn’t even know this was happening, this is what that looks like:
Israel are a rogue state that is ignoring international law and destabilising the region. This strike doesn’t bring anyone closer to “peace.”
Does this mean Israel is evil? The people? No. Netanyahu’s government? I think “evil” fits.
A reminder that there was a deal. That Palestinian leadership HAD accepted a deal. A ceasefire was in place. The hostages were being released.
Then Israel literally blew the deal up.
Israel broke the ceasefire.
Israel stopped all food and aid from entering the strip for months. And even now its only allowing a trickle of food and even less aid into Gaza. Gaza is now in famine: all deliberately engineered by Israel.
And Israel are killing the negotiators. They’ve done this before, and they just tried to do it again now.
Because lets be quite clear about it: Israel (as in the government) don’t want peace. Which is why Netanyahu has sabotaged every single attempt to bring this war to an end.
Hamas have made it clear they will accept a deal that means they are no longer in power in Gaza any more, and to hand it over to another Palestinian authority.
That should be enough to stop waging a war on Gaza. Because they would no longer be the government, right? They can end the mindless, endless slaughter. They could end the famine. They could then just target the leadership.
All this talk about “targeting Hamas leaders” might have mean something back in December 2023. But after two years of targeting journalists and medical staff and aid workers and hospitals and schools and engineering a famine, it just rings a bit hollow.
Again: the idea that the IDF are so horribly incompetent that after everything we’ve seen over the last two years, they would still be capable of the redoing the multiple failures that happened on October the 7th is telling.
A HUGE part of the reason why you (collective you, not you personally) are in this mess is because most of those “thousands of terrorists” weren’t actually terrorists at all.
A reminder that this exists:
https://www.btselem.org/administrative_detention
A reminder that even right now, an American teenager, aged 15, is being held right now.
You simply cannot treat a group of people like this for decades and not expect them to eventually fight back. “Securing the release of the prisoners” isn’t what created the situation now. It’s continuing to take prisoners, treating them inhumanely, starving them, torturing them, not charging them, that helped contribute to what we are seeing now.
Not that this excuses the Hamas atrocities of October the 7th. But the idea that continuing to hold thousands of Palestinians in detention in inhumane conditions without charge would have prevented October 7th just doesn’t hold water.
A reminder that this framing is long debunked
…directly from the International Court of Justice:
Bolding mine. That’s exactly as I said. There was nothing inaccurate in my “framing.” Nothing was “debunked” long ago.
This didn’t result from a “frivolous lawsuit.” And even if Iran did pay for it (and to be clear, there is no evidence they did) the evidence stands on its own.
Again: I encourage everyone to read what the ICJ actually said, and to look at the evidence that was presented to the court. The situation we are in right now is that South Africa and the countries supporting them were trying to prevent. The interim measures ordered by the court were to stop what Israel before it got to this.
But it’s here now. We can’t turn a blind eye.
What evidence? I see no evidence in your cite. Evidence would be bank statements or something concrete. This is just smearing - by an known paid-for arm of the Israeli government.
Times of Israel reporting that Israeli defense officials advised against the attack on Qatar “at this time" and don’t believe it was successful in killing Hamas officials.
I can’t get a ton of clarity by my read of the article as to what was meant by '“at this time" - that they thought it was an extreme measure that shouldny be taken given the big picture state of the war or negotiations, ot that they thought they needed to time it differently or be more prepared for it to be successful.
This. At this point all I can think about it is “this is irrelevant, there’s ongoing ethnic cleansing, stop it”.
…from today from the Minister of Defense:
And another one:
(translations by Twitter)
They aren’t even pretending that this is a “war on Hamas” any more. There are videos after videos of entire neighbourhoods being demolished.
Reports on the ground suggest that there were still people in the Islamic University while the Minister was gloating: they had returned to retrieve belongings when it was hit again in a triple tap. People were living there. Now they are either homeless again…or dead.
Here is the latest Flash Update.
I struggled to read this one because the situation is so dire. I can’t even tell how many hospitals are still open: but half of all currently operational hospitals are in Gaza City which is under evacuation orders, and Gaza City is going to be flattened, just like Rafah. I can’t even bring myself to summarise this one. Y’all can all read it for yourself.
But it’s worse than it’s ever been. And considering how “doom and gloom” I’ve been since the start of the thread, that’s saying a lot.
Bank statements? Those are not released without a court order. That is unreasonable.
“Curiously, in early January 2024, S.A. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the ANC had mysteriously managed to stabilize its finances, pay off its staggering debt, and recover from the verge of bankruptcy, without providing any specifics on how this had occurred.
“Crucially, this money appeared in the ANC’s coffers without explanation, mere days after the South African government brought its case against Israel at the ICJ,” the report notes.
Unless the answer is “a wizard did it” that is damning evidence. Especially as no explanation has been forthcoming.
…it’s entirely reasonable. It’s a rather serious accusation. If you are going to make it: then get the court order already. If there really is a scandal here, then someone would be able to do it.
Can you be a bit more specific on what part of these two entirely different events you see as 'damming?" Firstly you are assuming the reporting from the ISGAP (funded historically mostly from the Israeli government) is accurate, secondly if it is accurate, that the money came from Iran. Where is the evidence for that?
There is nothing “damning” here. It’s a conspiracy theory at best.
