There are many more examples of basic problems with South Africa's complaint to the ICJ
"Fabricated Israel genocide claim relies on quotes by Israeli officials to show “specific intent” necessary to prove genocide. South Africa ICJ filing lists 8 quotes by PM Netanyahu (numbered below) claiming intent to genocide. But each one is a lie. See debunking of all 8 1/Quote 1: Bibi promised “to operate forcefully everywhere.” Does this prove "specific intent" to genocide? NO. Tweet literally says opposite, attacking only Hamas and telling civilians to leave! Lie #1 by South Africa, this is the FIRST evidence claiming Bibi intends genocide. 2/ Quote 2: Bibi said ““[w]e are striking our enemies with unprecedented might.” Did this mean intention to kill all Pals? No. In same 3 min statement he specifically states the goal is to “eliminate Hamas” and NEVER refers to Pals or civilians. Lie #2. 3/ Quote 3: South Africa claims AFTER airstrikes that killed 2,670 Pals Bibi said soldiers “understand scope of mission” & stand ready “to defeat bloodthirsty monsters who have risen against [Israel] to destroy us.” There are 2 lies here, one shows shoddiness of court document. 4/ First, South Africa claims Bibi’s words came AFTER 2,670 Pals killed, as if they were connected. But the document cited about deaths is from Oct 17 (see below) while Bibi’s statement was made on Oct 15 or two days earlier! So the supposed connection is incredibly dishonest. 5/ Second, Bibi said absolutely nothing, zero, about killing Palestinians, genocide, anything like this. Here is the entire statement. It specifically names Hamas as the monsters, not civilians. Lie #3 by South Africa. 6/ Quote 4: South Africa cites Bibi saying to Knesset situation as “struggle between the children of light and children of darkness, between humanity and law of the jungle” as “dehumanizing” and therefore "specific intent" to genocide. This is false, just lie #4 as shown next. 7/ Bibi's words to Knesset only cite Hamas, never Palestinians or killing civilians, names Hamas often as the “darkness” & "murderers." Not Palestinians or anyone else. It’s not "dehumanizing" to call rapists & baby kidnappers these things. Below is the core of Bibi's statement. 8/ Quote 5: South Africa cites a second statement by Bibi about “sons of lightness and… darkness” and “good” vs “evil” as somehow genocidal. Here is the full tweet; but the prior tweet in same thread specifically says “Hamas” – not Palestinians. Lie #5. 9/ Quote 6: South Africa cites Bibi’s “Christmas message” below as “specific intent” to kill all Palestinians. It’s not clear how, there is nothing remotely “genocidal.” Calling rapists & baby kidnappers “monsters” and “barbarians” does not evidence genocidal intent. Lie #6. 10/ Quote 7: South Africa claims Bibi’s reference to biblical story of Amalek evidences intent to genocide. But there is no evidence he meant Palestinians vs Hamas only. Amalek is used metaphorically in Jewish study to refer to mortal enemies of Jews, in this case Hamas. 11/ It may be true other Israelis in past used Amalek to refer to Palestinians. This does not therefore prove Bibi meant Pals. But better evidence: in SAME press statement Bibi specifically noted Hamas & “the murderers” were the target; so Hamas=Amalek. 12/ Quote 8: This is the second time Bibi mentioned Amalek, again the focus was clearly on Hamas. He literally said Hamas the sentence before. So how it is possible to claim Bibi really said Amalek as meaning to kill ALL Palestinians? Lie #8. 13/ South Africa lies 8 times in failed effort to show Netanyahu voiced “specific intent” to genocide. Without intent proven, entire genocide charge against Israel FALLS APART. How strong can their case be if there isn't even ONE convincing "genocidal" quote by Israel’s PM? END"
https://twitter.com/Aizenberg55/status/1743285077654601852
Other problems- miscontextualized quotations by South Africa (and others) of Israeli officials
https://twitter.com/Aizenberg55/status/1742926918734008376, https://twitter.com/Aizenberg55/status/1742221136207794675
Text of South Africa's complaint before the ICJ accusing Israelis of genocide.
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/icj-southafrica-israel-genocide-29dec2023/
(Just one criticism of mine is that text is riddled with quoting from a 2009 UN Fact Finding Mission Report- this being the Goldstone Report- whose author later denounced his own report because various passages of it were later to be shown to be based on biased one sided sources- in order to claim that the Palestinians did not use hospitals to shield military activities [the first report of that came actually if memory serves from Fatah about Hamas in Gaza] and the record against Israel).
See rebuke of report by Dershowitz
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3593975/DershowitzGoldstone.pdf
Goldsone's retraction of the report
"The judge who chaired the controversial UN inquiry into Israel's attack on Gaza from December 2008 has expressed regret that his report may have been inaccurate.
Richard Goldstone, who led the committee that produced the Goldstone report, said in a newspaper article that "if I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone report would have been a very different document".
The judge's article was welcomed by Israeli leaders..."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/goldstone-regrets-report-into-gaza-war
To be somewhat fair to Goldstone, the Israelis refused to cooperate with his probe (as they see the UN as being irrationally anti-Israel).
The text also cites a CNN article about Israel using unguided bombs as evidence of indiscriminate bombing in Gaza during this current war. The problem is that the CNN article kinda of debunks itself.
The article itself admits (naturally burying this lede):
"...A US official told CNN that the US believes that the Israeli military is using the dumb bombs in conjunction with a tactic called “dive bombing,” or dropping a bomb while diving steeply in a fighter jet, which the official said makes the bombs more precise because it gets it closer to its target. The official said the US believes that an unguided munition dropped via dive-bombing is similarly precise to a guided munition....The US has also provided Israel with unguided munitions, including 5,000 Mk82 bombs, a source familiar with recent weapons transfers told CNN, confirming a Wall Street Journal report. But the US also provides Israel with systems that can transform those dumb bombs into “smart” ones, including the Joint Direct Attack Munitions guidance system and the Spice Family Gliding Bomb Assemblies. The US has provided approximately 3,000 JDAMS to Israel since October 7, CNN previously reported, and told Congress last month that it planned to transfer $320 million worth of the Spice Family kits."
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/13/politics/intelligence-assessment-dumb-bombs-israel-gaza
Further commentary on the article:
"This "exclusive" article from CNN is making the rounds aiming to "prove" Israel is indeed bombing indiscriminately despite a civilian/combatant ratio of ~2:1, better then US and UK did in Iraq & Afghanistan. But 15 paragraphs down the whole narrative on dumb bombs is "blown up.""
https://twitter.com/Aizenberg55/status/1735418673169387750
"Nearly half of the Israeli munitions dropped on Gaza are imprecise ‘dumb bombs,’
CNN IMO this article lacks some critical explanation/infers negative and title is not accurate (imprecise). A dumb bomb does not mean it is not discriminate, precise, or accurate. The article slightly mentions that a dumb bomb can be as accurate as a precision munition/kit (which can allows a dumb bomb to be dropped from a distance and then guided onto a target). Yes, more probability of error but imprecise is not correct. There is also no comparisons to previous wars/battles where data is available like the 2017 Battle of Raqqa where the U.S. dropped 20,000 bombs (no data openly available on how many precision or not) and over 35,000 artillery (all considered dumb but still highly accurate) rounds."
https://twitter.com/SpencerGuard/status/1735306982494503058
