This Opinion Piece is Part 3 in the WWEx series (“West’s War for Existence”). Parts 1 and 2 appeared on American Greatness.

by Edward “Coach” Weinhaus, Esq.
CEO of TribunalForum‘s Publisher, Judiciocracy

The International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, will, for the first time, hear a case against the world’s only Jewish state for committing genocide, as its cities and citizens have been under daily rocket attack for three months, and are facing an up to seven-front war against enemies who vow to destroy it.

Although rich with irony (were I to invoke the past), it would be enough to pound the nail in the ICJ’s coffin for those with any sense of history.

But the West’s War for Existence (“WWEx”) needs not ‘the Jews’ as a symbol to end the ICJ. The ICJ appears ready to do itself in, as it seeks to use the West’s values to condemn the West itself. The countries that don’t share our values use the ICJ as just another of the West’s own weapons against itself.

The case began in December. South Africa leveled charges against Israel for genocide, praying for an order that Israel stop its war against HAMAS in Gaza. The charges mirror those we reported the Gaza Media Office was pushing more than two months ago.

ICJ will hear the case preliminarily on Thursday and Friday. The fifteen-member court will then have to decide whether to issue an order that no country could follow.

As British King’s Counsel Natasha Hausdorff said, Israel would not listen anyway. No nation could watch its people get attacked and not fight to stop it.

Courts issue moot orders all the time so that by itself is no reason to end the ICJ.

However, the merits upon which the application before the Court rests leaves the ICJ considering its own demise.

The West as we know it cannot survive if we create institutions that use our values to hurt us while those who don’t hold those values ignore them. Those are the facts the ICJ is considering.

By necessity, a dictatorship cares not much about what its own people think, much less the ICJ. Western nations, on the other hand, care very much about the concept of representative democracy. That means they attempt to reflect their people’s values and care what they think, even if imperfectly.  Likewise, they care what other nations with similar values think of them.

Suffice it to say, the same Western values that make a nation like Israel responsive to its people makes it care what other like-minded nations think. Granted, Israel has grown a thick skin when it comes to the United Nations for its massive losing streak since the United Nations Partition Plan of 1947 that helped create it.

But Israel hasn’t left the United Nations. She still cares, because she has Western sensibilities. The dictators don’t care. They act as they please, even in the face of ICJ judgments.

Russia, for example, was told by the ICJ: “The Court considers that, with regard to the situation described above, the Russian Federation must, pending the final decision in the case, suspend the military operations that it commenced on 24 February 2022 in the territory of Ukraine.”

That was nearly two years ago. Pretty sure Russia has no intention of listening.

But really, how could she. Nobody from Russia bothered to show up for court.

Israel is not only showing  up at the ICJ, but Prime Minister Netanyahu sent a, how do we say this politely, “non-loyalist” to sit on the ICJ bench as Israel’s one representative. A self-critical people indeed.

In the case of Russia, the ICJ issues orders that would never be followed. In this situation, the ICJ ponders choosing to issue an order that would but can’t be followed. That’s the sound of the coffin lid being raised.

It is the second part of the South Africa case that will allow the ICJ’s genocide jurisprudence to lay itself to rest inside the coffin. That’s because not only are Western nations the best listeners, but we are the best talkers.

We have, protect, and even exalt the freedom of expression.

This is the hill on which the ICJ seems destined to die. Like a moth to a flame, the ICJ will be attracted to South Africa’s arguments and evidence of Israel’s purported intent to commit genocide.

As noted above, South Africa modeled its complaint on the Gaza Media Office’s charge that Israel wanted to nuke Gaza. The evidence was a statement of an Israeli politician. Although treating nuclear weapons in a “smoke ’em if you got ’em” way is unseemly, that’s just one opinion in a vibrant democracy.

If errant political opinions in a democracy are evidence of genocide, Israel and the West are in big trouble.

The various opinions in the West are going will be those of a handful of kooks or the misguided or extremists on all sides and even emotional outbursts. That’s freedom. In Israel, those same opinions are being  uttered through regular trips to the bomb shelter.

But South Africa not only used the various voices that make Western democracies strong, it completely mischaracterized them, particularly its critique of President Herzog. In a story TribunalForum first covered, it even relied on the opinion of a former footballer as evidence of Israeli genocidal intent. Its source? A Qatari-controlled rag.

