Nicole Fritz is rightly a respected commentator on legal and humanitarian issues, and her recent opinion piece made an important point (“Institutions of global order such as ICC are under sustained attack”, May 24). Unfortunately, it failed to pinpoint the real threats to the international rules-based order.
According to Fritz, complaints from Israel, the US and the UK in the wake of the decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to seek arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders are a “sustained and ferocious attack” on the international order. By contrast, Hamas’s outrage is brushed aside as irrelevant — yet another example of the Western world’s perverse refusal to engage with the problem posed by Islamism. Incidentally, this failure is fuelling popular dissatisfaction in Europe and the US, and looks set to usher in a slew of more conservative governments over the next few years.
Her failure to engage with the real challenge to the international order is the weakness of Fritz’s analysis. The institutions of the post-World War 2 international order, pre-eminently the UN and its organ the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as well as the ICC, are utterly dependent on the “consent of the governed”. That is, the states that accede to their authority through treaty. Accordingly, these bodies must be scrupulous in demonstrating fairness, and in resisting co-option by special interest groups.
Alas, there is mounting evidence that these bodies have gradually lost sight of the imperative for objectivity and fairness, and have indeed allowed themselves to be co-opted by players from various quarters who are adept at using the system to advance their own agendas. According to The Times of Israel, since 2015 the UN General Assembly has adopted 140 resolutions condemning Israel, compared with 68 against all other countries.
In 2023 alone there were 15 resolutions on Israel and only seven on the rest of the world, while the 45 resolutions condemning Israel in the UN Human Rights Council constitute 45.9% of all country-specific resolutions passed. The issue is not that resolutions are brought against Israel’s conduct, but that the country clearly is judged by a standard not applied to any other and is persistently targeted.
Applying a double standard to Israel is one of the examples of anti-Semitism listed in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of this concept, which has been widely adopted, including by the UN. Israel’s accusations against the UN Relief & Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA) also constitute an indictment of the international order’s fairness.
Applying a double standard to Israel is one of the examples of anti-Semitism listed in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of this concept
SA’s questionable decision to open a case of genocide against Israel is a classic example of these persistent efforts to use the international order to demonise the Jewish state. Whatever the rights and wrongs of Israel’s actions, one can safely argue that to single Israel out for this particular accusation is at best cynical given the numerous well-attested genocides under way elsewhere in the world.
The accusation also flies in the face of well-attested figures, increasingly prominent even in the hostile mainstream media, demonstrating that the Israel Defence Force (IDF) is going to inordinate lengths to minimise civilian casualties. Indeed, the IDF may even be setting new benchmarks for the reduction of civilian casualties in urban warfare, as West Point urban warfare studies chair John Spencer and others have repeatedly argued. It also fails to account for the fact that there is doubt about who is responsible for the shortage of food aid delivered to Gaza, if indeed such a shortage exists.
There is a strong prima facie case for sustained unfairness towards Israel. Serious as this is, we should see it as the symptom of something even more threatening. The ease and completeness with which the international order can be manipulated is the most cogent reason for it to be abandoned.
Here we come to the main point of Fritz’s article. SA has failed to offer a robust rebuttal of Israel’s accusation (in the most recent session in the ICJ) that it is in cahoots with Hamas. She rightly notes that the legitimacy of SA’s role, and thus of the whole system, is undercut by this contention, and that a rebuttal is required. I will not be holding my breath.
Selective condemnation
One has to remind oneself that there is a plethora of far more plausible genocides with a greater call on SA’s compassion. The cleansing of Christians and animists by Muslim militias in the Sudan; the slaughter, displacement and kidnapping of Christians in the Sahel region; and the Gukurahundi genocide of the Matabele in Zimbabwe in 1987, all prompted no action from our intermittently moral government.
Rather than concern for the Palestinian street, it seems likely that the SA case in the ICJ forms part of a grand geopolitical strategy hatched in Tehran. Israel’s “frenzied response” to the moves by the ICJ and ICC should thus be seen not as the hectoring rhetoric of a rogue state. Rather, it is the fury of a state committed above all to the international order — an order that gave it birth — and yet that finds that order manipulated against it.
The true threat is the abuse of the international system to accuse Israel (of all states) of genocide in relation to an unavoidable war thrust upon it, and one that it is attempting to conduct as morally as possible. Israel may ultimately be vindicated in the ICJ, but that will be many years hence; meanwhile, the wilful misunderstandings and distortions of what the court’s provisional measures actually state have already isolated the country in the court of world opinion.
This hijacking of the international order is an argument against adherence to the whole project. Any state beset by immoral foes that are not signatories to the order, and who in fact wish to bring it down, will read the true message of this war: brutality, torture and intransigence will win the day. Trying to adhere to the international order has now been shown to confer an advantage to one’s enemies.
The recent recognition of the Palestinian “state” by Norway, Ireland and Spain demonstrates another pernicious outcome. By appearing to reward the wholly immoral conduct of Hamas (and its thousands of Palestinian supporters), these actions furnish yet another reason for warring parties to abandon the concept of “rules” for combat.
The real threat to the international order is not Israel’s justified complaints that it is being unfairly singled out, but rather the improper use of international institutions to achieve malign geopolitical aims. In the wake of the Zuma years it should not be necessary to point out to an SA readership that even a national legal system, with all the coercive power of the state behind it, can be hijacked by bad-faith players if the custodians of the system are not vigilant.
The international order, which ultimately relies on being seen to be fair, is even more vulnerable; on present showing, is not passing the test. We should see this for the danger it is.
• Van den Heever, an Anglican lay minister, is a freelance writer.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.