The ICJ is never going to explicitly rule that there is genocide, and hold Israel guilty, due to political pressure from very powerful countries, but they are not going to absolve Israel either. That is important.
You do realize that you've just made the whole situation unfalsifiable, right?
You have said that they would never declare genocide, so therefore any finding where they don't decide genocide is happening is proof of genocide.
Why aren't they unequivocally stating that Israel isn't committing genocide?
Because they were making a preliminary investigation.
Why do you find this so difficult?
There is evidence genocide may be happening.
They haven't done an investigation on the merits, just one enough to determine "can we say for sure that no this isn't happening?"
They can't say that it isn't happening for sure - for very good reasons I might add.
There is nothing mysterious, or coded, or secret about what they did here.
They didn't explicitly rule that there is genocide- but that's not because of evil political pressure - it is because that wasn't what this was about at this stage and they couldn't rule on that.
So they said "Yup, this is plausible to go forward to a real trial on the merits".
In addition they said "Hey Israel - you know you aren't supposed to commit genocide right, and a lot of the shit you are doing is the kind of shit you would be doing if you were. We don't have proof that is actually what is happening, because we haven't looked into the case on the merits yet. But if you stopped all this shit, it would certainly look better for you." (Obviously a paraphrase.)
You can be as certain as you like that Israel is committing genocide.
You can be certain that you are right that the court is secretly certain that Israel is committing genocide.
But you can't make up that that is what the court actually said or that the only way to read the court's decision is in line with your interpretation when there are other logically coherent readings of the text.
You said, that if things continue this way, genocide may happen - what is the tipping point then? After how many deaths?
The ICJ's definition of genocide is in the conventions on genocide.
It doesn't actually require a specific number of deaths.
Like I said, that you already believe it is happening is totally fair.
That you believe that the court believes it is happening is totally fair.
I am just asking you to stop making up what the court said to match your beliefs.
I look at the context, history, political rhetoric and public opinion and then look at it from the point of view of the definition of genocide, and see how many of those categories are true. And note, that not all categories need to be satisfied for it to be genocide. It could be one or more.
Genocide is an internationally recognized crime where acts are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. These acts fall into five categories:
- Killing members of the group - Yes, this is true.
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group - Yes, this is true.
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part - Yes, this is true.
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group - No evidence of this.
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group - No evidence of this.
As you know, Israel can be doing ALL FIVE of those things and not be committing genocide.
Because the important part of the definition is that these actions "
are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.".
That is the part that the ICJ is going to have to assess in the next round.
Not whether or not Israel is killing Palestinians - the answer is yes.
The question is whether or not they are killing them
" with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part"
Additionally, there is incitement. Plenty of videos exist where Israeli politicians have said - "Nuke Gaza", "Destroy Gaza', "We will destroy everything nothing will be left in Gaza" , "there are no non-combatants in Gaza", etc., That is just from the ones in the ruling party, including the President of Israel. And then I posted videos of street interviews, where regular people say that Palestinians need to be killed or ethnically cleansed.
All evidence that will be considered in the trial.
The trial you have already said will never conclude that Israel is committing genocide.
Again - the evidence has convinced you.
You are not the ICJ and you do not speak for them.
So there is intent (without which incitement does not exist).
That isn't how that works, and it especially isn't how it works in the ICJ process.
They have not looked into intent, therefore they have not found intent.
You have decided that the evidence you have seen means a conclusion of intent is obvious to you.
Again - you are not the ICJ and need to stop saying that the ICJ has said things it hasn't said.
There is incitement (there are videos of this as I mentioned above). There is action (there is documented evidence of killing members of a certain group, causing serious bodily and mental harm, and deliberately cutting off food, water, electricity, destroying hospitals, places of refuge - effectively inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part). Hence Genocide.
That is
your conclusion - not the ICJs.
In this particular conflict, because of the power of the states involved, it is more important to focus on what the judgement MEANS, than to focus on what it actually SAYS. What it SAYS is a tactful admission of what I have listed above. If it was not true, they would have unequivocally absolved Israel. There was no need to mince words.
Do you not understand the concept of evidence and standards of proof?
