My Second Look at the Pillay COI Conference Room Paper Accusing Israel of Genocide


1:31 PM Monday. As I proposed last week, I am now reading through section IV of A/HRC/60/CRP.3. Section IV is titled "Dolus Specialis of Genocide."  A bit earlier in my reading, I paused at paragraph 163 and conducted the following Gemini inquiry:


Now I am proceeding from the subsection titled "Statements of Israeli Actors" (alleged direct evidence of dolus specialis) to the subsection titled "Pattern of Conduct" (circumstantial evidence of dolus specialis). As I do so, I want to say that some of the facts presented in paragraphs 162-176 do seem to indicate genocidal intent, and I am sure their interpretation will be the subject of much legal argument. For example, whether Netanyahu invoked Amalek to incite the IDF to commit genocide in violation of international law, or whether his intent was to boost IDF morale in defense of civilized norms, depends on a nuanced understanding of contemporary Jewish (and Christian) interpretations of the Torah that South Africa's lawyers may not be keen to consider. Regardless of precisely what Netanyahu meant in his Amalek reference, don't we have to ask ourselves whether the statements of Israeli officials cited by the COI are isolated incidents, clearly made in the heat of moment, while the far greater volume of official statements paint an entirely different picture of Israel's intent? Here is how Gemini responds to this argument:


Well, I am running out of time for further analysis today, and paragraphs 177 and 178 require careful attention. Paragraph 177 cites vengeance and collective punishment as additional Israeli motives, which seems like it has to be true to some degree (is any defensive war, however just - take Ukraine's war of self-defense, for example - ever completely free from some degree of vengeance and collective punishment? Don't UN member states subject to lawful sanctions almost always call them a form of collective punishment?). Unfortunately, paragraph 177 doesn't mention strategic deterrence of other Iranian proxies or the collective mobilization of Gazan, Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim repudiation of Hamas ideology as additional Israeli motives. Paragraph 178, in light of Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, seems like a particularly grotesque distortion of the record. I am not saying that it destroys the COI's case, but I do think extreme misrepresentations of the kind we see in paragraph 178 do great damage to the credibility of the COI and lend credence to Israeli arguments that the COI is waging politicized pro-Hamas lawfare against Israel, not conducting a balanced investigation consistent with its HRC mandate. 


End 2:49 PM.

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