Directing blame at Israel instead of the murdering thugs that govern Gaza, the accuser unintentionally exposes the true nature of global moral decline – antisemitism!
“A world without rules is one in which the strong prey upon the weak,” is the core theme of an article by Natale Labia in South Africa’s online news publication, (Daily Maverick 28 Jan 2025).
The writer confidently asserts that Israel is responsible for the collapse of the ‘international world order’ in the “killing fields” of Gaza. What a brazen perversion of fact and morality.
The so-called ‘international world order’ was designed to prevent the injustice of tyranny. A noble idea which assumed wrongly as it has turned out, that evils are perpetrated by the strong against the weak. Conventional wisdom foolishly accepts the notion that the weak and oppressed are noble and good. In this grotesque distortion of reality, powerful Israel is collapsing the world order in Gaza against the weak and oppressed Gazans.
Let us rewind. The idea of a rule-based world order emerged from the ravages of World War II. The founding members of the United Nations, mainly the victors of that war, wished to establish an era of international peace and co-operation based on liberal humanitarian values, human rights rule of law and conflict resolution. The UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Rights were foundational documents. International conventions and treaties were enacted to create a framework of humanitarian law. International tribunals were established such as the International Court of Justice (an organ of the UN) and the International Criminal Court under the Rome Statute dealing with international war crimes.
This edifice for peace, international co-operation and conflict resolution was premised on a world in which nation states would be internationally accountable for both domestic and international humanitarian violations against weak and vulnerable minorities. From the start, authoritarian states and totalitarian dictatorships undermined this world order with impunity. With the fall of the eastern Communist Bloc, it was hoped that a better and free era would dawn but history proved this optimism wrong. Gross human rights violations and genuine genocides, particularly in Africa have characterised the past decades.
A devastating setback to the world order was the emergence of non-state militias and the emergence of radical terrorism. Some are motivated by purely criminal ambitions, such as drug cartels and some have national liberation aspirations or political agendas. All these perpetrators whether they are called terrorists or not, have one thing in common. They are not signatories to any humanitarian international conventions such as the Convention on Genocide and have no respect for human rights or the laws of armed conflict. They ignore the Geneva Conventions which outlaw hostage taking, ill, treatment of prisoners, and promotes protection of civilians in war. Unlike warfare by conventional armies of sovereign countries, armed and terrorist groups prey on the vulnerability of unarmed civilians, operating covertly to randomly attack civilian targets using surprise, violence and extreme cruelty. In the 1970’s, the era of hijacking airlines began, followed by the murder of Israeli Olympic athletes in the Munich Olympics perpetrated by Palestinian terrorists. To this day, bombings of civilian buildings, abductions, random aggression and murder of innocent men women and children are perpetrated against or within the very countries that founded the world order. International treaties and domestic measures have attempted to outlaw and prevent terrorism, but this threat persists.
The most egregious failure of the world order has been the impunity of armed groups and terrorists under international law. Combating these groups militarily has brought moral and operational risks of asymmetrical and unconventional urban warfare to the forefront. Ignoring the rules of armed conflict invites unrestrained barbarity. Recourse against these perpetrators is extremely difficult or impossible in international tribunals or domestic civil law.
Spectacular and inhuman acts of terrorism such as the attack on 9/11 of the Twin Towers, New York, are stark reminders of an inversion of evil in the world order. It does not help that public opinion is either muted out of fear or minimised by clinging to the discredited notion of the weakness of the perpetrators and the justice of their cause.
Returning to the Gaza conflict, outrageous and factually tenuous accusations are made with little regard to objectivity or substantiation. Israel is a liberal democracy with the rule of law, an independent judiciary and fundamental freedoms. Gaza is the exact opposite. A corrupt and violent dictatorship run by Hamas for the past 17 years unhampered by elections.
The Gaza conflict is not the first asymmetrical war fought by a regular state military against an armed group in a dense urban environment. Nor is it the first in which tens of thousands of civilians have suffered, buildings and homes destroyed, civilian displaced and privations of food and medical care were experienced. But Gaza is the first war conducted from urban tunnels carefully constructed by Hamas over many years in preparation for war – tunnels in which the civilian population is barred from shelter from aerial bombardment. This coercive obstruction of protection by Hamas is a violation under humanitarian law. Palestinians are betrayed by Hamas.
