South Africa’s genocide case against Israel is crucial. Future wars need legal sanctions

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Key Points

Last weeks hearings on South Africas densely-argued84-page applicationto the International Court of Justice(ICJ), charging Israel with genocide in Gaza, will likely prove one of the most consequential documents of our times...

Thehistorian Norman Naimarks chronicle of the Soviet dictator Josef Stalins many genocides,Ben Kiernans definitive workof the slaughter in Cambodia, andGary Bass searing accountof Bangladesh also showthatthe Second World War did not bring about a genocide taboo...

For the idea that the industrial means enabled a new kind of slaughter, though, we are indebted to the Polish law scholar Raphael Lemkin.Hestudied themassacres of ethnic Armenians,which began in 1915, and was disturbed by the absence of international law instruments to prosecute Ottoman officials for their crimes..

The frightening coincidence, Arendt concluded, of the modern population explosion with the discovery of technical devices that, through automation, will make large sections of the population superfluous even in terms of labor, and that, through nuclear energy, make it possible to deal with this twofold threat by the use of instruments beside which Hitlers gassing installations look like an evil childs fumbling toys, should be enough to make us tremble...

American liberals, normally loud to voice support for human rights around the world, international relations scholarJohn Mearsheimer writes, have said little about Israels savage actions in Gaza or the genocidal rhetoric of its leaders..

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