A reminder for those that didn’t follow along at the time: here is the background on the case.
The case was bought urgently to the ICJ because Israeli spokespeople were saying gen____ things, the IDF were targeting civilians targets and civilian infrastructure and had ordered the north of Gaza cleared. They were bombing hospitals and schools and Mosques.
It’s all right there in the submission. I’ll link to it once again.
There isn’t any big secret why the case was bought to the ICJ. The answer to that question can be found simply by reading the case.
He actually said “mysteriously”? That’s some unbiased reporting there. 
Like how they’re quoting the aforementioned ISGAP, and incidentally disingenuously referring to that mostly-Israeli-government-funded “thinktank” as American. As if we can’t track the payments for propaganda directly in this case (unlike, say, in the case of the ANC).
And still no evidence, just ISGAP’s innuendo.
This is not even good hasbara. It’s obvious, it’s stale, and it’s meaningless, anyway - regardless of if Iran funded it, the SA case stood on the merits - and stood very well, as the court’s initial finding showed..
Although, neat trick of South Africa’s lawyers to pull a whole ICJ case together from scratch in a mere 3 months. That’s quite a feat, actually.
Copy-pasting single sentence chunks out of speeches to misleadingly make it look like people are advocating genocide is easy. So is quoting soccer players and musicians. Anyone can put together a steaming heap of shit like that in three months, especially if Iran is paying them.
I’m sure the ANC will be ordering themselves to release the bank documents any day now.
Easier when there’s just so many genocidal statements to choose from… “misleadingly” my ass.
Seriously, if the case was that flimsy, Israel would have prevailed in their defence. The outcome to date speaks for itself.
Unless the entire ICC bench is just another Iranian front 
And any evidence other than Israeli-paid-for CT babble still glaringly absent.
What “outcome” are you referring to? Are you still trying to pass off the ICC saying “it is plausible that if the claims that are being made are true than the Palestinians have a case that can be brought by South Africa” as the ICC saying “it is plausible that Israel is committing a genocide”?
The court’s rapid response to the calls for further measures after the initial provisional measures gives a good indication of which way they’re leaning. I’d characterize that as a good outcome.
I’m also sure the arrest warrants out for Bibi and Gallant are completely unrelated in any way to the timing of the South African case…/s
What are you talking about? Are you confusing me with someone else? I’m well aware the SA ICC case is still underway.
Ahhh, I’d never heard the term “outcome” used to refer to a process starting before, but that’s a very interesting usage.
It’s a synonym of “consequence”, and processes can have consequences before they’re concluded. Like Bibi having to be extra careful where he makes holiday plans for.
The debt was paid off. That is evidence.
If the IRS found out that all someone’s debts had been paid off- to a very larger amount-, with no obvious explanation, they would audit that person and if no valid explanation was forthcoming, they would charge it as taxable income.
…what the IRS wouldn’t do is claim that “Iran paid off the South African ruling party’s election debt in exchange for them taking a case to the International Court of Justice” with absolutely no evidence at all.
Because that is the claim under dispute here. This isn’t a thread to discuss the ANC’s finances. The ANC’s finances are only relevant if it somehow related to the case South Africa took to the ICJ.
Earlier in the thread people criticised me for citing Al Jazeera. Yet this report was produced by the ISGAP, with Alan Dershowitz co-chair on the international board, who is not exactly unbiased when it comes to this particular case, which gets almost all of its funding from the government of Israel, one of the parties to this case.
Do you actually think the reporting here is independent?
Then we dive deeper into the actual report, and it turns out that it’s over 50 pages of waffle. Read it for yourself.
On the matter of Iran allegedly paying off the South African ruling party’s election debt in exchange for them taking a case to the International Court of Justice: it provides exactly zero evidence of this. However, it spends pages quoting people who imagine that perhaps, maybe they did.
The claim has zero credibility. When you have some independent reporting on this, then perhaps it would be worth revisiting. But as it is: there is nothing there.
You are mischaracterising that particular section, but fortunately I’ve provided the link to the report so that people can check it out for themselves. It firstly cites the Prime Minister of Israel, followed by the President of Israel, the Minister of Defence, then the Minister of National Security, then the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Heritage, the Minister of Agriculture, then the Deputy Speaker of the Knesset.
That’s just the government. It then quotes a spokesperson from COGAT, a reservist Major General, the head of the Air Operations Group, a Commander, and the Deputy Head of COGAT.
As for the “soccer players and musicians”, the point being made was that (from the report) "Similar genocidal rhetoric is also commonplace in Israeli civil society, with genocidal messages
being routinely broadcast — without censure or sanction — in Israeli media." I can’t even find exactly what you are referring to here, but I’m assuming it’s one of a large number of footnotes related to and supporting this particular claim. Because the only reference to musicians I could find was this:
And it’s not as if the rhetoric has let up at all. From last week:
Bolding mine.
I think he’s stating his intentions pretty clearly, don’t you think?
You laugh: but I’m not the one making claims without evidence. There is a process. The ISGAP report actually showed that there was a process, that the the Electoral Commission of South Africa had determined that there was “no prime facie case to investigate", that legal action was taken to possibly challenge that determination, and now, a year after the report, do you have an update on this?
I’m not sure why you keep quoting Ms Donoghue. It doesn’t dispute what anyone in this thread has said.