Mosul was virtually razed by the allied Iraqi and US forces in order to defeat ISIS in an urban environment similar to Gaza. The allied forces were not brought before the ICJ or ICC for genocide or war crimes, nor was it suggested that the warfare by the allies constituted a collapse of the world order in the “killing fields” of Mosul. The exact death doll is uncertain with estimates ranging from 20,000 upwards.
Nor is Gaza remotely moving the needle as a “killing field”. Distinguished historian RW Johnson has recently explained the horrors of the Assad regime in Syria. A mass grave of Syrians that had disappeared under Assad’s regime, was recently discovered at al-Qutayfa, 48 km north of Damascus. It is estimated that over 100,000 people were buried there and many more mass graves in Syria may still exist. An observer was quoted saying that they have not seen anything like this since the Nazis:
“It makes you realise what it was like for Allied troops when they captured Buchenwald and Belsen.”
This is really chilling. Worse still was South Africa’s failure at the UN to condemn Syria and vote for the prevention of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners. South Africa’s quiescence revealed a sickening contradiction of the self-righteous utterances of the ANC and President Ramaphosa about protecting human rights under its foreign policy.
South Africa has also brazenly undermined the world regarding Sudan. Unquestionably, the Sudan conflict continues to be the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world today with over 11 million refugees and displaced people. While more than 63,000 deaths, mass starvation, rape and major destruction has been well documented, two of the Sudanese war lords have been well received by the ANC government of President Ramaphosa in South Africa. The Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa found the conduct of the government in not co-operating with the ICC in failing to arrest President Al Bashir to be unlawful. The rank hypocrisy of the newly formed Hague Group announced by Ronald Lamola, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation to promote the enforcement of the ICC is chilling. Lip service to the world order at best. At worst, a perversion of international law and justice.
KILLING TRUTH NOT FIELDS
Consistency, objectivity and factual accuracy have been run roughshod by the characterisation of Gaza as “killing fields”. Attributing genocide to Israel in the Gaza conflict should not be undertaken lightly. Labia in the Daily Maverick, unquestioningly accepts the arguments presented by the South African legal team at the ICJ in the Hague that all the conditions for genocide are present in the intentions and actions of Israel. This is risible and far from well-founded or factually based.
Labia states:
“Former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s description of Palestinians as “human animals” and President Isaac Herzog’s assertion that an “entire nation” bears responsibility for Hamas’s actions are chilling.”
The statement of defence minister Gallant on 9 October 2023 which is paraded confidently as proof of dehumanisation of Palestinians, siege and genocidal intent in Gaza is incomplete and misleading. The Minister was talking about Hamas and not Palestinians in general. His precise wording:
“You saw what we are fighting against. We are fighting human animals. This is the Isis of Gaza.”
Describing Hamas as human animals is no more dehumanising than describing Nazis as monsters or beasts. People who violate all human norms and standards such as Hamas in barbaric and cruel acts of mutilation, burning, rape and murder forfeit the right to be accorded human dignity by upholders of humane norms and standards i.e. the ‘world order’ – Volenti non fit injuria. (Latin: “to a willing person, injury is not done”). Is Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State who recently described Hamas as a “bunch of savages” as well complicit in genocidal intent?
Then there was the disingenuous and untruthful accusation against Israel’s president, Issac Herzog that he was targeting civilians for collective punishment, when in fact he was rightfully placing the moral responsibility on Palestinians with this carefully chosen wording:
“First of all, we have to understand there is a state… that has built a machine of evil, right at our doorstep. It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware not involved, it is absolutely not true. They could have risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat, murdering their family members who were in Fatah… Israel evacuated Gaza. I was a member of the cabinet… We are working, operating militarily according to rules of international law, period. Unequivocally. But we are at war…”
The Gazans have been called out as the “most radicalised people” on the planet by US Senator Lindsey Graham. There is no mistaking this uncomfortable truth. Most civilians in Gaza are supporters of Hamas and have a deep-rooted ideological hatred of Israel. Gaunt and emaciated hostages who have been released from captivity confirm their ill-treatment. Many of them were guarded by civilians in their homes. Video footage of the hostages upon being paraded in public in Gaza after their release and before being handed over to the Red Cross has shown shouting hostile mobs of civilians surrounding them.