Israel’s commitment to letting aid into Gaza (and discussing it ad nauseum at press conferences) suggests no genocidal intent. Israel’s other efforts are unprecedented in the face of an existential war.  humanitarian pauses, secure passages to safe zones,  and pre-announcing zones of attack for civilians to leave and enemies to prepare.

Nobody discusses, quite incorrectly,  Israel’s potentially genocide-capable firepower sitting on the bench. In my conversations at Speakers’ Corner in London Sunday, not one debater was able to explain how Israel isn’t saving hundreds of thousands of civilians’ lives in conducting a war it intends to win. Baby-killers? In the face of a human shield strategy during a war one intends to win, my guess is Israel will have saved hundreds of thousands of Gazan children’s lives. I pray so.

In short, if Israel is guilty of genocidal intent, as the ICJ must decide, she truly sucks at doing genocide. Instead, Israel checks with lawyers before bombing attacks to ensure the Laws of Armed Conflict are followed…As only a Western nation would, and even many of them wouldn’t.

Israel’s actions in total provide overwhelming evidence of its intent not to commit genocide. The ICJ would demand to see Israel’s arsenal to prove Israel does not have genocidal intent in the face of Israel’s actual war conduct. Instead, it may rely on the musings of aging sportsmen in a free country, as reported by Qatari shills.

Israel has committed to winning the war, return its hostages, stop missile attacks against its own civilians, and find a partner-neighbor for long-term peace. The detractors see evidence of genocide everywhere. Even if they concede that Israel is well within her rights to conduct the war in this manner to pursue her war aims, they make other specious claims to attack Israel in Western eyes.

The anti-Israel movement abhors the displacement of Gazans during the war. This attack contains oft-reported attempts by Israel to move Gazans out of Gaza. Incidentally, I broke the story that Israel was planning on moving Gazans back to the north of Gaza, even though I have also been part of an international humanitarian group helping get non-combatant Gazans out of harm’s way. Israel confused our organization so much, we now have a plan for both.

If Israel wants Gazans out of Gaza, they merely need to knock down Egypt’s triple wall at the Rafah border crossing. Newsflash – Gazans want out of Gaza – even HAMAS does. It’s a warzone.

But Israel hasn’t done any such thing, instead laboring over humanitarian aid logistics, making the north of Gaza safe for return, allowing Gazans to leave voluntarily should they wish, and continuing its war aims.

That is, Israel is as bad at ethnic cleansing as it is at genocide. But the two should not be confused.

The ICJ doesn’t consider the “forced displacement from the regions concerned” evidence of genocide. My bet is that the ICJ rethinks that position for the Jews. That’s taking the poison before lying down to rest.

Ironically, Israel’s restraint has led to the charges. Had Israel actually sought to commit genocide, it would have been over before South Africa came up with its cockamamie application to stop its acts. Instead, the ICJ is considering “ordering” Israel to do the impossible – win a war without fighting.

The ICJ stares into its open coffin, wondering if there will be any remaining listeners to its genocide authority. If it decides to use the Western free expression of ideas as evidence of “genocidal intent”, it will have jumped in.

That or the West will itself have done so, for it cannot survive its own values being used to prevent it from defending itself.

Don’t worry too much about the ICJ. Even if it sacrifices its genocide authority, it will always have a place acting as a court of last resort for disputes over a nautical shelf several hundred miles offshore.

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Edward “Coach” Weinhaus, Esq. is the CEO of TribunalForum‘s Publisher, Judiciocracy LLC. Coach practices law in the United States. He served as the Special Media Advisor to the Chair of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee (MK Simcha Rothman) related to Judicial Reform. He is a contemporary Jewish issues commentator, teaches at Yeshiva University, and led the implementation of bitcoin as legal tender for El Salvador through a company he founded. Coach has earned five degrees. Click here for his bio.

Judiciocracy is America’s only systemic legal news publisher that focuses on the flaws of the actors in the judicial system itself. It publishes the country’s largest Judicial Misconduct News Service and Attorney Misconduct News Service (AbusiveDiscretion and ALABnews), among other legal news journals such as VowBreakers, DiplomaPrivilege, and BlockTribune. Judiciocracy also powers GazaPassage, and GazaConstitution. TribunalForum is Judiciocracy’s newest publication.