Daily Times

For Marx, shame is a revolutionary feeling. Perhaps that explains its scarcity in Western civilization, whose Orwellian and anti-revolutionary character has been exposed once again by its indifference to the heaps of dead babies scattered in Gaza, by the valiant effort of the South African state calling its humanitarian bluff in ICJ and not to forget the resistance of devastated, destroyed, and war-torn Houthis. Both the people of Palestine and the Ansarul Islam (Houthis) have nothing to lose but their chains but why have the people and the government of South Africa opted to jump into the imperialist inferno that can scald the country’s body politics for it can invite the wrath of the dominant power addicted to impose all kinds of sanctions or managing a coup through its infamous secret arm the CIA?

Strangely, South Africa is not a Muslim country, and unlike the entire Muslim Umah – subdued by its vested interests, hence opting to remain indifferent to the carnage- was under no moral obligation to sue the genocidal entity of Israel. It isn’t even Cuba, a socialist state whose hardcore Marxist belief in the liberation of all oppressed people brought her to fight a battle against the white apartheid South African armed forces that ended in the comprehensive defeat of the US-backed apartheid regime and led to the liberation of South Africa, Angola, and Namibia.

“Until the liberation of Palestine,” Nelson Mandela stated, “our independence will be incomplete”. For it was Palestine, Libya under Gaddafi, and communist Cuba that supported, financed, and fought in that order to liberate South Africa from the white mercenaries backed by the entire civilized West, plagued by the affliction of racism and capitalism.

The absolute victory of the South African government, in the International Court thus far appears to be pyrrhic

Besides the rich resources of many other minerals, South Africa and the Soviet Union were the only two countries in the world that possessed the largest reserves of gold. One of the reasons that forced the Nixon administration to break the US dollar parity with gold. It wasn’t South Africa alone that suffered genocide. Genocide has always been the policy of Western expansionism. The US destroyed the native population without guilt and with nonchalant ease. The settler colonial whites of Canada and Australia hunted the natives gleefully as animals. Leaving Bolivia aside, most of the Latin American countries have dispensed with the native population, which can be scarcely seen alive if seen at all.

Even in 1943, Indian Bengal was not spared, where under Churchill’s malignant racial gaze the human-made famine took nearly 3 to 6 million lives. No wonder the Indian bourgeoisie which is building the statues of Savarkar would not hesitate to build a monument of the imperial thug whose imperialist government accepted Savarkar’s apology.

Coming back to the valiant act of South Africa of taking the genocidal regime of Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICG) in the Hague is an unprecedented act of solidarity with the people of Palestine, left alone out in the cold to face the US-Western-Israeli genocide. And for what, merely to demand their UN-recognized right of statehood, to live with dignity in a free, fair society governed by their elected representatives?

For South Africa, the heroic effort was based on its undaunted spirit of self-sacrifice. There was no possibility of quid pro quo because the people of Palestine, being victims of genocide, could not offer anything in return to their South African brothers. The eighty-four-page charge sheet presented to the ICG by the South African was an impeccable and concise document, as described by Norman Finkelstein. The young Irish lawyer who spoke in French was the most impressive among the lot. The South African side resisted the temptation of showing the hideous videos of human slaughter committed by the IDF. The only video they presented to the ICJ was of the IDF soldiers dancing and merrymaking around the cadavers of the innocent civilian Palestinian victims, slain by the “most civilized army” in the world. They were singing abhorrent songs of eliminating the entire population of Amalek, their babies, and their cattle. This time, the Amalek were not Jews but the Palestinians. “Only a humanity to whom death has become as indifferent as its members, that has itself died,” Adorno says, “can inflict it administratively on innumerable people”.

The video shown by the South African lawyers takes one’s memory back to the Nazi era. Under Hitler’s regime, the entire population of Germany behaved similarly, proving that it was not Hitler alone, but the entire German population was suffering from anti-Jewish, anti-communist, and anti-Roma paranoia. However, there is a difference between the two societies. Adorno says the Germans thought “the Fuhrer does not know about (the gory) things when concentration camps were concerned”. But in Israel, Netanyahu knows everything and screams vociferously to liquidate the Palestinians while thumping his chest.

Since the ICJ has conformed to the plausible act of genocide perpetrated by Israel asking it to restore food and health facilities and to withhold the carnage without using the term ceasefire. ICJ has upheld the rule of law but not the ruled-based order, a term coined by the US and its lackeys, meaning to obey the US unconditionally. Flouting ICJ’s decision brazenly, Israel continues to excel in its carnage without allowing access to food and health facilities to the Gazans. The absolute victory of the South African government, in the International Court thus far appears to be pyrrhic. However, in the longer run, it will probably set several nations into action and may have far-reaching consequences for the Zionist entity.

For now, Israel, the US, and its settler colonial poodles have stopped giving aid to UNWRA, on frivolous charges. UNWRA was responsible for providing food, health, and education to the Palestinians. Formed in 1950 for Palestinians alone, UNWRA was always a thorn in Israeli eyes. As the ICJ took the decision, the Israeli regime got the opportunity to blame it for something – the alleged unproven collaboration of its four members with Hamas – that Zionists could not find in four months of this carnage but now have suddenly come to discover.

The court’s verdict will be discussed in the Security Council, the elite club, which has nothing to do with human security. Everyone knows about the outcome of this Shakespearean tragic drama, where the king shamelessly stands nude with his veto power to kill the verdict. But in the General Assembly, it will be another matter. A large majority that voted in favour of Palestine can decide to recognize the state of Palestine officially. These states can impose sanctions upon Israel individually and collectively. They can stop buying and selling from it. The verdict against Israel committing a plausible act of genocidal is binding on all nations and people. It will be the test of the nations, the UN itself, and international law simultaneously.

But there is a rub, nothing can be expected of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Morocco, Egypt, and most of the other oil-producing Muslim countries. It will be interesting to see the response of China and Russia each allegedly committing some form of human rights violations in Xinjiang and Ukraine. Though both have not the remotest equivalence with what is happening in Palestine. The global South’s struggle against the global North is real, but the global South is not homogenous. It has many countries that are weighing their options and are ready to play on either side. India is one of them, which has not only deep military ties with Israel, but it shares hatred against the Muslims with the apartheid state. The “shining” state is exporting its cheap labour to replace the Palestinians.

The writer is an Australian-based academic and has authored books on socialism and history. He can be reached at saulatnagi@hotmail.com