Labia falsely equates the relentless and ferocious bombing of Gaza and all the destruction it entails, with a genocidal atrocity. He and other media voices rely on the biased opinions of observers, including Israelis, who have not been significantly involved with investigating at first hand the war in Gaza. Contributing to this fallacious narrative are the human rights organisations and UN officials who have not distinguished themselves either, by producing reports relying on unverified Hamas sources. It is no secret that there never has been an open or free press in Gaza under Hamas, hence little wonder that no dissident or critical opinion of Hamas ever emanates from Gaza.
An objective and authoritative assessment of the conduct of Israel is contained in the report of the High-Level Military Group submitted to the ICC on 5 August 2024. This was compiled by an international panel of experts, most of them senior military officers from 8 countries, all major democracies. They visited Gaza and assessed the operations of the Israel Defence Force as well as the provision of humanitarian aid. They found no evidence of random attacks in pursuance of a policy of deliberate and intentional killing of civilians. The report also describes an internal fact-finding unit of the IDF which investigates and prosecutes misconduct by soldiers. An unlikely feature of a genocide.
On the contrary, they were impressed by the extensive measures taken by the IDF to avoid civilian casualties particularly having regard to the unlawful armed conduct by Hamas operating militarily among civilians while disguising themselves as civilians by not wearing uniforms. Contra this with recent media images of the hostages being released showing Hamas operatives wearing neat uniforms with distinctive green head bands.
The IDF has identified and filmed multiple sites where residential buildings and institutions such as schools, hospitals and mosques were used by Hamas as weapons storage facilities, and military operational bases. These are all serious violations of international law and the world order but not lamented by the Labia in his Daily Maverick article. A fair-minded and rational observer would find this worrisome.
In presenting the response of Israel to the atrocities by Hamas on 7 October 2023, Labia overlooks that the aggression of Hamas was not limited to one event. Hamas has continuously fired over 10 000 rockets randomly towards civilian population centres in Israel. This conduct is totally unlawful under international humanitarian international law and constitutes continuing war crimes. So too the keeping of hostages for over a year. The war was not a gross overreaction or use of excessive random force by Israel but a sustained and targeted campaign which includes the destruction of the military and rocket launching capability of Hamas in order to defend the inhabitants of a sovereign state. This is a part of the overall goal of rescuing the hostages and defeating Hamas. These are all lawful military objectives in international law.
Labia relies for his article on the number of deaths in Gaza from the English medical journal The Lancet which had been provided by a Palestinian doctor in a Gaza hospital – a highly questionable source in these times. Compounding the report’s veracity, Hamas fatality numbers do not differentiate civilians from combatants. A head count of fatalities in any conflict is always difficult to calculate and should invariably be treated with caution. International military experts have indeed commented that the proportion of civilian deaths in Gaza has been remarkably low measured by standards of asymmetrical urban warfare.
In short, the world order has been in decline for many years but the perverse failure to identify Hamas as the true violator of the world order in this conflict is far more than disturbing – it’s chilling.
*Feature picture – Faceless Fanatics. As barrages of rockets were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip at dawn on October 7, 20-23, Palestinian terrorists move towards the border fence with Israel from Khan-Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. (Photo: Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images).
About the writer:
Now retired, Pretoria-born human rights and labour lawyer, Lawrence Nowosenetz practiced at the Pretoria and Johannesburg Bar. Recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, Nowosenetz completed an internship in the USA and served as a part-time Senior Commissioner at the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) as well as a panellist at Tokiso Dispute Settlement – the largest private dispute resolution provider in South Africa. He has also served as an Acting Judge of the Hight Court, South Africa.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).