A top U.N. court’s ruling on Israel and Gaza is a perversion of justice

Somewhere, Raphael Lemkin is weeping.

Lemkin was a Polish Jew who escaped the Holocaust, coined the term “genocide” and campaigned for the United Nations to declare genocide a crime punishable under international law. On the 50th anniversary of the genocide convention in 2001, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called Lemkin “an inspiring example of moral engagement.”

The same cannot be said of Annan’s institution. In a complaint to the International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ main judicial body, South Africa accused Israel of acts that are “genocidal in character” in waging war in Gaza — and, grotesquely, quoted Lemkin in support of its charges. “Israel, its officials and/or agents, have acted with the intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza,” South Africa claimed.

On Friday, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling against Israel. It could have been far worse: The order stopped short of instructing Israel to immediately cease military operations in Gaza, as South Africa had sought. But the court found, in the anodyne language of international law, that “at least some of the acts and omissions alleged … to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the Convention.”

This is a gross misreading of genocide; indeed, it is a perversion of the term. It would be appalling applied against any state, but it is especially offensive wielded against Israel — a country that was forged in the ashes of the worst genocide in human history, that was one of the early signatories to the genocide convention and that is now responding to the greatest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.

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